Les Pruliers

The ripe purple colour leads to one of the richest noses in the cellar: very fleshy, with plenty of exuberant fruit, but zesty too, with some blood orange notes. A very rich and absolutely gorgeous wine with an excellent finish.
Jasper Morris MW, Burgundy Wine Director

Etienne Grivot describes his 2012s as having glamour on top of the sophistication of 2010. He notes also the generosity of fruit married to perfect acidity in 2012. It was no hardship tasting our way through his range. One minor added sophistication in the Grivot cellar is an amendment to his barrel regime – he now specifies an extra long chauffe to his barrels, though without going beyond his usual medium toast. High prices but fabulous quality.

This domaine continues to deliver exceptionally high quality wines and is surely now one of the brightest jewels in the crown of Vosne-Romanée. The harvest began on 31st August in 2011 and that is the earliest ever at this domaine. Etienne Grivot was happy to pick at 12 to 12.5%, seeing no value in waiting and losing acidity. The wines have a dramatic tension to them in youth and will certainly age exceptionally well.

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This is a classically plummy Nuits-St Georges on the nose with great weight on the palate and a distinctly lively thread. Les Pruliers is a really impressive wine this year.
Jasper Morris MW, Berrys' Burgundy Director

Glowing mid-purple, this has a lovely weight of fruit on the nose, really rugged on the palate yet with a beautiful, mineral crunch. This is very substantial, yet exceptionally classy Nuits-St Georges. Drink 2023-2032.
Jasper Morris MW, Wine Buyer

Etienne Grivot held off until 10th September because he felt the tannins were not quite ripe before then. Sugar levels never rose too high and acidity levels are good. When asked to describe the vintage, Etienne opined that 2015 has “charm and sensuality up front, energy behind; a charming but sophisticated vintage”. The vintage continues a superb recent run from the Grivots, with Etienne as éminence grise and Mathilde taking increasing responsibility during vinification.

With a similar, noble, purple colour to Les Roncières, this has vibrant, dark red fruit rather than plums on the nose. Les Pruliers has greater density than Les Roncières, displaying real depth of fruit. It has a lovely finish, easy and charming but also magisterial.

Étienne Grivot reports better yields in 2014, about halfway between the miserable crops of the previous four vintages and what would count as a very good year. The grapes are de-stemmed but preserved fully intact using the newest model of destemmer. They were totally healthy in 2014 and Mathilde Grivot describes the wines as being accessible, fresh, yet still complex. We would add that they are – yet again – amongst the finest of the whole Côte.

Next to Roncière, and composed of two plots, one with 70-year-old vines, the other 31 years old, this is more powerful, typical perhaps, with a hint of a savoury element, but still undeniably graceful. The Grivot house style, using only perfect de-stemmed berries, has enhanced the silkier side of this vineyard, but not disguised its intrinsic personality. Drink 2023-2032.
Adam Bruntlett, Wine Buyer

Jean Grivot, whose name continues to appear on the labels, took over from his father Gaston in 1955 and handed the estate on to his son Étienne in the early 1980s. Étienne, married to Marielle Bize from Savigny, has been through a number of incarnations as winemaker here. When he took over, his father’s style was for gentle, graceful wines which perhaps were a little weak in the lesser vintages. Étienne wanted to produce something more concentrated and started working with the controversial oenologist Guy Accad from 1987 to 1992. Since then Étienne has found his own voice and made a range of increasingly fine wines. The drive to reduce yields and fine-tune his work in the vineyards and cellar since the mid-2000s continues to enhance quality. The next generation, Mathilde and Hubert, are now working with their parents. The generational pendulum shifts a bit further here, with Mathilde and Hubert further to the fore this year, and Étienne says he was around more as an advisor. Mathilde reported that some of the early bunches were ready by the end of August, with small berries and thick skins. They waited and got the ideal amount of rain in September which allowed their harvest to homogenise, and they began on 27th September. Mathilde also gave a blow- by-blow analysis of every vineyard’s frost damage. There is no Chambolle d’Orveau this year.

There is a lovely depth to the rich mid-palate of Jean Grivot's Nuits-St Georges Les Pruliers 1er Cru, which includes both red and black fruit notes leading to a precise well-delineated finish, typical of recent Grivot magic.

Ripe, weighty fruit and liquorice are followed by an amazing wealth of fleshy fruit and considerable structure and flavour at the back. There is so much fruit that the tannins are completely submerged. Spectacular!