Winemaker Notes
This wine has a nose with a beautiful mineral definition, with hints of sous-bois underneath the black fruit. The palate is medium-bodied with fine tannin, slightly chalky, long and tender with bright focus on the finish.
Professional Ratings
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Decanter
Thibault Liger-Belair has produced one of the tighter, more serious expression of this celebrated Premier Cru in 2018, finding texture, tannin and structure in his 74-year-old plantings. Hail halved the crop here, which may have been a bonus as far as quality as concerned, because this has real poise, balance and intensity with spice and tobacco notes and underlying minerality.
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Jasper Morris
Volume reduced by the hail, down by 50%. Planted 1944 and 1946 but with substantial replacement of missing vines after 2009. Rich crimson, clear cut nose, extra pure fruit, magical density. Spicy, excellent whole bunch component (40%) with terrific density. For the moment there are slightly dry tannins but this is heading in the right direction.
Barrel Sample: 91-95 -
Wine & Spirits
The domaine farms five acres of this 1er cru, the vines planted in 1944, growing in deep, stony, brown limestone soil. Fermented with 40 percent of the whole clusters and aged in barrels (half of them new) for 22 months, this wine’s concentration presents a wall of richly textured dark fruit, slow to reveal the details of black mission fig, blackberries and black currants. There’s an herbal freshness, layering in lavender and thyme. Built for long-term aging, this should begin to reach its drinking window around 10 years from the vintage.
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.