2011 Nuits St Georges Les Vaucrains

Bright medium red. Subtle aromas of dark raspberry, musky underbrush and meat. Supple and sweet if not quite as delineated as the Les Saint-Georges. But boasts a lovely fine-grained texture to the dark raspberry and spice flavors. More minerally than chocolatey on the very long finish. This and the Les Saint-Georges will be bottled with about 13.5% alcohol.

This is very reserved, indeed to the point where the nose is borderline taciturn and requires considerable swirling to reveal the ripe and intensely earthy nose of animale inflected dark berry fruit. The concentrated, powerful and muscular broad-shouldered flavors ooze with an abundance of dry extract that actually causes the very firm tannins to appear more civilized than they really are. Despite the reserve of the nose the austere finish is explosive and the length is excellent. Tasted: Jan 15, 2014. Drink: 2023+

Tasted blind at the Burgundy 2011 horizontal tasting in Beaune. The Nuits Saint Georges 1er Cru Les Vaucrains 2011 has a rather subdued bouquet at the moment despite vigorous coaxing. There is clearly a lot of stem addition here rendering the nose rather vegetal. The palate is medium-bodied with gently grippy tannins and here the greenness is less conspicuous, the finish fresh, classic, a little lean, but nicely focused. I think that leanness will sort itself out with three or four years in bottle. Nov 2014, www.robertparker.com