Wine Advisor
Comte Georges de Vogue, Chambolle Musigny 1er Cru 2013
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Description
Tasting notes
Reviewed by: Neal Martin
The 2013 Chambolle-Musigny 1er Cru, which comes from the under-25-year-old vines within Musigny as per usual, offers a more austere, more reserved bouquet vis-à-vis the Village Cru: much more stony and earthy in style, but still with ample freshness. The palate is linear and tensile: fine and supple tannins, a touch of soy tincturing the black fruit toward the finish. Overall, this represents a more masculine Chambolle Premier Cru that will repay several years in the cellar.
Reviewed by: Stephen Tanzer
Bright, dark red. High-pitched perfume of raspberry, orange zest, peony and white pepper. Tactile and sharply delineated, delivering terrific cut to its tart red berry and mineral flavors. Almost hard-edged in the early going owing to its inner-mouth tension and chewy tannins but plenty ripe (there's a lot of cassis and blackberry in 2013, noted Millet). Finishes tactile, powerful and long, with repeating peppery lift. I recently tasted a very youthful bottle of the 2002 version of this wine and this '13 will probably be even longer-lived; in fact, it may be beginning to shut down now.
Reviewed by: Stephen Tanzer
(from younger vines in Musigny, mostly 15 to 25 years of age): Bright dark red. Deeper on the nose than the village wine but still in a distinctly cool style, offering scents of bitter cherry, dark chocolate and pepper. A step up in sappiness and density, with black fruit flavors complicated by a licorice nuance. Finishes with dusty tannins and very good length.
Reviewed by: Neal Martin
The 2013 Chambolle-Musigny 1er Cru has a slightly earthier and more masculine bouquet than the Chambolle Village, here the fruit a tad darker with wet gravel scents filtering through. There is something a little opaque about the aromatics - mysterious even. The palate is clean and precise, linear in the mouth with well judged acidity, not a powerful wine but detailed and quite sophisticated. It needs another 4-5 years in bottle, but it will be worth the wait. This is a beautifully crafted wine.
Reviewed by: Stephen Tanzer
Bright, dark red. High-pitched perfume of raspberry, orange zest, peony and white pepper. Tactile and sharply delineated, delivering terrific cut to its tart red berry and mineral flavors. Almost hard-edged in the early going owing to its inner-mouth tension and chewy tannins but plenty ripe ("there's a lot of cassis and blackberry in 2013," noted Millet). Finishes tactile, powerful and long, with repeating peppery lift. I recently tasted a very youthful bottle of the 2002 version of this wine and this '13 will probably be even longer-lived; in fact, it may be beginning to shut down now.
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.
