Maison Ambroise, Nuits Saint Georges 2021

Nuits Saint Georges is one of the most-loved and consistently revered wine producing villages in the world. Famed for elegant and complex Pinot Noirs, this village never fails to deliver wines that impress time and time again.

This is classy, timeless and delicious. A wine fit for a very fine table and the best of company, the Ambroise family reckon it is best with game or Epoisses. How could you argue with that?!

This is a wine that is made from vineyards in the south of the Nuits Saint Georges appellation on clay, limestone and silt -based soils. Hand harvested grapes are destemmed and fermented in vats before ageing in a combination of barrel types (50% new and 50% 1 year old) for 12 months or so. This gives a wine of huge quality. It is opulent and expressive, structured yet charming with ripe fruits, sweet berry notes and delicious seductive spices, that are especially present in its youth. This is delicious now; but if you can wait... notes of truffle and sous bois, the famed 'forest floor' aromas will develop and highlight this incredible, fine wine.

Maison Ambroise are a family run winery based just to the south of the town of Nuiits Saint George in the hamlet of Premeaux-Prissey (famed, with its neighbour Comblanchien, for incredible marble quarries). From here they farm on nearly 20 hectares in the immediate vicinity, to the northern part of Nuits Saint Georges and to the south, where they have vines in Corton Grand Cru. Now in the fifth generation, the family followed a very common path from municipal farmers of all sorts of food crops, to focussing on wine production more recently. The seriously cool thing about the Ambroise family though, is that they started making wine in the early 1940s - imagine pivoting to a wine business during Nazi occupation - some nerve! And all their wines are certified organic and their sustainable principles are unwaveringly maintained - sure, wh wouldn't they be, when the wines are this good?!

Nuits Saint Georges is the capital town of the Cotes de Nuits appellation, which is the northern half of the Cote d'Or, the heart of quality Burgundy. It typically gives wines that are elegant, complex and perfumed on account of the limestone sub-soil and marble-rich soils.

The 2021 vintage was mean and quite cool: the wines that did get made have a stunning nervy streak that is at once engaging and mouth-watering, while in the warmer sites, such as this, allowing for generous weight of fruit.

This example is, actually, incredibly good value for money.