Musigny

Marea
Tasted Wednesday, May 11, 2011 by Keith Levenberg with 895 views

Flight 1 (1 Note)

  • 1973 J. Lassalle Champagne Premier Cru Blanc de Blancs Brut 97 Points

    France, Champagne, Champagne Premier Cru

    Loaded with personality, starting with a deep aroma that keeps drawing your nose back to the glass. One of the more annoying tasting-note clichés is "explosive in the mouth" but it still seems apropos here: the wine comes across sharp and piercing on the entry and then BOOM, it bursts with all kinds of flavors ranging from roasted coffee grounds to something vaguely reminiscent of freshly turned soil, if you could imagine that tasting as attractive as it smells, which it probably doesn't, and of course the rich, golden fruit. The effervescence is still vigorous here which contributes to its sense of precision.

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Flight 2 (3 Notes)

  • 2008 Domaine Comte Georges de Vogüé Bourgogne Blanc 90 Points

    France, Burgundy, Bourgogne Blanc

    Clean lemony scent and not showing any oak that I could pick up on, with a similar sense of purity on the palate. This is generous while still having an inner tautness which prevents it from being too easygoing. But Leo said it best when he remarked that you can get more or less the same experience out of a Pouilly-Fuissé. It's hard to disagree. Knowing that this comes from Musigny, and that it costs north of $150+, really makes you question the point of this wine.

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  • 2002 Domaine Comte Georges de Vogüé Bourgogne Blanc 90 Points

    France, Burgundy, Bourgogne Blanc

    Interesting to compare to the 2008, as this is still very fresh and not much more advanced. It's muter on the nose with a more enveloping, pillowy mouthfeel which also shows a touch of wood. Otherwise fairly similar.

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  • 1982 Domaine Comte Georges de Vogüé Musigny Blanc 87 Points

    France, Burgundy, Côte de Nuits, Musigny Grand Cru

    Golden Sauternes-like color with a pungent scent of soil and mossy earth. I can't say this has any freshness left to it and certainly tastes its age or a bit more, but it's not maderized or falling apart. The fruit, or what's left of it, is sort of peachy, or maybe more like a dull patina of peachy, with a candy-corn thing that kind of grows on me. I think some people had this as a dump-bucket wine but it actually managed to hold my interest for a full glass.

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Flight 3 (2 Notes)

  • 1961 Maison Jules Régnier Musigny 92 Points

    France, Burgundy, Côte de Nuits, Musigny Grand Cru

    Nice scent. Starts out earthy and rusty and gets seriously herbal as it sits in the glass, leafy and spearminty. This still has a deep red color to it and there is some speculation that this is not exactly 100% Burgundy. There is something to the taste and something syrupy to the texture that has me thinking some grenache made its way into these barrels. Still, interesting wine and holding up astonishingly well considering its age and the fact that I've never even heard of the producer.

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  • 1969 Chanson Père & Fils Musigny

    France, Burgundy, Côte de Nuits, Musigny Grand Cru

    Maderized. D.O.A.

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Flight 4 (3 Notes)

  • 1999 Jacques-Frédéric Mugnier Musigny 94 Points

    France, Burgundy, Côte de Nuits, Musigny Grand Cru

    Similar in texture to the 1996 but a little sharper at first, smoothing out nicely as it sits in the glass. In fact there wasn't a hell of a lot of difference between the two of them other than the 1996 having had more time to develop some aromatic depth, nicely confounding theories about the precise date Mugnier's wines acquired superstar status. While this might have had just slightly more fruit concentration, both this and the 1996 had an airy presence that could perhaps strike someone used to bolder wines as hollow, but to me the elegance is captivating.

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  • 1996 Jacques-Frédéric Mugnier Musigny 95 Points

    France, Burgundy, Côte de Nuits, Musigny Grand Cru

    One of my favorites of the evening. The aroma has everything, including a pleasantly old-fashioned barnyardy thing, although it does close up some as it sits in the glass. It's light and airy on the palate -- not sure I would even call this medium-bodied in concentration -- and still has a lot of tannin to it, but the tannin is so finely grained and cashmere-textured that it enhances the wine instead of obscuring it. There is a very slight cola/burnt-sugar note from the barrels but it's practically a whisper at this point.

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  • 1985 Jacques-Frédéric Mugnier Musigny Flawed

    France, Burgundy, Côte de Nuits, Musigny Grand Cru

    Corked.

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Flight 5 (2 Notes)

  • 1993 Louis Jadot Musigny 96 Points

    France, Burgundy, Côte de Nuits, Musigny Grand Cru

    This doesn't actually taste any older than the preceeding wines as it still shows fairly young, but there is a whole lot more going on aromatically, just a symphony of scents at first which eventually tone themselves down as it closes up a bit in the glass. This has absolutely none of the hardness, sharpness, or spikiness that is present in a lot of 1993s, it is totally svelte and round and beautifully knit together.

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  • 1998 Louis Jadot Musigny 92 Points

    France, Burgundy, Côte de Nuits, Musigny Grand Cru

    Smoky scent, perhaps a little ashy, which may be the source of the controversy over whether this has some cork taint, but I didn't detect even a trace of it and had no problem finishing my glass. It's initially a bit firm but becomes more open-knit with time in the glass. While this seemed to have slightly more fruit concentration than the Mugniers, otherwise this and the 1993 seemed a fairly seamless progression; somewhere around this point I remarked that these were all put together pretty much exactly the same and if we had been drinking them blind you would be hard-pressed to figure out where the divider from one producer to another was. Musigny is Musigny. The next pair did nothing to undermine that idea.

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Flight 6 (3 Notes)

  • 2001 Joseph Drouhin Musigny 95 Points

    France, Burgundy, Côte de Nuits, Musigny Grand Cru

    Next to the 1993 Jadot this was the most aromatically enticing of the reds, opening with a bona fide pungency to the aroma which is deep and animale and only rivaled in complexity by the 1993. It seemed from the scent that it was going to be vastly richer in body but it was only slightly so, continuing the theme of pamperingly soft textures that at least today were all velvet glove, hardly any iron fist.

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  • 2002 Joseph Drouhin Musigny 90 Points

    France, Burgundy, Côte de Nuits, Musigny Grand Cru

    Seems to have started to close up in comparison to my last bottle of this, with the aromas fairly mute at first but with some herbal scents eventually emerging. Likewise it initially seemed drier and less giving than the 2001 but it did flesh out enough to close some of the gap.

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  • 2002 Domaine de la Vougeraie Musigny 84 Points

    France, Burgundy, Côte de Nuits, Musigny Grand Cru

    Here endeth the stylistic continuity among Mugnier, Jadot, & Drouhin as the fruit here had a syrupy intensity and an unnecessary sweetness. It managed to do that without seeming excessively fat so I still don't think anyone would confuse it for, say, a California pinot, but it wasn't especially compelling either and was certainly a waste of the terroir.

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