Aromatically demure reluctantly revealing a sweet black mass the dense hugely concentrated 2002 Nuits-St.-Georges Les Pruliers is a big bold masculine wine. Licorice asphalt candied blackberries and cherries can be detected in this medium to full-bodied behemoth’s personality. Possessing broad shoulders awesome length and exquisitely ripened tannin this is a candidate for drinking between 2008 and 2020.

91+ The 2002 Pruliers from the Gouges family is a lovely wine, but at our tasting, where it followed hard on the heels of the stunning 2005 version, it is easy to see that this vintage simply does not have quite the same signature of soil of the very top recent years in the Côte. The bouquet is deep and still fairly reserved in personality, but offers up a very pure blend of dark berries, cassis, espresso, bonfire, gamebirds and a dollop of dark soil tones. On the palate the wine is deep, full-bodied and rock solid at the core, with firm tannins, fine focus and grip and a long, ripely tannic and youthful finish. This is very much of the more sturdily structured era at Domaine Gouges, prior to the new cuverie being finished in 2007, and the wine consequently is still several years away from starting to blossom. But, it will be very good in due course, and in the context of the more fruit-driven personality of so many 2002s, this is a wine that really shows quite a bit of terroir for the year- but, of course, that is why we love Domaine Gouges!