Dom. Henri Gouges
Les Saint Georges Premier Cru
Nuits-Saint-Georges
2009

The producer

The name Henri Gouges seems synonymous with Nuits-Saint-Georges. Inheriting vineyards after WWI Henri quickly expanded his holdings in the commune leaving a legacy that now encompasses 14.5ha, including the best portions of seven of the best Premier Crus. He was among the first to start bottling and selling his own wines in the 1930s, developing a reputation for consistently high-quality wines. Now the second and third generations are running the estate, which is farmed organically and with a new winery since 2007.

Traditional winemaking, with a measured use of new oak depending on vintage and the demands of each vineyard, results in some of the best wines of the appellation. Gouges has a hectare each of Les Saint-Georges and Les Vaucrains as well as the monopole Clos des Porrets-Saint-Georges - all strong land holdings for producing outstanding wines.

The wine

Henri Gouges is, with 1.08 hectares, one of the largest landowners in Les Saint-Georges premier cru – inarguably the finest vineyard in Nuits. The soil is brown clay with small pebbles, and the vineyard is known for producing the fullest and densest expression in the village.

We choose our wines based on a range of criteria (see how we choose our wines) of which critic scores is just one. Rather than simply highlight the best score to promote a wine, our average critic score is calculated from the scores provided by several respected wine critics, who we follow for specific regions. They do not represent all critic scores and, wherever possible, we try and give more weight to more recent reviews. Where appropriate we consider market-based scores like Global Wine Score or Wine Searcher Average scores.

As a rule, we look to offer wines that achieve a 92/100 average critic score or better and frankly a lot of very good wines simply don’t make the cut. As a high-end provider we want to reflect that positioning in the quality of wines we offer. Such wines are only a tiny fraction of those generally on offer in the market. We believe that an average score is a more conservative and representative approach, but it is still subjective and only offered as a guide to our customers, who will (and should) do their own research. We will add individual critic scores to our website in the future.