Cote de Nuits
Named after its principle village of Nuits St Georges, the Côte de Nuits forms the northern half of Burgundy’s legendary Côte d’Or, a 20km strip stretching from Dijon to Nuits St Georges, with the best vineyards found halfway up its slopes where growing conditions are at their best. With 22 of the region’s 23 red Grands Crus, most of the world’s great Pinot Noirs are made here, along with a small number of high-quality Chardonnays.
Learn more about Cote de Nuits
Named after its principal village Nuits St Georges, the Côte de Nuits forms the northern half of Burgundy’s legendary Côte d’Or (‘golden slope’).It is a compact 20km strip running south from Dijon to Nuits St Georges with the best vineyards (Premiers Crus and Grands Crus) situated halfway up its slopes where the drainage, exposure and soils are at their best.
With 22 of the region’s 23 red Grand Crus, this is Pinot Noir country; most of Burgundy’s (and indeed the world’s) great Pinot Noirs are made here, along with a small number of high quality Chardonnays, including one tiny Grand Cru (Musigny). Quantities are minute, certainly compared with Bordeaux, and prices for the very best wines are thus high. Quantitatively however, the wines account for less than five percent of the region’s production.
It is the most northerly region in Europe making great red wines, and for that reason getting the Pinot Noir grape to ripen before the wet autumn sets in is always a challenge. In addition, the region is often hit by vicious hail and heavy rain during the growing season that can cause dilution and rot.Along with the Côte de Beaune, it is the most elaborate classification in the world, where the influence of terroir is most keenly felt. It is also the most fragmented: Clos de Vougeot’s 50ha, for example, is split between more than 90 growers.
The wines express many different styles but in general are weightier, firmer and more deeply-coloured than their Côte de Beaune counterparts. Gevrey-Chambertin, Vougeot and Nuits St Georges tend to produce more robust, masculine wines, while Chambolle-Musigny and Vosne-Romanée are all finesse and elegance.
Côte de Nuit Villages wines can be made from a small number of villages, mostly in the far north and south of the Côte. They are usually red in colour, and are often good value. Hautes Côtes de Nuits is also mostly red and produced in the hinterland to the southwest of Nuits St Georges.
Prices:
Bottle
£22.50
Bottle 6 x 75cl 4cs
Jasper Morris MW, Wine Buyer
Laurent Fournier has made beautiful wines in 2015, keeping him cheerful during the trickier 2016 growing season. He began with his whites on 8th September before attacking the reds, finishing by 16th September. There was no need for sorting the completely healthy grapes nor for extraction because all came out naturally. The wines have been matured in a mix of bigger and normal-sized barrels. There is also an excellent Bourgogne Rouge Le Chapitre.
Bottle
£22.95
Bottle 6 x 75cl 149cs
Jasper Morris MW, Burgundy Wine Director
One of the brightest talents in the northern Côte de Nuits is Laurent Fournier who runs the estate which carries his father’s name, as well as being the man in charge of the dossier for defining some Premier Cru vineyards in Marsannay. We have been hugely impressed with his wines for several years and are now offering them En Primeur for the first time. There is a quality of fruit here which fully reflects the joys of the Côte de Nuits, yet at rather more affordable prices.
Bottle
£24.50
Bottle 12 x 75cl 6cs
Bottle
£25.00
Bottle 6 x 75cl 1cs
Adam Bruntlett, Wine Buyer
Bottle
£27.50
Bottle 12 x 75cl 11cs
Bottle
£28.51
Bottle 6 x 75cl 7cs
Bottle
£29.95
Bottle 12 x 75cl 2cs
Patrice Rion compares 2014 to a mix of 1979 and 1989 for the aromatics and delighted to have been able to pick a more or less normal-sized crop. He began on 12th September with healthy grapes, reinforced by his system of two sorting tables, one before and one after de-stemming. The amount of new oak has been reduced here, now just 30 percent on most cuvées.
