2012 Nuits Saint-Georges Les Murgers 1er Cru

I was deeply impressed with the wines I tasted with Cécile Tremblay this past year. From top to bottom the wines deliver superb quality and plenty of value to match. Tremblay gave the 2012 three weeks on the skins, with little or no punch downs and more pump overs in order to not extract too much. Many of the wines were vinified with some whole clusters, as described in the tasting notes. At the time of this tasting the 2012s had not been racked. Tremblay told me she would not touch the wines until March, with the possible exception of the Vosne-Romanée Vieilles Vignes and Les Beaumont, which were too reduced to taste.

Tremblay, who has moved her cellar from Gevrey-Chambertin to her new house next to the Castel de Tres Girard hotel-restaurant in Morey-Saint-Denis, relied totally on infusion in 2012 (and 2013), doing no pigeages and just two remontages per cuvee as the color was so easy to extract.None of the 2012s were chaptalized.The wines had not been racked at the time of my November visit, and Tremblay planned to rack them only in preparation for the bottling next spring.Tremblay vinified with a high percentage of whole clusters in 2012.The grape skins were riper than those of 2010, she explained, and there was a better balance between solid and liquid material in 2012.In 2010, she destemmed all of her fruit.