Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2017 Nuits-Saint-Georges 1er Cru Les Saint-Georges is a stunning wine in the making, soaring from the glass with a beautiful bouquet of cassis, violets, wild plums, wood smoke and rich soil tones. On the palate, the wine is full-bodied, ample and multidimensional, with serious reserves of beautifully refined structuring tannin and concentrated fruit, concluding with a long and sapid finish. This is a stunning wine from the Chevillon brothers which could hold its own against most of the Côte de Nuits' grands crus this year.
Barrel Sample: 94-96 -
Decanter
Often the most backward, as well as the most concentrated, of the Chevillons' premiers crus, this is also the oakiest right now. But rest assured that there's more than enough structure for the wine to cope. It's deep, rich and focussed, with stony minerality and spicy, plummy, red berry intensity.
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Jasper Morris
Fresh ruby purple. The nose has character if not yet full definition. Perfumed, spicy, floral, fully ripe yet held together by the natural tannins. Long and impressive.
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.