1996 Nuits Saint-Georges En Rue de Chaux 1er Cru

As I noted last year, Ambroise's style continues to evolve in the direction of more graceful wines, but they are still more burly than most. In addition to cutting pigeage (punching down of the cap), to once per day to extract less tannin, Ambroise has reduced the temperature of his fermentations in an attempt to retain fresher fruit aromas. Ambroise described his '97 crop level as "almost a commercial disaster": spring frost resulted in a loss of 40% of normal volume. Regarding style, he describes his '97s as "tender enough but with corpulence, not diluted or dry." Ambroise planned to finish the construction of a new cuverie in time for the 1999 harvest. (Robert Kacher Selections, Washington, D.C.)

Ambroise is among a relative handful of Cote d'Or growers who consider 1996 a great vintage. "Like 1990, but with better balance, better acidity," he says. As I reported last year, Ambroise has improved the balance of his wines in recent years by discontinuing his practice of saignee and instead cropping for lower yields and using a sorting table to eliminate inferior grapes. And extraction is less exaggerated today: with the '95 vintage, he reduced pigeage to just a single punching down of the cap per day. Ambroise carried out an extended cold maceration of 7-10 days in '96, but says that the tannins are elevated because of his relatively low yields. Still, he adds, the tannins are silkier than those of '95. These '96s were extremely primary and fresh in November, and a couple of them had not yet finished their secondary fermentations. (Robert Kacher Selections, Washington, D.C.)