Tasted in Chambolle-Musigny with Frédéric Mugnier, 31 August, 2021.
Domaine Jacques Frederic Mugnier
Rue de Vergy
21220 Chambolle-Musigny
Tel: +33 3 80 62 85 39
www.mugnier.fr
More reports for Domaine Mugnier.
Frédéric on 2020:
“2020 was hot early. In fact, everything was early, early, early – the harvest was excessively early – we actually finished harvesting in August. It scares me this type of climate change. I intend to move the business to Finland if the warming increases… It’s not just the warming but the fact that the warming is accelerating. It was a very dry vintage but with no weather ‘accidents’ or serious disease. We just had 2 days of heavy rain during the flowering which brought coulure and with it not a large volume. The wines are still on their lees with no racking so far. ”
Contemplating on how the approach in the vines has changed over recent years: “The approach in the vineyards have changed a lot in the last 20 or 40 years; we used to say 1 month’s work for 4 hectares but the best domaines now need 1 month for 1 ha, such is the extra precision we bring to the work – particularly in cooler vintages. I have some nostalgia for those thinner more fragile wines – ethereal and of emotion.”
The wines…
Always a pleasure to taste here and the domaine has really delivered with its 2020s – there are many spectacular wines.
All 2020s tasted from barrel:
2020 Chambolle-Musigny
From 2 parcels – Combe d’Orveaux and Plantes…
Here the nose still shows a little malo. Hmm, over the palate this has a depth of tannin – but not drying – a structural, very mouth-watering shape with slowly growing intensity. A little bitters in the finish, modestly intense finishing but still with a fine mineral length.
More vibrant and fresh – I said that last year too! Here there’s none of the malo impression. Ooh, thats direct, fresh, structural wine but with beautiful perfumed clarity of fruit. Vibrant, holding more weight in the finish. For many, many years, my personal sweet spot wine at this domaine!
Not as deeply aromatic as the Fuées today but with such an attractive width and very perfumed. Fuller, wider, this is a more structural wine. The finishing impression is of a modest dryness from the tannin but there’s no discernable grain. Super finishing.
This nose starts more mineral and tighter but here is a nose that evolves in the glass. Hmm – mineral and ultra-complex – deep, slightly structured -a nascent wine that’s still growing but what an impression it leaves. I’m sure that this will be great too – it so often is!
2014 is the current ‘commercial’ vintage here.
Quite a narrow nose today but pure and with a different style of perfume. The largest scale of all the wines here and yet still with the finest texture. Vibrant over the palate. Simply great finishing.
2020 Nuits St.Georges 1er Clos de la Marechale
No, we didn’t get any of the hail in 2020, it was close to the centre of Nuits.
Impressively deep colour. A tighter nose – no surprise – but there are pretty high tones. Completely different; full-bodied, full-flavoured. Faintly with bitters on the finish. Very impressive – simply excellent – and that’s after following the Musiugny!
2020 Nuits St.Georges 1er Clos de la Marechale Blanc
0.6 ha now in white in the Clos. The roots are 38-years-old, grafted to chardonnay in 2004-2007.
An almost straw-style nose with some sweetness and a faintly oxidative style at this stage of its elevage. Supple in the mouth, mineral too – very mineral. Here’s a wine that you could really age and Frederic underlines that by telling ‘Bottles from 1943 in the cellar, drunk around 2000, were in great shape, because of that it was interesting for me, even as a mainly red wine drinker, to plant a portion of the clos to white. The first vintage was 2005 for the white, 2004 for the red.‘
Just a few for the road:
2019 Chambolle-Musigny
Complex, fresh, slightly developed – the bottle open in the cellar a couple of days – but also highly inviting. Beautiful texture, concentrated too – really concentrated in the middle. Thats a village wine with so much more concentration than I’m expecting. The last drops in the glass are very attractively floral.
2019 Nuits St.Georges 1er Clos de la Marechale
Less depth of colour than in 2020. There’s a fine drive and direction to this nose. Structural, direct, layered even. This is also a wine of concentration. Slightly with bitters in the finish.
2018 Chambolle-Musigny
Floral above, aromatic depth below. Mouth-filling, indeed really mouth-filling. An impressive wine but one where you should show plenty of patience.
2018 Nuits St.Georges 1er Clos de la Marechale
Here’s a width of aroma, faint development again but hyper-attractive nonetheless. Intensity here; freshness, tannin still with some dryness. Waves of long-finishing flavour, not the same kevel of deliciousness as some of the Chambolles but engrossing wine.