Winemaker Notes
To the eye, a rich crimson color that turns a deeper ruby with age, all the way to dark purple. To the nose, the bouquet opens to small red and black fruits (strawberry, cherry, blackcurrant, blueberry) followed by cooked prune with spicy, animal, woody, moss and mushroom touches. Very lively in the mouth, structured, supple, and rounded.
Professional Ratings
-
Decanter
Les Cailles is one of the Chevillon brothers' best parcels, planted in the 1930s on a stony site next to Les St-Georges. It's an impressive red showing stony minerality, some vanilla spice and more underlying tannin than you think at first. The acidity drives the finish of the wine.
-
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2017 Nuits-Saint-Georges 1er Cru Les Cailles has turned out beautifully, wafting from the glass with scents of sweet berries and plums mingled with blood orange, peonies and raw cocoa. Medium to full-bodied, satiny and layered, with a deep core of fruit, exquisitely refined tannins, lively acids and a long, perfumed finish, it's a magical bottle from Chevillon, and I'm happy to have a case in my cellar.
-
Jasper Morris
Light to mid purple, there are some slightly herbaceous vegetal touches which should clear, and indeed they do to show ripe purple fruit with excellent clarity. There’s density and complexity, charcoal and chocolate, making an interesting complex wine.
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.