2008 Nuits St Georges Les Chaignots

The Gouges 2008 Nuits-St.-Georges Chaignots features fresh red raspberry, choke cherry, and grenadine mingled with iris-like perfume and hints of pungent peat and green herbs. Bright, fine-grained, almost creamy, the palate here is intriguingly medicinal, the wine’s sense of underlying chalkiness and its notes of cherry pit and walnut oil contributing to an interactively complex finish at once refreshingly juicy and slightly austere. This vintage-typically energetic and delightfully delicate Pinot ought to prove impressive for at least 10-12 years. Gregory Gouges admits that he and his family, in 2008, picked a tough year for completing their conversion to organic viticulture, but he notes that the winds of late September rather radically desiccated most botrytized or otherwise imperfect berries and that this played directly into the forte of vibratory sorting tables on which such berries were simply shaken-away. Yields here were only in the 30-35 hectoliter per hectare range. Harvest began already September 30 and fruit came in between 12-12.5% potential alcohol. Chaptalization was minimal, and then only on a few lots in an effort to prolong fermentation. Malos were late and long, but nevertheless finished by summer’s end; and bottling was early by estate norms, with one exception completed between December and February. New facilities enable the Gouges to achieve better temperature-control during fermentations and to avoid pumping. Importer: Vineyard Brands, Birmingham, AL; tel. (205) 980-8802

Bright, deep red. Very reduced on the nose following a late malo ending in mid-September. Tighter in grain and less forthcoming than the village wine, but with more detail and floral lift apparent. A more elegantly styled and energetic wine but hard to view today.

Spiced and autumnal. Very fine tannins, elegant, dry but not drying. Long. (JH)