The 2017 Domaine Chevillon Vaucrains is deep, pure and supremely elegant out of the blocks this year, with the nose offering up a gorgeous aromatic blend of black cherries, pomegranate, dark chocolate, gamebird, woodsmoke, complex soil tones, a hint of nutskin and a bit of cedary new oak. On the palate the wine is very pure, full-bodied and the most reserved wine in the cellars today, with a rock solid core of fruit, exceptional transparency, ripe, perfectly integrated tannins and superb focus and grip on the very, very long and promising finish. The wine turns nicely sappy on the backend and shows off some of its future greatness.

Les Vaucrains is marked by its proximity to the combe at the southern end of Nuits-St-Georges, which gives the wine an added lift of freshness. Like Les St-Georges which abuts it, this is quite a firm, shuttered wine with an overlay of 30% new wood, good concentration, fine tannins and enough backbone and acidity to age.

(93-95) As usual, the 2017 Nuits-Saint-Georges 1er Cru Les Vaucrains is the most structured, tight-knit wine in the Chevillon cellar, unwinding in the glass with aromas of cassis, dark chocolate and rich soil, framed by smoky new oak. On the palate, the wine is full-bodied, richly tannic and concentrated, with imposingly broad shouldered structure and a deep, reserved core. Again, patience will be required and rewarded. - WK

(92-94) Relatively generous wood fights a bit with the otherwise cool and pure aromas of extract of cassis, plum, humus, earth and suggestions of the sauvage. As is usually the case chez Chevillon, this is a very powerful wine with imposing size and weight with fine mid-palate density thanks to the abundant dry extract that also helps to buffer the very firm tannic spine that really emerges on the beautifully long finale.

The 2017 Nuits Saint-Georges Les Vaucrains 1er Cru has a fresh, tertiary nose with perhaps just a touch of brettanomyces, though it opens nicely with aeration, a pleasant ferrous element coming through. The palate is medium-bodied, taut and fresh, with sappy red berry fruit, fine delineation and a prudent sprinkling of white pepper toward the finish. This is a well-crafted Nuits Saint-Georges with plenty of personality. Tasted blind at the Burgfest 2017 tasting. -- Neal Martin