"The 2009 Nuits St. Georges Les Boudots is a big step up from the villages. It is a seamless, totally harmonious wine layered with dark cherries, licorice and spices. The fruit builds nicely towards the round, sensual finish, while the silky tannins add to an impression of considerable elegance. Les Boudots is on the border with Vosne-Romanee. Anticipated maturity: 2012-2019.
I tasted an impressive range of wines with Jacques Lardiere and his successor Frederic Barnier, who is slated to take over when Lardiere retires at the end of 2012. Jadot makes a mind-bending number of wines, but I limited myself to the best 35 or so examples. In 2009 Jadot began harvesting on September 6. All of the reds were made from 100% destemmed fruit. Maceration times varied from wine to wine, but according to Lardiere all of the wines were made with essentially the same approach. Lardiere is another of the producers who compares 2009 to 1959, and believes the wines will age well because of their density of fruit and minerality. Many of the estate’s own vineyards are farmed biodynamically, but of course Jadot also sources a significant amount of wine from other growers that is not necessarily from biodynamically farmed vineyards." (WA)
"Medium red. Brooding black cherry, cassis, pepper and menthol aromas. Dense and sweet but closed; distinctly more tightly wound than virtually all of the Cote de Beaune wines at this address. This solid, very youthful wine offers plenty of texture, and good length, but is not yet expressing itself." (IWC)
"A deft touch of wood frames spice and very ripe red berry fruit and warm earth aromas that give way to rich, firm, intense and lightly mineral-suffused flavors that culminate in a persistent and mouth coating finish. I like the balance and this should be quite good in time." (BH)
Winery Notes
The commune of Nuits-Saint-Georges is the southernmost commune of the Côte de Nuits, and includes, from a viticultural standpoint, the small adjoining commune of Prémeaux-Prissey, most of which is entitled to the Nuits-Saint-Georges appellations. There are 431 acres of vineyards which take this appellation at the village level, only 29 of which are in Prémeaux. Of the premier cru vineyards, numbering 36 in all, 28, occupying 248 acres, lie in Nuits-Saint-Georges; the remaining eight, in Prémeaux, cover 104 acres. There are no grands crus. Over 99 percent of the average annual production of 8,922 hectolitres (99,133 cases) is in red wines.
Nuits-Saint-Georges stands on the site of an ancient Gallo-Roman villa, of which archaeological excavations have unearthed vestiges covering 25 acres. The name "Nuits" is derived from the Latin "nutium," later "nuys" and today "noyer," meaning "walnut tree," abundant in the area until the 18th century. Beyond wine, Nuits produces large quantities of fruit juices from orchards which must have been present centuries ago: several vineyard names, such as Les Pruliers (plum tree) and Les Porrets (pear tree) are corruptions of names of fruit- bearing trees. The vineyards are equally old; the premier cru of Les Saint-Georges has been planted since 1023, when it was given to the order of Saint-Denis, and most of Prémeaux's premiers crus pre-date 1250.
The premier cru wines of Nuits-Saint-Georges are among the sturdiest and longest-lived of the Côte de Nuits, yet these vary in dimension from north to south. The northern vineyards near Vosne-Romanée produce comparatively elegant wines, while those in the south produce big, robust wines. The Aux Boudots vineyard, on the Vosne-Romanée border near Les Malconsorts, is a squarish parcel covering 16 acres, and is one of Nuits-Saint-Georges' finest premiers crus. André Gagey is proprietor of a superb, 1.24-acre parcel acquired in 1970, replanted in part in 1973 and completed in 1980 from cuttings from existing vines. Maximum annual production is 250 cases. This parcel yields a full-bodied, tannic and vigorous wine that is rich in fruit complexity yet shows a certain elegance of structure and toasty, smoky nuances in the bouquet. |
