Wine Review: Domaine David Duband Nuits-Saint-Georges 2019

Hello there. Today I'm taking a look at a classic red Burgundy, Nuits Saint-Georges. The producer here is somebody called David Dubond, the vintage 2019. And people seem to have been referring to David Dubond as a new rising star in Burgundy for quite a number of years now, so I think we're probably safe to say that actually he's arrived and is in fact a respected producer. David's estate is actually based in a place called It's called Chauvin, which is slightly off the beaten track in the Haut-Côte, didn't we? So the set of hills that sit to the north behind Côte de Nuits and the estate was established there back in 1963 by David's father Pierre. At that stage, they were simply selling wine to negociants for blending and bottling. They didn't release any wines under their own name. But in 1991, at a relatively young age, David took over the domaine and one of the first things that he did was to ensure that their wines were sold under their name. Since 1991, David has done an awful lot to expand and improve the domain, so For instance, he's moved towards organic growing. So in 2006, they were certified as organic for all their vineyards. They now have 17 hectares of vines and they make wines from 23 of Burgundy's most prestigious Appellations. And David's been helped in this by a financial backer, somebody called François Foyet. With François' help and financial assistance, in 2005 David was was able to buy most of the vineyards that had belonged to a prestigious domaine, Domaine Truchot-Martin. Its owner, Jacques Truchot-Martin, decided to retire. Domaine Truchot-Martin had a lot of very well-recognized Grand Cru sites and places like Maurice and Saint-Denis. David's approach, as well as being organic, is to To use natural yeasts where possible. to foot tread so quite a traditional approach he will leave quite a large proportion of whole bunches in his ferment he uses as lower sulfur treatments as possible in the winery And uses a relatively low proportion of new oak when aging his wines. So as I say for this wine the fruit is hand-picked. Somewhere in the region of 20% of the fruit was destemmed. The remaining 80% stayed as whole bunches into the fermenting vats. So what this did was it obviously introduces the flavors and the tannins that the stems of the grape will provide. But it means that the Berries were going in as whole berries. That slows up the fermentation because there's less grape sugar accessible to the yeasts at first. So as the fermentation goes on the berries will gently split and that feeds the fermentation to allow it to go on for a longer period. The stems also bring a certain amount of oxygen into the ferment with them and that helps to feed the ferment as well so you get quite a long regular fermentation in this situation. David will allow a 17-day cuvaison, during which period they reckon to do about somewhere between five and seven pigeages, so actually getting into the vat and foot treading the cap of skins that's formed back into the wine to improve extraction there. They'll also do a small number of pump overs as well, pumping juice of wine from the bottom of the vat and back over the top over the skins to extract flavour and tannin from those. Once the wine is pressed it goes into vat for two weeks of settling it's then put into barrel. Now what's used here are French oak barriques probably about 40% of which are new and the balance will be first, second or third fill. So these are 228 litre French oak barriques. The wine stays in barrel for 14 months so with its fine lees At the end of this period it's racked off into vat where it'll stay for a further three months just to unify prior to bottle. When the wines are bottled this is done so without any fining or filtration and that's with the idea of trying to preserve as much of the fruit's delicate aromas as possible into the bottle. So let's have a look at the wine shall we. Looking at it it seems like a dark ruby red but actually its depth is is nothing more than medium. I can see through it quite easily there. The wine has 12.8% alcohol, so not particularly high. Swirling it, it does actually quite readily form legs on the glass there, those tears running down, showing it's got a fair viscosity to it. So let's see what we'll make of the aroma, shall we? The aromas are a little bit restrained. You've got an underlying rich red plumy fruit, but then the contribution of the stems in there is to give a spiciness that overlays that. Perhaps there are developed, slightly earthy, slightly forest floor notes. And then there are notes of chocolatiness and coffee. Perhaps a touch of vanilla. Reasonably complex, but as I said, just a little bit. The fruit just seems a little restrained at the moment. So let's have a taste. Lovely ripeness to the fruit. There's good freshness. And then there's a real, and it is classic for New South Wales, a sort of an earthy texture. There's beautiful, lifted, perfumed, Red, red strawberry, red raspberry notes the fruit there on the attack, but under that there is this sort of very fine, I guess it's a touch of tannic grip, but as I say, this sort of quite pure earthiness with these delicate perfume fruits over the top. The wine is at best of mid-weight, there is a structure but it's very very fine. I mean the tannic structure on Pinot Noir can be incredibly fine and that's what we're seeing here, a really lovely elegant velvety smooth structure and the acidity is allowing that to be a lovely long finish. It's a very delicate, very refined, really quite sort of self-assured finish. You get the feeling that The wine is probably a touch brooding at the moment and will open out with a bit of time but it has a mellowness and a harmony it's very very attractive. The finish has that freshness, it's lovely and clean, it's enduring really well. There are some really clean red raspberries or red cherry fruits, they've got a concentrated note, they're juicy, they're lifted, they're quite pure. There's a slight chocolatey note from the sort of the mid-palate through to the through to the end of the finish that's very attractive indeed. I mean this is a wine that has effortless beauty. I would probably suggest that it's best consumed in three or four years time would almost certainly age for another eight to ten years. Probably wouldn't age much beyond that, to be honest, because it's light, it's delicate. I don't see it having sort of a concentration and a weightiness, particularly with sort of slightly lower alcohol at 12.8% for very long ageing. But I don't think it needs it because it's so harmonious and enjoyable to drink now. So thank you very much for watching. I hope you've enjoyed the tasting. If you have, do please press the like button. Do consider signing up and following us on YouTube. It would be fantastic to have your support. Any feedback you have for us, please leave that in the box below. We'd love to hear your comments about the wines, the tastings, or anything else related to that. Most importantly, however, do please try and join us for another tasting in the very near future, won't you? Thanks again. Bye for now.