2007 Nuits St Georges Les Vaucrains

Tasted blind at Flint Wines’ 2007/2012 Nuits Saint-Georges tasting in London. The 2007 Nuits Saint-Georges 1er Cru Les Vaucrains from Chevillon has an elegant bouquet with scents of black cherry, mulberry and undergrowth, demonstrating more focus than its peers, although undeniably it is fully mature. The palate is medium-bodied with supple red berry fruit embroidered with fine supple tannins: an easy-drinking yet refined Nuits Saint Georges that is well crafted, but it should be consumed within the next 4-5 years. Tasted November 2016.

Good dark red. Wilder on the nose than the Saint-Georges, offering black cherry, dark chocolate, smoke and a whiff of game. Wonderfully sweet in the mouth but youthfully closed, with a medicinal menthol note supporting the impression of power. Can't quite match the Saint-Georges today for complexity or personality, but this is also very convincing on the back end. And this too calls for six or seven years of cellaring.

Latakia tobacco, beef stock, plum, and blackberry inform the Chevillon 2007 Nuits-St.-Georges Les Vaucrains which somewhat surprisingly displays a more prominent sense of underlying stoniness than the corresponding Les Cailles. There is a bit less juiciness on hand here to compensate for tannin, though the latter is relatively fine-grained. This really grips in the finish, displaying an impressive if static sense of fruity, carnal, and mineral layers. One needs to give it at least 3-4 years I suspect not only to allow for some softening of the tannin but also to take a proper measure of its possible longer-term potential.||Bertrand Chevillon reported the typically late, long malos of the 2008 vintage, and the Chevillon crus were not bottled until last spring – subsequent to my tastings of them, which took place in part assembled from tank and in part from representative selections of barrels. Interestingly, Chevillons report a normal crop level, stressing that vigilance and diligence in vine treatments made for a healthy crop. Most of the musts weighed-in between 12.5% and 13% potential alcohol and chaptalization was minimal. Bernard Chevillon compares his family’s 2008 with their 2001 –an underestimation, I suspect – and his 2007s with the less interesting, structured, fresh-fruited, or consistent 2000s, an analogy that strikes me as apt. (The Bourgogne and Les St.-Georges, incidentally, had been committed right down to the bottle chez Chevillon by the time I got ‘round to tasting 2007s, hence the absence of notes on those.) Wine Advocate.June, 2010