Allen Meadow 90
 
A macerated yet not inelegant nose that is fresh and expressive with mostly red berry fruit aromas preceding textured, delicious and admirably complex middle weight flavors where the supporting tannins are well integrated and dusty, all wrapped in a mouth coating, precise and solidly persistent finish.
 
Hubert Lignier, seconded by his elder son Laurent, has commenced afresh with new facilities down on the main route plus a small cellar beneath his house in Morey. Lignier is clearly still uncomfortable discussing the break-up of the family domaine with his former daughter-in-law Kellen Lignier (see below under Lucie et Auguste Lignier) and sensibly prefers to succinctly sum the situation up by observing that "what happened, happened and now it's time to move on." Quite so. The situation varies for each wine but in essence the Kellen Lignier team, which consists mostly of Kellen and her régisseur (domaine manager) Dominique Poirotte, is now responsible for all of the vines in terms of viticulture. With professional assistance, Kellen does all of the vinification and Hubert has the right to purchase from her a certain amount of new wine. He also has the right to purchase one-third of the production in the form of grapes from the Clos de la Roche and the old vines Morey 1er, which he then vinifies himself. It's important to note that the in-bottle 2006s reviewed here were vinified by the Kellen Lignier team but bottled by Hubert.
With respect to the 2007 vintage, Lignier told me that we "obtained good maturities. You had to wait to harvest and we did not begin until September 5th. Yields were average but there was a lot of sorting required yet sugars were very good and there was almost no chaptalization. The wines will drink well over the medium term."