Winemaker Notes
"Les Cailles" has a luminous and fairly sustained color. From its youth, charm, freshness and fruitiness seduce one. A mixture of fresh fruit with a hint of vanilla, a touch of wild cherry, rosewood and old rose. These mingle with fine licorice and spicy scents. Throughout the vintages, Les Cailles maintains a constant profile in which volume, airy fullness, silky texture dominate in the mouth, enhanced by freshness.
Professional Ratings
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Jasper Morris
A beautiful mid purple colour with a very enhanced class to the fruit on the nose. This is very complete again with the more rigid structure, little waves of fruit keep pouring across the palate, almost daintily given the power. Drink from 2032-2038. Tasted Nov 2024.
Barrel Sample: 92-95 -
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Wafting from the glass with notes of cherries, smoky berries, licorice and rose petals, the 2023 Nuits-Saint-Georges 1er Cru Les Cailles is medium to full-bodied, fleshy and layered, with its usual suave, seamless profile and lively fruit flavors.
Barrel Sample: 92-94 -
Vinous
The 2023 Nuits Saint-Georges Les Cailles 1er Cru has an expressive, well-defined bouquet that gains clarity in the glass, with black cherries underscored by touches of espresso and allspice. The oak is neatly integrated and the palate is medium-bodied. This is a more austere Nuits Saint-Georges, with grainy tannins and gentle grip on the slightly abrupt finish. Fine.
Barrel Sample: 90-92
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.