Wine Advisor
Jacques Prieur, Musigny Grand Cru 2011
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Description
Tasting notes
Reviewed by: Stephen Tanzer
Bright, dark red. Reticent but pure aromas of black fruits, licorice and wild herbs. Offers classic Musigny silkiness of texture, with a dense, highly concentrated flavor of sweet raspberry accented by flowers and noble herbs. Finishes with serious, ripe tannins and terrific persistence. An infant today, this wine should take on pepper and peony qualities with five or six years of bottle aging.
Reviewed by: Stephen Tanzer
(picked on September 5 with 12.3% potential alcohol): Good bright, full red. Subtly complex nose offers raspberry, minerals, fresh herbs, flowers, vanilla and sexy oak spices. Rich, pliant and fine-grained, with lovely lift and elegance to the intense fruit and floral flavors. In a distinctly delicate, airy style. The suave, savory finish displays insidious palate-staining persistence. This will go violety with time in bottle.
Reviewed by: Neal Martin
Tasted blind at the Burgundy 2011 horizontal tasting in Beaune. The Musigny 2011 from Jacques Prieur displays more red fruit on the nose compared the blue fruit found elsewhere in this flight of blind Chambolle Amoureuses and Musigny 2011s. It is beautifully defined, perhaps a touch earthier than its peers, with a slight meatiness developing in the glass, subsequently wild heather and broom. The palate is medium-bodied with supple ripe, quite toasty tannins. There is impressive depth here, although it does not quite possess tip-top finesse and delineation on the finish. Still, this is very fine and here, under blind condition, out-maneuvered some of the more revered names.
About the Producer
HISTORY Domaine Jacques Prieur's mythical story started on February 24th, 1868, with the wedding, in Bligny-les-Beaune, of Claude Duvergey (22 years old) and Marie Taboureau (19 years old). Marie was born in Bligny in 1848 and Claude in Meursault in 1845. Their parents were winegrowers. Claude founded the Duvergey-Taboureau House and thrived in the wine and spirit trade, without investing directly, at first, in viticulture. In 1879, he acquired the property of "Les Herbeux" in Meursault, current heart of Domaine Jacques Prieur... and started buying vineyards. He then made a risky bet with the arrival of the terrible phylloxera in Côte d'Or. However, his choices would finally make him a visionary thanks to the use of American plants as cure. In 1889 he acquired the famous Clos de Mazeray Monopole (Meursault), a parcel of Volnay Santenots, 4.5 ha (11 ac) of Clos Vougeot and 2 lots in Chambolle-Musigny. In 1890 he became the sole owner of the prestigious Clos des Santenots in Volnay, 1.5 ha (3.7 ac) of Puligny-Montrachet Les Combettes and 0.45 ha (1.1 ac) of the mythical Montrachet (notably supplemented by the "Dent de Chien" parcels in 1891 and 1892). He then ran his trade business in the Château de Bligny bought in 1890 for his wife. Without any direct heir, both spouses would turn to the Taboureau family side. Thus they married in 1891 Hélène Taboureau (Marie's niece) and a well-born young man from Beaune, Henri Prieur (itinerant salesman). They benefited from a very advantageous marriage contract including some goods but especially the promise of a profit-sharing in the Duvergey-Taboureau's trade. Jacques Prieur was born on January 31st, 1893, from the union of Hélène and Henri. The estate kept growing in 1895 with a new acquisition in Musigny and a swap between a plot of Clos Vougeot and parcels of Chambertin and Chambertin Clos-de-Bèze. In 1899, Claude Duvergey added Volnay Champans to its collection and in 1907, Chevalier-Montrachet. He died on March 9th, 1920, and bequeathed all of his property to Jacques Prieur (his wife remaining stakeholder). Soon after, the latter married Madeleine Darnat, daughter of sheets merchants from Lyon. In 1924, Jacques Prieur and comte Jules Lafon instituted the famous "Paulée de Meursault" in order to celebrate the end of harvests with all winegrowers from the village. Marie Duvergey-Taboureau died in 1935 and definitely left the estate to Jacques Prieur. Co-founder of the legendary Chevaliers du Tastevin, he gave his name to the estate in 1956. He died in 1965 and his wife in 1974, leaving the winery to their 6 children. In 1988, in order to avoid selling the winery to foreign shareholders, 5 important French families united, among them Labruyère Family, winegrowers and entrepreneurs from South Burgundy. In the 1990s the Grands Crus of Corton-Bressandes and Corton-Charlemagne would enrich the mosaic of terroirs of the estate. Today leading this jewel of Burgundy, Labruyère Family, supported by Prieur Family's heirs, promotes and defends, every single day, the great terroirs of Burgundy, worldwide
