Domaine Henri Gouges Nuits-St-Georges Clos des Porrets St. Georges Premier Cru 2015
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#79 Wine Spectator Top 100 of 2018
This is a monopole of the Domain of about 9 acres. It is located just below the Perrières. It is a former quarry of Nuits Saint Georges, which was exploited by the monks of Citeaux. Sitting on the stony pink limestone Premeaux, the Clos des Porrets is composed of calcareous scree and soil rich in clay. The wines from here express an elegant finesse after only a few years in the bottle.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Spectator
This red combines flavors of cherry, currant, spice and mineral with a core of sweet fruit, a silky texture and firm, chalky tannins. Finishes on the chewy side, with mouthcoating but not astringent tannins. Best from 2023 through 2040.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2015 Nuits-Saint-Georges 1er Cru Clos des Porrets Saint Georges is—like the Vaucrains—already beginning to shut down, gradually unfurling in the glass with aromas of cassis, currant leaf, rich spice and raw cocoa. On the palate, the wine's fine-grained tannins take center stage for the moment, but its depth, concentration and energy are all very promising: the only missing ingredient is time.
Rating: 93+ -
Jeb Dunnuck
The 2015 Nuits St Georges Clos Des Porrets Rouge 1Er Cru is a promising 2015. The estate has been slowing changing their style over the past 7-8 years with the goal of making the wines more approachable in their youth, which in my view is a good thing. This 2015 has terrific notes of black cherry, toasted spice, crushed rocks, and hints of charcoal emerging from the glass and it’s medium to full-bodied, rich, structured, yet balanced on the palate. There’s lots of minerality here and while it has the terrific fruit of the 2015 vintage, it still needs short-term cellaring to show at its best.
Rating: 92+
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The creation of Domaine Henri Gouges was the culmination of 400 years of family grape farmers, and it is, in many minds, the top domaine in Nuits-Saint-Georges. Henri formed the domaine in 1920 but was soon discouraged with selling the fruit to négociants. He envisioned a better quality wine, and by 1933, he was producing, bottling, and selling directly. He, along with the Marquis d’Angerville from Volnay, was at the forefront of battles against fraud in Burgundy in the 1920s. In the 1930s, Monsieur Gouges was one of the people charged with the job of delineating the crus in Burgundy for the Institut National d’Appellation d’Origine, and he was a member of that regulatory body at its outset. Since the beginning, the domaine has remained an undivided family property. In 1967 Henri’s two sons, Michel and Marcel, succeeded him and added to the holdings of the estate. Each of them handed leadership over to one of their sons to bring the domaine to the next stage. Pierre and Christian began the modernization of the vineyards and the winery, which they have now turned over to Pierre’s son, Gregory, and his cousin, Antoine. While the house style has evolved, the main focus is the better reflection of the terroir in the fruit through organic viticulture. They believe that healthy vines produce quality fruit and thus more expressive terroir-driven wines.
Thin-skinned, finicky and temperamental, Pinot Noir is also one of the most rewarding grapes to grow and remains a labor of love for some of the greatest vignerons in Burgundy. Fairly adaptable but highly reflective of the environment in which it is grown, Pinot Noir prefers a cool climate and requires low yields to achieve high quality. Outside of France, outstanding examples come from in Oregon, California and throughout specific locations in wine-producing world. Somm Secret—André Tchelistcheff, California’s most influential post-Prohibition winemaker decidedly stayed away from the grape, claiming “God made Cabernet. The Devil made Pinot Noir.”
Inhabiting the bottom end of the northern half of the Côte d’Or, Nuits-St-Georges is a busy, market-driven town and home to many of Burgundy’s negociants. It is also the largest town in the Côte d’Or after Beaune and contributes "nuits" to the name of Côte de Nuits (i.e., the northern half of the Côte d’Or).
The appellation itself is divided into two parts, where in the north it directly borders Vosne-Romanée, the southerly end is the commune of Prémeaux. There are no Grands Crus in this village, though it does have a large number of Premiers Crus.
The best Nuits-St-Georges Pinot Noir are layered with cherry, plum, underbrush and sandalwood. The fruit is sweet, the wine energetic, and the finish long and lush.