“It is in the vineyards that the Great Wines ripen”
Gregory & Antoine Georges - Winemakers, Domaine Henri Gouges
After founding the Domaine in 1920, Henri Gouges was among the first wine growers to bottle his own wines. It has remained a family property until the latest generation Gregory and Antoine Gouges. Located exclusively in Nuits Saint Georges, they have grown to 14 hectares of vineyards. The creation of Domaine Henri Gouges was the culmination of 400 years of family grape farmers. Henri formed the Domaine in 1920 but was soon discouraged with the idea of selling the fruit to négociants. He envisioned a better-quality wine from his new Domaine, and by 1933 was producing, bottling and selling directly. It has remained an undivided family property as the transition continued from Henri to his sons Marcel and Michel, to the next generation of Pierre and Christian who have recently turned it over to Gregory and Antoine Gouges.
4 GENERATIONS OF EXCEPTIONAL WINEMAKING
SituatedatNuits Saint Georges, the estate has grown to 36 acres of vineyards and a modern gravity flow winemaking facility where they produce Bourgogne, Village and Premier Cru wines. The wine making is traditional for top Burgundy classics: Severe sorting before complete destemming of the bunches. After relatively long cold maceration, fermentation takes place with the natural yeasts only, in low temperature (max 29 degrees centigrade). After the fermentation finishes, the wines are kept in the tanks in 28 degrees for additional 9-10 days in order to extract more colour and tannins. Next the wines are being transferred to oak barrels, 15-20% of them are new. The wines are racked after the malolactic fermentation the following spring to summer, and the different cuvees are separately mixed in vats to ensure homogeneous wines. The wines then return to barrels where they stay till bottling – normally 18 months after the vintage.
“Experts of the Pinot Noir, our estate exploits 14 hectares of vines, exclusively in NuitsSaint Georges. The fair, straight, intense, steady, and vertical wines that we provide are what made the reputation of our estate.”
