Their colour is gold flecked with emerald, darkening towards yellow with age. Their bouquet evokes butter and warm croissants, bracken, dried fruit, spices and honey. Body and bouquet are not separately distinguishable, so closely blended are structure and harmony into a single perfect whole. Unctuous and firm, dry and caressing, enveloped and profound, these wines combine every virtue in a firmly-established personality.
Domaine de la Vougeraie, based in Premeaux just south of Nuits St Georges, was created in 1999 when Jean-Claude Boisset of the Boisset Group pulled together all of the various vineyard holdings which he had purchased over the years for his negociant business. The idea from the beginning was to create a no expenses spared domaine and Pascal Marchand - a native of Montreal who was the winemaker at Comte Armand at the time - was employed to not only make the wines but to oversee the conversion of Vougeraie's then 36ha to organic and then to biodynamic cultivation.
Marchand left in 2005 and Pierre Vincent's approach was to make less extracted and less oaky wines than his predecessor. While Vincent left in 2016 to join Domaine Leflaive, the winemaking team of François Lécaillon and general director Sylvie Poillot, have continued Vincent's gentler handling of the fruit while at the same time reducing the use of oak even more with only 25% new wood for the Grand Crus.
With 46 hectares of vineyard across 35 different appellations, including six grand crus (Musigny, Bonnes Mares, Clos Vougeot, Charmes Chambertin, Mazoyères, Corton, Corton Charlemagne, Bienvenues Batard, Batard Montrachet and Chevalier Montrachet) this important and large domaine keeps going from strength to strength.