Wine Advisor
Mongeard Mugneret, Richebourg Grand Cru 1996
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Description
Tasting notes
Reviewed by: Pierre Rovani
This wine has a sheeny, medium-to-dark ruby color and candied red cherries, minerals, and perfumed flowers on the nose. This complex, velvety-textured (slightly pasty), full-bodied, and jammy wine is packed with super-sweet black cherries and raspberries intermingled with stones, fresh herbs, and Asian spices. It is focused and refined and it possesses an extremely long and fruit-dominated finish. Drink it between 2003 and 2008. This wine appeared a little strange to me when taken in the context of the vintage. In general, the vintage offers bright fruit, whereas at Domaine Mongeard-Mugneret, it was less vibrant, fatter perhaps, and ever-so-slightly pasty. Importer: Vineyard Brands, Birmingham, AL; tel (205) 980-8802.
About the Producer
The Mongeard family arrived in Vosne-Romanée in the eighteenth century, with records showing a Mongeard working as vigneron for Domaine de la Romanée-Conti in 1786. In 1945, Jean Mongeard, whose mother was a Mugneret, found himself making wine at the age of 16 in the place of his father who had died years earlier. The entire 1945 crop was purchased by Baron le Roy, Marquis d’Angerville, and Henri Gouges. Gouges instructed the young Mongeard to personally bottle the wines, rather than sell in barrel. In 1975, Vincent Mongeard, Jean’s son, began working alongside his father and became responsible for viticulture and vinification of the domaine’s wines. He persuaded his father to return to the traditional method of bottling, without filtration, filtering only with certain vintages. Jean Mongeard retired in 1995, and Vincent assumed complete leadership of the domaine. Today, Domaine Mongeard-Mugneret covers a total area of more than 75 acres, split among 35 appellations. The varied range of climats in which the Mongeards own vineyards results, naturally, in wines of great diversity.
