La Romanée, La Tâche, and Richebourg, vineyards hardly bigger than good-sized truck gardens, are of the same superlative class: the Richebourgs are traditionally a little fuller and the wines of La Tache (after which Christopher Morley once named a book) a shade richer than the Romanée-Contis, although neither ever quite achieves the same perfection. There are fully a score of “lesser” vineyards which produce wines that deserve to be the jewel of any private cellar and the joy of any winelover's heart.
***Romanée-Conti (5)
***La Romanée (2)
***La Tâche (15)
***Richebourg (20)
**Romanée St. Vivant (24)
**La Grande Rue (3)
**Les Gaudichots (14)
**Aux Malconsorts (15)
**Les Beaux Monts (7)
*Aux Brulées (10)
*Aux Reignots (3)
*Les Suchots (33)
Nuits-Saint-Georges. The pretty little metropolis of Nuits gave its name to all of the foregoing, for we have been dealing with the Côte de Nuits, the smaller and yet the greater half of the Côte d'Or. Nuits itself is the last major wine-producing town of its côte, and by no means the least.
An enthusiastic nuiton once informed me that the American expression “OK” (which he pronounce O-Ki) unquestionably was derive from the vineyard Aux Cailles, in Nuits, the wines of which, he assure me, were very much O-Ki. He was both right and wrong, for a number of the wines of Nuits (including Aux Cailles) are altogether admirable. Next to the Chambertins, they are about the fullest of Burgundies, harsh in their youth, slow to come round, and never, shall I say, so voluptuous as the Musigny and the Romanées.
The familiar pattern of wine names in Burgundy becomes a little confusing when it comes to Nuits. A “Côte de Nuits” is any wine, generally a rather poor one, from the Côte de Nuits, not necessarily from the town of Nuits at all. A “Nuits-Saint-Georges” is any wine, quite possibly a mediocre one, from the township of Nuits. A “Nuits-Saint-Georges, Les Saint Georges” is a wine from the township's most celebrated vineyard. All of the following vineyard names (and they include the best) are preceded on a label by the township appellation, Nuits-Saint-Georges:
**Les Saint-Georges (19)
**Les Cailles (Aux Cailles) (10)
**Les Porrets (17)
**Les Pruliers (11)
*Les Murgers (13)
*Aux Cras (7)
*Aux Boudots (16)
*Les Vaucrains (15)
Premeaux. Until the strict, modern geographical limitations were set up, the wines of Premeaux were generally sold as Nuits-Saint-Georges, which they resemble in character, but the best of which they rarely equal. The following are worth looking for:
*Clos de Forets (12)
Clos de la Maréchale (25)
Comblanchien. If wine, women, an song, as the Burgundians would have us believe, are the desiderata of life, Comblanchien's contribution has been rather in the field of song than wine. Its wines are very mediocre indeed, but its quarries supplied the stone out of which the Opéra was built in Paris.
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