2014 Domaine Francois Legros, Nuits-Saint-Georges 1er Cru Les Perrieres, Red Burgundy, France.
Bravo to importer Charles Neal for one of the best Burgundy discoveries of the year! The Domaine Francois Legros 2014’s are a quite stunning and fetching wines with richness of palates, fine details and elegance, especially wonderful in this line up was the Vougeot 1er Cru Les Cras, maybe the best young Premier Cru Vougeot I’ve ever tasted, right up there with de Vogue, and this glorious Nuits-Saint-Georges Premier Cru Les Perrieres that just flows with gorgeous floral notes, earth, spice and tantalizing fruit essences! Francois and his daughter Charlotte are crafting beautiful, but concentrated wines from their small cellar in Nuits-Saint-Georges, all of their plots are at least 40 years old and are worked by hand with sustainable methods and great care, they ferment with native yeasts and age for about 18 months in barrel, some new, which adds to the decadent feel, their wines fall somewhere between Robert Chevillon and Meo-Camuzet in a polished, though extracted style. The 2014 Nuits-Saint-George 1er Cru Les Perrieres bursts from the glass which a stream of rose petals and crushed violets, loamy sweet earth, baking spices and black cherry fruit in a deep ruby hue, as well as tiny wild strawberries, briar notes, flinty mineral and some round creamy wood shading. While the Vougeot grabs you and stuns you with power and velvety length, this Les Perrieres seduces with class, mystery and intrigue, it is hauntingly beautiful with subtle depth and lingering with an array of black, blue and red fruits, raspberry, currant, plum and tangy blueberry along with hint of vanilla, blood orange tea and chalky saline. Refined tannin, vital acidity and density of fruit/body provide sound structure on this lovely terroir influenced effort, giving promise of age worthiness, which I suspect would be solid for midterm drinking, best from 2018 to 2025, but the best thing of all, is that this open knit and opulent red Burg can be enjoyed now! Though it should develop nicely in bottle, it can already give lots of pleasure and is a thrilling and impressive Pinot Noir, be sure to look for this Domaine!
($75 Est.) 94 Points, grapelive
