2016 Nuits St Georges Les Vaucrains

The 2016 Nuits Saint-Georges Les Vaucrains 1er Cru has a complex and engaging bouquet with perfumed, quite floral red berry fruit mixed with subtle sous-bois aromas. The palate is medium-bodied with supple tannin, a fine bead of acidity, classic in style with just the right amount of dryness on the finish. This is a very well crafted Nuits Saint-Georges that should age with style, though it needs more ballast. Tasted blind at the 2016 Burgfest tasting.

Healthy dark red. Slightly medicinal aromas of black cherry and chocolate are complicated by a whiff of animal fur. Plush and fine-grained, offering lovely pliancy to the flavors of dark berries, chocolate and tobacco; plumper than the Les Saint-Georges but without that wine's definition and cut. The very rich tannins coat the front teeth but this very ripe wine is already quite expressive.

The 2016 Nuits Saint Georges 1er Cru les Vaucrains was cropped at a paltry 11 hectoliters per hectare due to the frost. I have to admit that the aromatics lacked the natural harmony and cohesion of the Les Pruliers and the Porrets, the fruit perhaps a little subdued by some reduction. The palate is medium-bodied with supple tannin, quite fleshy with more red fruit than black. The backbone feels less strong here and as such I suspect this will be more approachable than its siblings.