Robert Chevillon

Domaine Robert Chevillon is based in Nuits-Saint-Georges. The family has worked vines in the commune since Symphorien Chevillon at the turn of the twentieth century; his son Eugène-François added premier cru parcels after the First World War, and Robert Chevillon, born in 1937, built the estate into its present shape. His sons Denis and Bertrand formed a company with him in 1990 and have run the domaine since his retirement in 2003. Just under thirteen hectares, all of them within Nuits-Saint-Georges, are given over to an unusually complete set of the commune's premiers crus, a good deal of it very old vines.

The domaine holds eight premiers crus, and they divide by geography. From the northern end, against the Vosne-Romanée boundary, come Les Bousselots and Les Chaignots, the more aromatic, finer-boned side of the commune. From the southern group, towards Prémeaux, come Les Roncières, Les Pruliers and Les Perrières, and then Les Cailles, perfumed and supple; Les Vaucrains, directly upslope on thinner, stonier ground and the firmest wine in the cellar; and Les Saint-Georges, the historic climat at the southern edge of the commune, the subject of a long-standing application for promotion to grand cru. Beneath them sits the village Nuits-Saint-Georges Vieilles Vignes.

The vines in Les Cailles, Les Vaucrains and Les Saint-Georges date from the 1920s, with some parcels of Vaucrains now past a hundred years. The vineyards are worked under lutte raisonnée, with plant-protection treatments kept down and manual work favoured; the estate holds no organic or biodynamic certification. Pruning is Guyot, yields are controlled by green harvest, and the fruit is picked and sorted by hand. In the cellar the grapes are fully destemmed, given a cold maceration, fermented on native yeast, then raised fifteen to eighteen months in barrel with around thirty per cent new oak and bottled by gravity. The wines are savoury and firmly framed in youth: dark cherry, iron, liquorice and gravel, slow to open. Arcana Cabinet lists eight wines from the domaine: the premiers crus Les Bousselots, Les Chaignots, Les Roncières, Les Perrières, Les Cailles, Les Vaucrains and Les Saint-Georges, and the village Nuits-Saint-Georges Vieilles Vignes. The range also includes the premier cru Les Pruliers.