Domaine Henri Gouges

Henri Gouges started Domaine-bottling in the 1920s and as such are one of Burgundy's pioneering estates. Henri's grandsons Pierre and Christian have been looking after production for the last two decades and have been responible for carving out the Domaine's great reputation for uniquely muscular, long-lived Burgundies. As from the 2007 vintage Gregory, Christian's nephew, who has been working at the Domaine since 2003, is making the wines and has made an immediate impact. His aim is for less extraction in the wines through a collection of numerous small details in the winemaking process, including more use of gravity in the cellars and less pumping of the wines. His changes are not totally wholesale, though, and he still clearly sticks to the Domaine's reserved, traditional approach to making wine. Stems are not included in fermentation but use of new oak is fairly limited. The resultant wines are pure, high-toned, certainly not flashy, and powerful but not unwieldy, they give immense pleasure. An exciting new dawn for a benchmark Burgundian Domaine.

2019 Vintage

“In 2019 we go back to a more classic style of Burgundy vintage, even if it is a more sunny year,” Gregory Gouges pointed out, continuing that “it is important for us to always keep a savoury and fresh element in the wines, along with a silkiness.” This was particularly key in a ripe, dry year such as 2019. He has achieved this with aplomb – producing round, powerful wines that offer superior freshness to 2018. They have suave textures that belie their hidden tannic power and they reveal their terroir characteristics very clearly. Quality came at a price, though. Yields were 25% down on 2018 and amounted to just 28hl/ha. The drop is most significant in Les St Georges (reduced by nearly half), where there is a particularly high average age of vines that produce very little fruit. Harvesting earlier than anticipated, in the second week of September, as well as being increasingly careful with extractions – or infusions more than extractions – have helped Gouges judge this vintage just right. A range of ripe and generous wines that retain great individuality, smoothness and sapidity.

2020 Vintage

2020 was a vintage where the “rule book went out of the window” in Gregory Gouges’s words. Harvest began on the 24th August and finished on the 30th. “Speed of picking was important” he added “ We started with Clos des Porets, which is usually one of the last to be picked and is certainly never normally the first. The reverse happened with the Nuits Villages.” This is a tiny, highly concentrated vintage, both in terms of yields (which were a mere 17hl/ha) and alcohols, and, if you harvested early, acidities. Gregory’s early worries were that vintage would trump terroir, but was delighted to see that the wines showed the differences between the vineyards clearly; he considers that, in this sense, there is more definition to these 2020s than in 2015.

2021 Vintage

After the concentrated and low yielding 2020 vintage, the Gouges cousins bucked the general trend by producing more wine in 2021 – at an average of 25hl/ha. And furthermore, the wines couldn’t be more different from the 2020s. This latest vintage offers up a range of wines that are all delicacy and transparency with supple textures and gentle savoury inflections. Describing it as a rather classic, Bourguignon vintage, Antoine explained that they were at pains to vinify gently, to respect the finesse of the vintage; less punch downs, very few pump overs and earlier bottling for most of the cuvées, with just Les St Georges still to be bottled when we visited. Antoine summed it up thus, “It’s not a fragile vintage but you can feel there’s an elegance there. The concentration is fine, but really this is a vintage of energy. And I don’t think you have to wait long to enjoy them.”

2022 Vintage

A huge basket of Gougeres greets you at Gouges, satisfying the pun cravings as well as being a welcome foil to a morning of young Nuits-Saint-Georges (so satisfying the choux bun cravings too). Not that the wines here, or at Chevillon before for that matter, are hard work in 2022. Tasting through the Gouges range you get a sense that this is not merely a good Nuits vintage, but also a real success chez Gouges, where there’s been a noticeable stylistic shift going on in recent years. As Gregory Gouges explained, “We are working with lower levels of sulphur during vinification now, something we first attempted in 2020. It gives different aromatics, more finesse in the tannins, and permits a different, more gentle extraction. As a result we are doing slightly shorter élevage in search of more freshness and approachability.” The results are wines that are more expressive in youth, with a suppleness to their structures, factors that were aided and abetted by the domaine’s average yields of 32hl/ha in 2022. “Our average for the last ten years has been about 25hl/ha” Gregory went on. “2022 is a year that has wonderful balance because of the higher yields”.

2023 Vintage

The ‘new’ style of Gouges wines has been in place for some years now, yet still it is satisfying to walk away from a tasting of their new vintage with a sense that the wheels of refinement continue to turn. Cousins Gregory and Antoine Gouges are clearly very much on the same page when it comes to seeking elegance in their wines, which they manage while retaining all the vineyard character you would hope for. In 2023, they found that despite the solar conditions, they were able to harvest their old vines at an average of 13 degrees potential alcohol, while retaining great freshness in the flavours. Malos happened quickly, and seeking to use as little sulphur during the élevage as possible, they’ll be bottling most things a month or two earlier than the norm, to harness all the vibrancy of the vintage. There’s much to enjoy here in 2023.