Bottle
£35.00
Bottle 12 x 75cl 49cs
Adam Bruntlett - Wine Buyer
Bottle
£35.00
Bottle 12 x 75cl 98cs
Adam Bruntlett, Wine Buyer, Berry Bros. & Rudd
Bottle
£35.00
Bottle 12 x 75cl 79cs
Bottle
£35.04
Bottle 6 x 75cl 1cs
Bottle
£36.00
Bottle 6 x 75cl 2cs
88/90 Neal Martin eRobertParker.com #222 Dec 2015
Bottle
£37.50
Bottle 6 x 75cl 4cs
The good thing about having a domaine shared between Côte de Beaune and Côte de Nuits is that you are unlikely to sustain hail damage in every vineyard in any given vintage. The bad thing is that your Côte de Beaune vineyards will have suffered three years in a row. So this year we concentrate on Gevrey-Chambertin, where Louis’s results are excellent in 2014.
Bottle
£37.50
Bottle 6 x 75cl 15cs
Jasper Morris MW - Burgundy Wine Director
Despite the reduced crop in Beaune and Savigny in particular, Nicolas Potel and Sylvain Debord have put together a beautiful range in 2013. The vintage reminds Nicolas a little bit of 2002. They began picking on 26th September, opted for minimal extraction during vinification, and used less in the way of whole bunch fermentation, except for the Premiers Crus in the Côte de Nuits.
Bottle
£39.00
Bottle 6 x 75cl 11cs
This year Jean-Luc and Eric Burguet purchased some additional vineyards from another member of the family: an additional 0.75ha each in the two village Gevrey cuvées. We may also get a small allocation of Gevrey-Chambertin, Champeaux, 1er Cru and a new wine, Gevrey-Chambertin, Lavaux St Jacques, 1er Cru. They found that 2014 produced decent yields, with picking beginning on 18th September.
Bottle
£39.95
Bottle 12 x 75cl 30cs
Jasper Morris MW, Burgundy Wine Director
Picking began on 24th September through to 5th October, producing a tiny yield in Premeaux after heavy rain during flowering. However, Chambolle survived in places and did go through malolactic fermentation with ease, leaving Nuits-St Georges to be much later. Despite healthy fruit, the crop has been reduced severely, producing as little as 12 hl/ ha in places. Patrice uses 30% new wood on his village wines and 40% for his Premiers Crus. Wines marked as Patrice Rion label are officially negoiant cuves, but in every case, except the village Chambolle-Musigny, the Rions have done all the vineyard work as well as made the wine.
Bottle
£39.95
Bottle 12 x 75cl 7cs
Jasper Morris MW, Burgundy Wine Director
Nicolas Potel is still hard at work developing his domaine, where the wines are made under his general direction by the talented Sylvain Debord, a curly-haired wild child. More vineyards are being planted in St Romain and for a Crémant de Bourgogne project and there may be further vineyards coming aboard, depending on some farming contracts being discussed.
Bottle
£41.40
Bottle 6 x 75cl 21cs
Bottle
£45.00
Bottle 6 x 75cl 6cs
Though we still have the pleasure of tasting with Christian Sérafin, it is now his niece, Frédérique who is solely responsible for winemaking. Christian describes 2014 as being all about elegance and balance, with neither too much acidity nor tannin. The Sérafin wines always repay patience.
Bottle
£45.00
Bottle 6 x 75cl 31cs
Bottle
£45.00
Bottle 6 x 75cl 13cs
Jasper Morris, MW - Wine Buyer
Bénigne picked from October 8th until 11th, waiting to get best phenolic ripeness which he could as the grapes had stayed healthy. It was a small crop, albeit up from 17 hectolitres per hectare in 2012 to 22. He vinified at normal levels of extraction, using 10% of whole bunches from his old vines.
