2012 - Musigny Grand Cru, Jacques-Frederic Mugnier

The 2012 Musigny opens with the most exquisite, captivating aromatics imaginable. A seemingly eternal wine with no beginning and no end, the Musigny is a wine that calls for serious introspection as it constantly changes in the glass. Wild flowers of all sorts meld into exquisite, finely-sculpted fruit all with the support of silky tannins that only add to the wine's total sense of refinement. The finish is long, seamless and haunting. There isn't too much more to say, except that the Mugnier's 2012 Musigny is one of the wines of the year.

It is still far too early to be opening bottles of Mugnier's 2012 Musigny Vieilles Vignes Grand Cru, but when faced with a keenly priced bottle on a restaurant wine list, knowing that it will soon be drunk by another guest if it isn't by oneself, what is one to do? Unwinding in the glass with a profound but youthfully reserved bouquet of raspberries, cherries, rose petals and Egyptian musk, it's full-bodied, velvety and ineffably complete, with a bottomless core of cool, precise fruit, exquisite structural refinement and a long, penetrating finish.

Some vines planted in 1940s and others 1958-1963. Quite deep crimson. Pretty majestic nose. Dense and much more introvert than the Amoureuses. At the moment a bit angular and incommunicative. A little bit severe. (JR)