2005 Nuits St Georges Les St Georges

The 2005 Nuits-St.-Georges Les St.-Georges again illustrates roasted richness and a seamless meld of meat, fruit and mineral. Hints of tar and toasted pecan add further aromatic complexity. Dramatically expansive and mouth-coating, with endless variations – distilled, fresh, sorbet-like – on black cherry, purple plum, and their pits, this wine weaves tar, iodine, and chalk into its supremely long finish. The incipiently velvety texture and fineness of tannin are remarkable for so young a wine. Few Grand Cru offerings from 2005 can surpass this Les St.-Georges, a wine I would cellar for a decade before even re-assessing. If further proof were needed that the Chevillons are in a class by themselves among the major Nuits-St.-Georges landholders, they certainly delivered it this year. Like so many other vintners, they reported backing off on pigeage this year – and heaven knows, the resultant wines don’t lack for concentration. Their Bourgogne Passetoutgrain, Bourgogne, and Nuits-St.-Georges Les Perrieres had all just been sulfured and filtered, so Bertrand Chevillon declined to show them. He was as yet noncommittal, however, about when the other wines would be bottled, although this would probably continue through Spring, and be accompanied by the estate’s usual light filtration. Importer: Kermit Lynch Wine Merchant, Berkeley, CA; tel. (510) 524-1524.