Nuits St. Georges

Nuits St. Georges 1er Cru Les Perrieres

Nuits St. Georges 1er Cru Les Chaignots

Deep colour, Wonderfully pure, ripe, black/red fruits. Dense, concentrated, rich, silky, cherry-like fruit. This is fine with excellent structure and length. A superb showing.

No prices as yet for 2001 wines: these will be offered later. Please find below prices for the just released 2000 vintage. This is a stunningly opulent, concentrated wine and Clos deTart is one of the top domaines in Burgundy making wines of great purity, concentration, depth and complexity. A vin de garde. The 1999 Morey 1er Cru is younger vines and selected barrels of Clos de Tart. This offers remarkable value as it is opulent, rich and very much in the style of the Grand Vin. This is delicious but will also benefit from cellaring.

Lamarche was one of the most difficult estates to taste in the early summer: the wines at 1er Cru level seemed to be very unknit and unfocused, but longer elevage has corrected this, and the wines are now superbly balanced, elegant and well defined. I have refined my selection to two 1er Cru’s, which to my mind are Grand Cru in all but name: the dark, wonderfully exotic, mulberry-fruited Malconsorts, and the silky, complex Croix Rameau – a virtual monopoly, sitting next to Romanée St Vivant. Similarly at Grand Cru level, I have gone for the two perennial over-performers, the majestic, spicy Grands Echezeaux, a small appellation which is difficult to source, and the monopole La Grand Rue, which seems to transcend conventional notions of Pinot Noir, much in the same way as certain of the DRC wines. This vintage is no exception, as yields are reduced even further in the search for excellence. This is an impressive, fleshy, intensely complex wine. An impressive range of wines (and still offering remarkable value).

This important domaine (in size and vineyard holdings) has an amazing array of top vineyards. The young Cyprien Arlaud, who is slowly taking over the winemaking, still works alongside his father and the rest of his family and produces an exciting and quite wonderful range of wines. The 2001 vintage here has resulted in a quite fabulous set of wines. These have wonderful concentration of ripe fruit, finesse and perfume with great definition of terroir. We have managed to secure a little more of the 1999 and 2000 vintage from Arlaud: please ask about these (limited quantities available of these older wines). A domaine to follow.

This is a stunning range of concentrated and superbly refined wines from this small domaine. These are immensely stylish with great finesse and length. Guy Castagnier makes very natural, very classy wines from old vines and is a great source for top quality wines from great terroirs (Guy has vines, all superbly situated, in an amazing seven Grand Cru vineyards). The village wines show superb vineyard character and a sense of place. They have lovely pure red fruits Pinot character with rich, ripe seductive textures. The Chambolle is very true to its origin showing subtle, silky mineral fruit whereas the Morey is easily of premier cru quality with a tad more density and richness of texture.

The Clos de la Roche and Clos St Denis have morello cherry-like flavours with the Clos St Denis more floral, mineral and open and the Clos St Denis more dense and closed. Both show superb elegance, great length and balance with enveloping fruit and ripe tannins. These need to be cellared. The Charmes is from 60 years old vines and shows that classic liquorice character I find in the best examples of wine from this vineyard. This has richness with energy and great class. The Mazis and Latricieres are altogether more masculine with excellent depth of ripe fruit (13/13.5 degrees alcohol natural). The Mazis (from vines situated very close to Le Chambertin) shows mineral, earthy, dense, structured fruit with fantastic purity and texture. A three-dimensional wine with lovely tannins. The Latricieres is a great wine with the richness and texture from old vines and from fruit affected by “millerand” this vintage (which concentrates the grapes naturally). Exotic, smokey, ripe and very long with mouth filling texture and sweet Pinot fruit.

