"In a word, impressive"
-Burghound
2006 Gouges Nuits St Georges
1er Cru Les Vaucrains
It's easy to conclude that Nuits St. Georges was a sweet spot in 2006.
Taste Gouges or Cheviilon, NSG's other standard bearer, in 2006 and this conclusion seems inevitable.
Gouges produced a stunning line-up of '06s and Vaucrains may very well reside at the top.
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Gouges is a legend of Nuits St. Georges. Bottles from the 70s are still gorgeous today.
Gouges' signature has always been a certain sturdiness married to an ultra-clear expression of their sites. The 2006 Vaucrains boasts a density, a palate-saturating minerality and an explosive finish. It's a wine that leaves a clear impression.
Vaucrains is one of the great vineyards of Nuits St. Georges, producing a muscular wine that is chock full of dark fruits and earth. There is a textural element to great Nuits St. Georges that makes these wines feel just incredibly coating - palate staining we would say.
We've always admired Gouges '06 Vaucrains for how it delivered that Vaucrains masculine intensity while being incredibly light on its feet. And this is exactly what Burghound homes in on: "The usual power, size and weight are here but it's a bit more elegant than usual. In a word, impressive." Impressive, indeed.
This is a special vintage for this wine.
There's no way to get around the fact that prices on Burgundy have been creeping upwards. It's one of the great wines of the world and as more people recognize this and after a bunch of painfully low yielding vintages, price creep is only natural. Still, it sends us hunting for relative deals wherever we can find them. Here two separate strategies converge: back-filling and finding villages and producers that are still relative values.
Gouges '06 Vaucrains is just starting to come out of its shell and has a long future ahead of it. This is one of our favorite recent wines from Gouges. This is a vintage, a wine, where he hit a home run. It's as simple as that.
To order, reply to offers@crushwineco.com or call the store at (212) 980-9463.
Ian McFadden
Director, Fine & Rare Wine
Crush Wine & Spirits
Burghound: "A ripe, pretty and again, unusually elegant set of ripe aromas that run more to the blue side of the fruit spectrum with subtle spice and warm earth nuances that can also be found on the decidedly masculine flavors that, like the Porrets, are brooding and chewy on the explosive and phenolically ripe finish. The usual power, size and weight are here but it's a bit more elegant than usual. In a word, impressive."