Wine Advisor
Comte Georges de Vogue, Bonnes Mares Grand Cru 1999
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Description
Tasting notes
Reviewed by: Pierre Rovani
The ruby-colored 1999 Bonnes Mares has a nose of sweet berries, cherries, and earth. Light to medium-bodied, yet fat, supple, and smooth, it offers blueberries and blackberries in its restrained flavor profile. Anticipated maturity: 2003-2008. Importer: Dreyfus Ashby, New York, NY; tel. (212) 818-0770.
Reviewed by: Neal Martin
The Bonnes-Mares Grand Cru 1999 has a quite exuberant bouquet that is very floral, like somebody shoving a bouquet of freshly picked violets under your nostrils. Looking further, one finds shaved black truffles and blackcurrant pastilles, aromatics that gain confidence and chutzpah with time. The palate is medium-bodied with black cherries and hints of tobacco. This is firm and quite rigid like many 1999s, impressive more than giving at the moment, a Bonnes-Mares that clearly requires another decade in bottle to show what it is capable of.
About the Producer
Domaine Comte Georges de Vogue is one of the most important estates in the Chambello-Musigny appellation, thanks to its stake in important vineyards. The Comte de Vogue is, as the English writer Charles Dickens once said, "as historic and admirable as a great mountain". The vineyard of the Comte de Vugo covers approximately 12.5 hectares, of which about 7 hectares are located in the Mussini vineyard (70% of the entire top vineyard) and about 2.5 hectares in the nearby Bernemar region. The grapes are all hand-harvested and the vast majority are destemmed (although in 1990 100% of the stems were retained). The wines are first fermented in vats, then aged for 18 months in small oak barrels (40% to 45% renewed), clarified with egg whites and lightly filtered before bottling. The wines are extremely intense and full-bodied, which is not surprising given the extremely low yields and the limestone soils of the Mussini vineyards. The wines of the Comtes de Vugo are not meant to be tasted young, and in outstanding vintages these very long-lived wines usually require 10 to 15 years of ageing. However, it is worth noting that the 2002 vintage of Musigny Old Vine is of particularly high quality. It has intense aromas of red cherry, spice and candied raspberry aromas, with a hint of oak. This noble, full-bodied, refined wine has fragrant floral flavours with fruity notes of red and black fruits. A more feminine wine than the bold, chewy, highly robust 1990 vintage, this is a work of art with delicate tannins.
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Package Size
1 x 75cl12 x 75cl