The Clos Vougeot (from vines not that far from Grands-Echezeaux) is firmer, more tannic and quite closed at this stage. There are hints of black fruits, black cherries with a concentrated and energetic finish. This is a serious wine in need of long cellaring. The Bonnes-Mares is also quite backward and but shows terrific finesse, freshness and depth of ripe, complex, rich fruit. This is a potentially great old bottle and hence needs keeping. Please note we have also bought some 2000 wines from M. Castagnier as there were small quantities still remaining of some wines; these are quite delicious, in the voluptuous style of the 2000 vintage, and will benefit from cellaring although the Chambolle-Musigny is just staring to drink now and is very fine with terrific, ripe Pinot Noir fruit and class. All these wines are also remarkable value considering their very high quality and vineyard origins.

REMI ROLLIN, PERNAND-VERGELESSES

Remi has proven, once again, that Pernand is not a village to be forgotten about. His style is pure, bright, well-defined fruit in wines that defy popular belief in their potential for aging – so much so that it is rather more an imperative that a potential! The acidity is up on 2000, which endows the wines with more energy and mouthwatering fruit, but there is no drop in concentration or length. The Pernand-Vergelesses white is just such a wine, with remarkable minerality and power for its category. The Corton-Charlemagne is a powerful, searingly mineral wine with a gorgeously spicy, citrussy palate and interminable length. It requires long cellar aging, and will not begin to fade for decades. The Ile des Vergelesses has beautiful tension and balance, with bright strawberry fruit, complex, spicy undertones and great depth of flavour. The Aloxe-Corton is more voluptuous in style, with a broader expression of fruit and less nervous energy. Laid back and effortlessly seductive, this wine will bring much pleasure, and will be approachable sooner than the Ile des Vergelesses. Hats off again to a talented and meticulous wine-maker, and a warm welcome to his son, who has now joined his father at the property after gaining wine-making experience abroad.

François Jobard never gives much away about what he thinks of a particular wine or vintage; he watches and waits for the customer to advance a view. There are years when I have to reserve judgement, such is the quiet restraint of his wines, destined to be raised gracefully over two vintages in old wood. In 2001, however, the combination of mouthwatering acidity and concentration endowed the tasting with an exuberance I have rarely experienced in 15 years of visiting this domaine, with, at the time of tasting, the Meursault Villages and the 1er cru Poruzots showing the best. François smiled conspiratorially at my reaction. A great range of wines from one of my favourite estates for white wine in Burgundy.

Alain always has such minute yields that the difference between 2000 and 2001 in whites is perhaps less marked than elsewhere, although, as is widely the case, the terroirs are very marked. The Meursault Villages is quite structured and chewy, the Chevalieres, elegant and fine, whereas the two 1er Crus are diametrically opposed. The Goutte d’Or is golden, rich and soft – sweeter to the taste, and for earlier drinking that the majestic Charmes with its extra minerality, leaning towards Puligny in style. The Monthelie Duresses – as the name suggests, from the Auxey Duresses side of Monthelie rather than the Volnay – is Alain’s most serious red, with juicy red fruit and a discernable structure. Alain now bottles his reds much earlier to keep that fruit and avoid austerity.

Luc Camus is above all a vigneron, who sometimes gives the impression during tastings that he is losing time which could be better spent in the vines. It is doubtless because of his love of husbandry that his vines enjoy such longevity without the degeneration of which other growers complain. His Savigny Liards – a mere village wine – were 86 years old in 2002. In 2001 this wine, like every year, has old vine texture – nothing flashy about it – just the kind of structure that comes from concentration in the vines. The Lavières, also from old vines, is more mineral, an attribute that the vintage underlines, but perhaps less voluptuous than the Liards but it more than makes it up with its complexity. For sheer sensual delight, the Beaune Clos du Roi, with its soft, gentle spiciness and assertive femininity, always wins. Overall, this is a vintage that surpasses the 2000 in finesse and structure.

1. Prices are in £ per dozen bottles carriage paid to in bond delivered to Edinburgh.
2. Duty and VAT charges are due at prevailing rates when wine has been shipped and cleared from bonded warehouse. Onward delivery charges to customers’ addresses will be charged at cost.
3. Wines are offered subject to availability and prices are subject to alteration.
4. TERMS ARE CASH WITH ORDER PLEASE. (POA = Price On Application).