Thibault Liger-Belair Nuits St Georges 1er Cru les St Georges 2014

Thibault Liger-Belair is a busy man, looking after his winery in the village of Nuits-Saint-Georges, expanding his vineyard holdings down in Beaujolais and of course, petitioning the INAO for an upgrade of the Les Saint Georges Premier Cru to Grand Cru status. Surely the appellation that gives the Côte de Nuits its name is befitting of just one Grand Cru? I ask Thibault how it is going. “Slowly,” he answers, the INAO having formed a committee whose first act was to insert more stipulations that in my opinion are misguided. For example, demanding that Les Saint Georges should sell for twice as much as any other Premier Cru. Is monetary value really a measure of terroir? If that is the case then the likes of Liger-Belair, Gouges, Faiveley and Chevillon need only produce a barrel of magnums and Bob’s your uncle. I am being a bit facetious here. Surely they should just conduct blind tastings over several vintages and if Les Saint Georges consistently trumps other Premier Crus, then promotion should be rubber-stamped. But hey, this is France and nobody does bureaucracy better.

Interview with Thibault

In the meantime, there are the 2014s to taste. I asked Thibault about the drosophila suzukii fruit fly and he was refreshingly candid in his reply. “Only some parts of Bourgogne Rouge and the Chambolle-Musigny Gruenchers were touched by fruit fly. That is one reason why I fully destemmed that vineyard, something that I don’t usually do. We went into the vineyard three times to sort. I had recently begun replanting fruit trees to enhance biodiversity, but now I am reconsidering that as they attract the fly. One solution might be bees. Researchers have found that there are no suzukii fruit fly populations close to hives.”

The domaine commenced picking on 13 September, making sure to pick the whole cluster fruit two times, with the best pickers selecting the whole bunches and a second team picking the remaining bunches. Thibault told me that he did less punching down in 2014, something that seems common in this vintage.

I asked him what he likes about the vintage. “I like that each wine shows the terroir, has its own identity,” he replies. “You know where they come from. There is plenty of energy and freshness in the 2014s.”