Bottle
£45.00
Bottle 6 x 75cl 175cs
This year Jean-Luc and Eric Burguet purchased some additional vineyards from another member of the family: an additional 0.75ha each in the two village Gevrey cuvées. We may also get a small allocation of Gevrey-Chambertin, Champeaux, 1er Cru and a new wine, Gevrey-Chambertin, Lavaux St Jacques, 1er Cru. They found that 2014 produced decent yields, with picking beginning on 18th September.
Bottle
£45.00
Bottle 12 x 75cl 56cs
“This is definitely the best vintage I have made in white,” says Benjamin. “The wines have great vineyard definition; I would just have loved to have made more. It is my style of vintage.” His reds, too, have gorgeous layers of ripe fruit, so 2014 is clearly a significant success all round for Benjamin.
Further cuvées are available from Benjamin and can be found at www.bbr. com/burgundy2014. Note – all the white wines will be bottled under top-quality screwcaps, StelvinLux Plus.
Bottle
£45.00
Bottle 6 x 75cl 4cs
Anne McHale MW - Wine Education Specialist
Bottle
£45.00
Bottle 6 x 75cl 19cs
Jasper Morris MW, Wine Buyer
It is not easy to get a tasting with Jean-Pierre Guyon as he likes to be out in the vineyards all day long (“I am the shepherd of my grapes”). His meticulous work in the vineyards enables him to work thereafter with ripe and healthy grapes which can be vinified without sulphur and entirely as whole bunches. The wines have been matured in less new wood than previously, although it’s still two thirds for the top cuvées. Jean-Pierre has also worked his whites to minimise their weight in this sunny year, fermenting in older barrels with no lees’ stirring.
Bottle
£45.00
Bottle 6 x 75cl 13cs
Jasper Morris MW, Wine Buyer
Although yields were acceptable for the Burguet brothers, the crop was – in the end – 20 percent behind the previous vintage. They began on 15th September and entirely de-stemmed the bunches, following their usual practice. Their ultra-meticulous triple-sorting table system was not needed this year. Beautifully poised, juicy wines.
Bottle
£47.50
Bottle 12 x 75cl 11cs
Jasper Morris, MW - Wine Buyer
The 2013 harvest is the latest ever recorded at Burguet, starting 9th October, in the cold more than the rain – there was even some frost one morning. They have three separate sorting stations, though rot varied by sector. Vinification was normal, a long time in tank but a gentle approach. The 2013 is particularly, and consistently, successful chez Burguet.
Bottle
£49.00
Bottle 12 x 75cl 1cs
Bottle 12 x 75cl 1cs
Thibault has made a fine and elegant range of 2014s, with little sign of the reduction which has sometimes prevailed here in the past. He has employed a fair proportion of whole-bunch fermentation, sending a crack team of pickers into the vineyards ahead of the rest to select the healthiest bunches. Another interest at the moment lies in finding the perfect toasting for his barrels, often choosing a minimal approach. We shall also be making a separate offer of Thibault’s brilliant 2014s from his Moulin à Vent estate.
Bottle
£49.00
Bottle 6 x 75cl 15cs
Thibault has made a fine and elegant range of 2014s, with little sign of the reduction which has sometimes prevailed here in the past. He has employed a fair proportion of whole-bunch fermentation, sending a crack team of pickers into the vineyards ahead of the rest to select the healthiest bunches. Another interest at the moment lies in finding the perfect toasting for his barrels, often choosing a minimal approach. We shall also be making a separate offer of Thibault’s brilliant 2014s from his Moulin à Vent estate.
Bottle
£49.00
Bottle 6 x 75cl 50cs
“Those who did the work in the vineyards will find it paid off in 2014”, opines Laurent Fournier. There is no problem with concentration if the yields were reasonable. He went through the vineyards twice, at the end of August and again just before picking, to remove any bunches he was not happy with. Even then he discarded two small plots of Clos du Roy so as to ensure that what made it to barrel, and then bottle, was first-rate. As indeed it is.