Nuits-Saint-Georges, Les Vaucrains, 1er Cru, 2017
Subdued initially, a little brooding but it coaxes you in bit by bit. Compact dark velvety fruits with a beautifully toned muscle giving this direction and definition. Classy bramble and black cherry hits you on the front-to-mid palate and then an intense mineral burst kicks in and prolongs the super-long finish. A tour de force. One of the great vineyards of Nuits, the Gouges old vines parcels in Vaucrains always produce very small berries, making for a very powerful, intense wine. The vineyard is influenced by its red stony clay soils and the cooling effect of the forest.
critic reviews
The 2017 Nuits Saint-Georges Les Vaucrains 1er Cru has a light bouquet of brambly red fruit and rose petal scents, though it needs a little more vigor. The palate is medium-bodied and smooth in texture, with black plum and cranberry notes and rounded, thick tannins that lend good body. A touch of white pepper and spicebox appears toward the finish. Promising. Tasted blind at the Burgfest 2017 tasting.
The 2017 Nuits-Saint-Georges 1er Cru Les Vaucrains is another unusually suave offering from Gouges, offering up aromas of dark berry fruit, wild plums, baking chocolate and rich soil tones, subtly framed by cedary new wood. On the palate, the wine is medium to full-bodied, deep and dense, but notably open-knit and juicy at the core, concluding with a long, sapid finish. Given how forbidding Vaucrains can be, this is an almost disconcertingly charming effort.