Connoisseurs have long revered Domaine Robert Chevillon for the startling transparency of their wines, which express the terroir character of their Nuits-Saint-Georges climats with crystalline clarity. 

Today, Robert Chevillon’s sons Denis and Bertrand, who’ve run the domaine since 2000, draw on eight ideally situated premier crus, as well as several fine village lieux-dits, to fashion red Burgundies breathtaking in their balance and site expression, while offering superb aging potential. 

A Stunning Array

The Chevillon family can trace their history as petit vignerons in Nuits-Saint-Georges back at least five generations, working as a petits vignerons for the local negociants, while tending a few rows of their own vines.

It was Robert Chevillon who expanded the domaine from its mere 3 hectares at the time that he joined his father Maurice in 1968, to its current 13 hectares, spread across old vine holdings in Nuits-Saint-Georges’ finest terroirs.

Clearly, Robert was very selective in his acquisitions, all of the domaine’s sites, from the Bourgogne Rouge to the top premier crus are of outstanding quality, resulting in an uncommonly fine range of wines. 

They boast an unusually high proportion of old vines as well; the villages Nuits Vieilles Vignes is married from a number of sites, averaging fifty years of age, sourced from throughout the village. The Chevillon brothers tend two premiers crus of similar age on the north side of the village bordering Vosne-Romanée, Bousselots and Chaignots, each a seamless blend of Vosne elegance and perfume with Nuits’ earthy richness.

South of Nuits-Saint-Georges town is where the commune’s greatest terroirs are found, and the wealth of Chevillon’s holdings here is staggering, beginning with old vines in the fine sites of Roncières, Perrières and Pruliers, yielding classic Nuits-Saint-Georges: richly fruited and firmly structured. 

The Big Three

The range culminates in the cluster of three crus universally considered the village’s greatest, Cailles, Vaucrains and Les St. Georges. Not only does Chevillon have vines in all three, but very old ones, from 75 to 100 years of age. And the wines that Bertrand and Denis make from them are a tightrope-walk of power, fruit and elegance usually found only in Grands Crus.

The brother’s classic methods, learned from their father, express these great terroirs with startling clarity. The old vines naturally produce low yields of concentrated grapes, and Denis and Bertrand handle it simply: the fruit is destemmed, given a long, cool fermentation and maceration in stainless steel, and then racked, with the press wine, into barrel for aging, 20% new for the villages wines and 30% for the premier crus.

The results are some of the Côte de Nuits most thrillingly expressive wines, coveted by followers of true Burgundy for how faithfully they capture the characters of their terroirs.