Jacques Frederic Mugnier

Created in 1863, this is a family estate run from the Château de Chambolle-Musigny. For years this was a miniscule four hectare Chambolle domaine, but since Frédéric Mugnier took back the family’s old Nuits St-Georges Monopole, Clos de la Maréchale, from Faiveley in 2004, the Domaine increased to 13 hectares. The aim is to produce wines that are each representative of their respective terroir and vintage, while at the same time having their individual character, wines of harmony and sincerity. This is achieved by eliminating weed-killers and industrial fertilisers in the vineyard; neither of these have been used for 10 years, whilst in the cellars all processes that traumatise the wine, over extraction, for example, or excessive woodiness, are limited to a minimum. To allow each terroir to express itself, the wine making is excatly the same for all of the wines. These are sensual, stylish Burgundies of great finesse.

2017 Vintage

Freddy Mugnier has never been prone to hyperbole, so he took us aback when heaping praise on 2017: “It is a balanced vintage, it was never too hot or too cold. I think they were the best grapes I have ever picked, there was no trace of rot or sunburn or anything on any of them!” I should point out that he did not say this before our tasting (ie it bore no influence on how we tasted) but rather in response to the J&B team’s loud hums of approval during the tasting. It was already clear the wines were spectacular. Freddy summed it up well “it is not acid vintage but it is a fresh vintage.” For tasting the wines, you get a real sense of how pristine, clear and fresh the fruit must have been. As well as being lively it is also a very Mugnier style vintage: Sensual, calming, elegant but assured and energetic. He has made some of 2017’s most magical wines.

2018 Vintage

Harvest began in Bonnes-Mares on the 28th August, the first time Freddie has ever picked in August. But he remarked that, despite high ripeness levels, acidity levels were good – a surprising trend he has noticed since 2015. Picking carried on through the 8th September in Clos de la Marechale in order to ripen the tannins there fully. The growing cycle in the Clos was delayed a little after hail in June and beginning of July, destroying 40% of the crop. Alcohols range between 14 and 14.5% but there is nevertheless good structure and freshness to the wines. Élévage on fine lees seems to have served the wines particularly well, gaining significantly in freshness and precision during their time in barrel. A range of wines of crunch, intensity, structure and complexity.

2019 Vintage

Frédéric Mugnier describes 2019 as “one of the most delicious vintages I have tasted young. They are so balanced. Ripe and full but not heavy, with great texture and soft tannins.” Indeed, quality is at a high level. Given the heat and drought there is such surprising elegance and roundness to the Maréchale. Frédéric puts the quality down to “the vines being comfortable. There is an old legend that says a vine has to suffer to make great wine. I don’t think that is true.” For although there were 40+ degree heat spikes in June and July, temperatures were actually less extreme during the rest of the summer months than in 2018 and, with a poor and late flowering, there was only a very small crop to ripen. The late flowering was crucial for another reason, too. This meant harvest was on the 12th September, so the grapes could ripen in the shorter days and cooler sun of September, a vital point for Pinot Noir in Frédéric’s opinion. An excellent but small vintage here.

2020 Vintage

2020 was a particularly small vintage here, similar in size to 2018 which was half a crop. An early harvest that began on the 26th August, 2020 has yielded a powerful vintage that offers up some extraordinary analyses. With 14% alcohols and particularly high acidities, Frédéric Mugnier has “never seen a balance like this before.” For this reason he thinks it should be a vintage for long ageing. The Marechale certainly looks designed for the long haul, a wine of brawn and depth.

2021 Vintage

Frédéric Mugnier loves this sort of vintage, considering it “an ideal late harvest. It was a vintage with normal problems. Twenty or thirty years ago the problem was to get ripe grapes and pick them before the rot came. The compromise was always between ripeness and rot. In those days, good work in the vineyard was by definition anything that could make the grapes ripen earlier and delay the onset of botrytis. Nowadays botrytis is a very marginal problem. It was marginal in 2021. The great thing about a late September harvest is that we often have sunny bright days, without heat, which means the grapes ripen comfortably. The vines are not stressed, and this is when their biochemistry works best. It allows the polyphenols to develop properly which produces refined, soft and delicate tannins.” This was a spellbinding range of wines Chez Mugnier, the majority of which will be released during the summer of 2023. Harvest started on the 22nd of September, everything was destemmed, and the wines will spend a customary second winter in barrels before being bottled in the spring.

2022 Vintage

Mugnier’s 2022s were majestic wines to taste from barrel – full of the promise of profundity in years to come. Having feared over ripeness at the start of August, Freddie was delighted with the light rains that fell before harvest, rains that helped to see the grapes to full maturity and without any hydric stress. Picking eventually started on the 1st September, with green foliage in the vineyards and good yields, of grapes if not of juice. With a characteristic shrug, Freddie remarked that “when you have a hot vintage, the important thing is to have good yields. The 2020s will be incredible in 50 years, but I won’t be able to enjoy them, and there won’t be many bottles left anyway!”

2023 Vintage

We had a stunning tasting chez Mugnier in November 2024. The entire range felt detailed, glowing, and fine, with hugely animated finishes and plenty of transparency to the flavours. It was a year where they took a huge team to the vineyard come harvest, sorting stringently, discarding bunches, so that only the most perfect fruit graced the sorting tables. They started on the 7th, and harvested over almost three weeks, stopping periodically to ensure perfect ripeness in each plot. Degrees are half a point lower than in 2022s, and the wines feel wonderfully controlled and fresh. “These are quite different from the 2021s, of course, but they similarly feel like a return to the good old days of Burgundy. They are more about length and depth, than scale and breadth” Francois Moriamez mused. While the whole range was standout, it is Clos de la Maréchale that gets released in this offer, and it is exemplary – an emblematic monopole from a reference point Domaine. Don’t miss it.