Winemaker Notes
A sustained color and powerful nose that hints at the reserve. In its youthful prime, wild summer fruits, sloe, blackberry evolve toward plant nuances such as oak bark, as well as animal nuances closer to venison. A robust structure, fullness dominated by liveliness and firmness.
Professional Ratings
-
Decanter
Les Vaucrains is marked by its proximity to the combe at the southern end of Nuits-St-Georges, which gives the wine an added lift of freshness. Like Les St-Georges which abuts it, this is quite a firm, shuttered wine with an overlay of 30% new wood, good concentration, fine tannins and enough backbone and acidity to age.
-
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
As usual, the 2017 Nuits-Saint-Georges 1er Cru Les Vaucrains is the most structured, tight-knit wine in the Chevillon cellar, unwinding in the glass with aromas of cassis, dark chocolate and rich soil, framed by smoky new oak. On the palate, the wine is full-bodied, richly tannic and concentrated, with imposingly broad shouldered structure and a deep, reserved core. Again, patience will be required and rewarded.
Barrel Sample: 93-95 -
Jasper Morris
Medium deep colour, not especially precise. The bouquet needs teasing out, with some ripe fruit showing a lightly herbaceous edge. Interestingly complex dark plum fruit, no more than middleweight, but nicely done.
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.