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Get GROUND SHIPPING when you purchase 1 or more. 2003 Domaine de la Vougeraie 1er Cruproduct-timed-pdf - Nuits St Georges Les Damondes MAGNUM

Why We're Drinking It

“The velvety smoothness of good , caused by the higher spirits, ensures that their taste touches the tongue softly and is gentle on the nerves”, wrote Dr Guy-Crescent Fagon in 1694. He added “A that the stomach can press and digest at leisure, without rushing to get rid of it”. This prescription was addressed to Louis XIV, weighed down by ill health. Nuits wine, recommended by his senior physician, soon cured the royal patient. Wine for convalescence, purely medicinal, had been invented!

Nuits-Saint-Georges has a strong, unbridled personality. The town is perched below the hillside, at the opening of the La Serrée coomb. A small stream, the Meuzin, makes its way down from the Hautes-Côtes. Les Damodes is the town’s northernmost climat, on the border with Vosne-Romanée.

Soil is very pebbly and calcareous. Clayey silt at the top of the slope and pure silt at the bottom.

Tasting Notes

VARIETAL Visual Aspect: An eye-catching deep ruby, with violet reflections. Nose: The 1st nose is complex, powerful, with mineral notes, developing APPELLATION into aromas that are at once both spicy and fruity, (cassis, blackberry). Nuits St Georges Les Damondes Palate: The mouth is typically ‘Nuits’, a very rich wine, enveloping literally all ALCOHOL the palate. Black fruit, such as blackberries, dominates the aromas. One 13.00 also notices the finesse and depth of the tannins. The finish is clean and SIZE very elegant. 750ml Food Pairing: Match it in 4 or 5 years with a Barbary Duckling. BLEND Pinot Noir

The Story to Know

As old as the , The Clos Blanc de Vougeot was Cîteaux Abbey’s song of praise. The monks planted the first vines nine centuries ago, and the pressed from the golden grapes filled the abbey-church’s cruets for almost 700 years. Such precious drops of gold, blinding and rare, are like an island of in an ocean of Pinot Noir... A single violin at the heart of an orchestra.

The Clos Blanc de Vougeot used to be known as the Petit Clos Blanc de Cîteaux, or simply Vougeot’s white vineyard. Like the Clos de Vougeot, it was founded by the monks of Cîteaux, which was constructed on the nearby plain in 1098. Saint Bernard was almost certainly present at the first harvests in Vougeot, which date back to 1110.

This vineyard has always been planted with white grapes, a tradition started when the Cîteaux monks planted the forerunners of today’s Chardonnay to produce a white wine for their sacrament. This walled vineyard is special for another very rare reason. Despite the French Revolution in 1789 when national property was sold off, the Clos Blanc de Vougeot remained a monopole, an undivided property. Nurtured by Jules Ouvrard then Jules Régnier in the 19th Century, it belonged to L’Héritier-Guyot in the 20th Century and now forms a part of the Domaine de la Vougeraie, sole owner of the monopole.

Organic agriculture: since 1998. Received official approval in 1999; Bio-dynamic agriculture since the 2001 campaign. Ratings

92 Wine Spectator

90 Stephen Tanzer

Reviews

Very pure and polished, this red reveals a sweet core of black cherry, cassis and spice. It's pretty seamless now, despite a swath of finely grained tannins, ending with a long aftertaste of cassis. Drink now through 2018.