Laurent Nuits Saint Georges Les Saint Georges 1996

This actually defied expectations. Acid nicely integrated, as was the oak. This was something of a throw back; old fashioned chunky Nuits; big and hefty, with no trace of elegance. It throttled the light first course, sweetbreads, but with the duck breast, it proved an edgy but much more satisfying match. The rusticity seemed to work with the meat; but I think it would have done better with a slightly more refined Burgundy which might have layered better rather than this one dimensional full throttled wine. Think of this as the Attila the Hun of the Cote D’Or.

Mark,
I´ve rarely had a Les St.Georges younger than 25 years that was really drinking well (except from barrels or a few months after bottling) … and here in addition vintage 1996 …

Nevertheless D.Laurents from the nineties can be really good - as was a Vosne-R. Les Rouges 1997 in June …

seems like a lot of Laurent wines have “eaten their oak” as they matured. He did himself no service long ago by boasting about “200%” new oak, kept a lot of us away from the wines.

The Echezeaux 1996 was excellent, but the best Laurent 996 I have tasted was the CDR. Alan is right they have absorbed the oak very well.

When did Laurent start the 200% new oak ? And what wines got the full treatment ?
I got some 99 Echezeaux, and Gevrey Ch. V.V. -Not tasted yet.

-Soren.

Nothing like a mature Chevillon!

Don’t agree with this. More like the oak ate/ruined the wines, whose squandered potential is still evident in many cases. Was the case for 1995 Clos de la Roche two weeks ago. Was the case for 95/96 Richmone.

These wines leave you wondering what could have been if elevage had been toned down.

'99s were a lot more balanced on release than '96s IMO. I had one recently that was not earth shattering but quite nice.

I could not disagree with this more. The 95s and 96s are mostly brilliant - I have had that 1995 CdlR, twice, and it’s an awesome wine and not overoaked. People see the label and taste the 200% oak regardless of what’s in the bottle. Nothing is more fun than comparing the notes on CT for Laurent wines against the sources for the wines.

Thanks for the helpful notes and comments!
I’ve been backfilling some of these, hoping they will come around. Any recent experience with his 96 Bonnes Mares (probably still too young?) or '02 Clos de la Roche?

His '96 Clos de Vougeot is superb.