2005 Nuits St Georges Les Pruliers

Being assembled the day I visited, the Gouges’ 2005 Nuits-St.-Georges Les Pruliers offered smoke-tinged, lightly-cooked black raspberry and dried cherry fruit, sweet underlying nuttiness, and a juicier, more invigorating personality than any of the already bottled wines in this year’s collection. A really imposing spread of berry, floral, roasted meat and saline mineral elements coat the palate. Abundant but fine tannin never interferes with this wine’s generosity. Importer: Vineyard Brands, Birmingham, AL; tel. (205) 980-8802

Red-ruby. Highly aromatic nose of black raspberry, flowers and peppery spices. Sweet and intense, with brooding but sharply delineated black fruit flavors accented by violet. This seems more perfumed and a bit less sauvage than usual (showing less of the typical sloe berry quality of the cru, notes Gouges). Finishes with fine but gripping tannins that arrive late, and terrific aromatic persistence.

Being assembled the day I visited, the Gouges’ 2005 Nuits-St.-Georges Les Pruliers offered smoke-tinged, lightly-cooked black raspberry and dried cherry fruit, sweet underlying nuttiness, and a juicier, more invigorating personality than any of the already bottled wines in this year’s collection. A really imposing spread of berry, floral, roasted meat and saline mineral elements coat the palate. Abundant but fine tannin never interferes with this wine’s generosity. Wine Advocate.June, 2007