Winemaker Notes
This is a monopole of the domain of about nine acres. It is located just below the Perrieres. It is a former quarry of Nuits Saint Georges, which was exploited by the monks of Citeaux. Sitting on the stony pink limestone Premeaux, the Clos des Porrets is composed of calcareous scree and soil rich in clay. The wines from here express an elegant finesse after only a few years in the bottle.
Professional Ratings
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Jasper Morris
No separate HD cuvée was made this year as there was not enough wine, after the hail as well as in a dry year. Long slow fermentation and the malolactic is still happening. Black purple. Ignore the nose for now, as it shows malolactic elements. Super intensity, a bit of Bovril meatiness, really hard to judge though looks like will broadly be the same pattern as the others, though perhaps even more concentrated.
Barrel Sample: 90-93 -
Wine Spectator
Very ripe yet still reasonably fresh aromas are comprised by notes of roasted plum, black cherry, cassis and earth. The dense, powerful and muscular broad-shouldered flavors are supported by a very firm tannic spine on the robust, serious and very compact finale. This is quite impressive though certainly not typical.
Barrel Sample: 90-93
Thin-skinned, finicky and temperamental, Pinot Noir is also one of the most rewarding grapes to grow and remains a labor of love for some of the greatest vignerons in Burgundy. Fairly adaptable but highly reflective of the environment in which it is grown, Pinot Noir prefers a cool climate and requires low yields to achieve high quality. Outside of France, outstanding examples come from in Oregon, California and throughout specific locations in wine-producing world. Somm Secret—André Tchelistcheff, California’s most influential post-Prohibition winemaker decidedly stayed away from the grape, claiming “God made Cabernet. The Devil made Pinot Noir.”
Inhabiting the bottom end of the northern half of the Côte d’Or, Nuits-St-Georges is a busy, market-driven town and home to many of Burgundy’s negociants. It is also the largest town in the Côte d’Or after Beaune and contributes "nuits" to the name of Côte de Nuits (i.e., the northern half of the Côte d’Or).
The appellation itself is divided into two parts, where in the north it directly borders Vosne-Romanée, the southerly end is the commune of Prémeaux. There are no Grands Crus in this village, though it does have a large number of Premiers Crus.
The best Nuits-St-Georges Pinot Noir are layered with cherry, plum, underbrush and sandalwood. The fruit is sweet, the wine energetic, and the finish long and lush.