1997 Nuits Saint-Georges Les Vaucrains 1er Cru

I arrived in a snowstorm at Ambroise's spacious new winemaking facility: tasting in this frigid cellar I wondered whether I'd be able to get my car back up the hill to the Route Nationale for my next appointment. These worries did not prevent me from appreciating the strong potential of Ambroise's '98s. Ambroise did a strict selection on a table de trie eliminating a good 20% of his fruit. The fruit got a cold soak lasting from four to as many as ten days (for the Corton) before the fermentations commenced. In '98, notes Ambroise, the fermentation temperatures did not exceed 32oC; the tenderness of the tannins in several of the '98s gives further evidence of the evolution of technique at this address. Ambroise describes his very rich '97s as less sophisticated wines, easily approachable for the mass market. (Robert Kacher Selections, Washington, D.C.)

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.)