2008 Domaine Robert Chevillon Nuits-Saint-Georges Les Pruliers 1er Cru

(racked three weeks ago) Deep red. Quite tight and brooding on the nose. Then dense and imploded in the mouth, with a distinctly high pitch to the intense flavors of cassis, minerals, bitter chocolate and flowers. Bright acidity gives terrific cut to this spicy, pure wine.

Blackberry and dark cherry; licorice and dark chocolate; and sweet, smoky machine oil inform the nose and stain the palate from Chevillons’ 2008 Nuits-St.-Georges Pruliers, whose deep, bittersweet concentration of flavors; near-velvety texture; metaphorically dark shading; soy-like savor; and palpable sense of extract make for an at once formidable, intriguing, and alluring visage. Yet as its long finish makes clear, the vintage-typical, efficacious primary fresh fruit juiciness is still operative here, and abundant though fine-grained tannins lurk beneath its surface. I would give this several years in cellar before revisiting and expect 12-15 of high-performance from bottle, if not more. ||Bertrand Chevillon reported the typically late, long malos of the 2008 vintage, and the Chevillon crus were not bottled until last spring – subsequent to my tastings of them, which took place in part assembled from tank and in part from representative selections of barrels. Interestingly, Chevillons report a normal crop level, stressing that vigilance and diligence in vine treatments made for a healthy crop. Most of the musts weighed-in between 12.5% and 13% potential alcohol and chaptalization was minimal. Bernard Chevillon compares his family’s 2008 with their 2001 –an underestimation, I suspect – and his 2007s with the less interesting, structured, fresh-fruited, or consistent 2000s, an analogy that strikes me as apt. (The Bourgogne and Les St.-Georges, incidentally, had been committed right down to the bottle chez Chevillon by the time I got ‘round to tasting 2007s, hence the absence of notes on those.) Wine Advocate.June, 2010