Domaine Henri Gouges

Gouges family has been an institution in Nuits-Saint-Georges for more than 90 years.

Today Grégory and his cousin Antoine who take over this area of 15 hectares ideally maintained, and new installations, where gravity is now required and where quality should still cross a step, always with the same family motto that serves as a guideline for each generation : "It is to the vine that the great wines ripen ...".

GRÉGORY GOUGES

PIERRE GOUGES

ANTOINE GOUGES

CHRISTIAN GOUGES

The estate's white wines come from a vine of pinot noir with white berries developed in the 1930s by Henri Gouges, the founder of the estate. This grape variety is listed officially under the name of "pinot gouges".

Henri Gouges (1889-1967)

Since it was founded in 1925, Domaine Henri Gouges made very classic Nuits-St-Georges wines, which respect its various terroirs. Henri strongly believed in low yield, and was obsessed controlling the yields. He envisioned a better quality wine, and by 1933, he was producing, bottling, and selling directly. He, along with the Marquis d’Angerville from Volnay, was at the forefront of battles against fraud in Burgundy in the 1920s. This philosophy was passed to the current generation running the domaine, and Domaine Henri Gouges is ever since famous for making consistently great wines as well for its innovations.

These days, the domaine is run by Henri’s grandchildren Pierre and Christian, and Pierre’s son Gregory who is mainly in charge of the wine making.

Since 2008 the domaine is treated exclusively organic, and since 2007 a new modern cuverie was in use.
The main focus is the better reflection of the terroir in the fruit through organic viticulture. They believe that healthy vines produce quality fruit and thus more expressive terroir-driven wines.

The wine making is traditional for top Burgundy classics: There is severe sorting before complete desteming of the bunches. After relatively long cold maceration, fermentation takes place with the natural yeasts only, in low temperature (max 29 degrees centigrade).

After the fermentation finishes, the wines are kept in the tanks in 28 degrees for additional 9-10 days in order to extract more color and tannins. Next the wines are being transferred to oak barrels, 15-20% of them are new. The wines are racked after the malolactic fermentation the following spring to summer, and the different cuvees are separately mixed in vats to ensure homogeneous wines. The wines then return to barrels where they stay till bottling - normally 18 months after the vintage.

The 1er crus include some of the very best vineyards in Nuits-St-Georges, namely Les Chaignots, Chene Carteau, Les Pruliers, the monopole vineyard of Clos des Porrets-st-Georges, and full hectare of each of the appellation’s most famous vineyards - Les Vaucrains and Les Saint Georges.
This great domaine is one of the very finest the whole Côte d’Or!

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