Tasting Notes
Robert Parker 92
The 2012 Nuits Saint Georges 1er Cru Les Cailles has a very composed and refined bouquet that comes across as natural and self-effacing. The palate is very crisp with racy acidity, very fine structure and mineralite with a touch of spice and sea-salt on the finish. Very linear at the moment, this will need 3-4 years in the cellar. It is always a pleasure to visit the indefatigable Mounir Saouma at his hideaway winery just off the Beaune periphique. He is a winemaker you can jest with, and he is often victim of my sardonic Essex humor (for example, when enthusing about obtaining one of five barrels of a premier cru, I dryly enquired whether the other four were sold off for distillation – I would not say that to Aubert de Villaine.) And I appreciate Mounir’s wines. They used to taste a little too fat and almost over-powering in their youth, but I think he is fine-tuning his reductive winemaking style, achieving more freshness and vitality. I tasted his 2012 reds since the whites were still undergoing malolactic. Among the tidal wave of opinions, one that he emphasized was that to capture the quality of the vintage under cork, the wines should be bottled late, and not in spring when Burgundy will resound to the clinking of glass. Mounir also told me that he paid 50% more from wines in 2012 than in 2011, but that he intends to keep prices within 15% increase. Importers: Vintus LLC, Pleasantville, NY; tel. (914) 769-3000, Atherton Imports, Menlo Park, CA; tel. (650) 328-6639
Vinous 92-94
(vinified with at least 50% whole clusters): Deep red. Very fresh aromas of dark raspberry, cassis and stone. Juicy, intense and precise, with the dark fruit flavors framed and lifted by saline, chalky minerality and a strong impression of dry extract. Finishes brisk and very long, with refined tannins. This should age gracefully.
