2008 Vosne-Romanée Village

This is an impressive set of wines from sisters Marie-Andrée and Marie-Christine Mugneret. I can't think of too many estates that did so well in both 2008 and 2009. Beginning with The 2009 vintage, the estate has simplified their name to Domaine Georges Mugneret-Gibourg, which should eliminate some of the confusion of past years. The 2009 harvest began on September 12. The fruit was 100% destemmed. Marie-Andrée 81 Mugneret told me she was concerned about over-extracting given the inherent richness in the fruit, so she opted for a gentle approach to vinification. Cuvaison ranged from 15-20 days. After pressing the wines were moved into oak, where they saw one racking just after the malos. New oak ranged from 10% for the Bourgogne, 25% for the Vosne-Romanée, 40% for the Chaignots, 45% for the Feusselottes and 70% for the grand crus, from four different coopers. During the time of my visit the wines were being moved into steel, where they would remain for three months prior to bottling. Mugneret planned to bottle with no fining or filtration. Readers should also pay attention to the estate's 2008s, which are simply brilliant. The 2008 harvest started on the 22nd of September. Some of the malos took as long as a year to finish.

"It was tricky to do a selection in the rush of the early 2007 harvest, as there was little time to work in the vines," said Marie-Andree Mugneret. "But in 2008 we carried out a green harvest and a pre-harvest pass through the vines to eliminate rotten grapes and those that were underripe or drying out." The 2008 fermentations started slowly, as ambient temperatures were quite cool, but picked up steam quickly and reached a tumultuous 34oC, which facilitated the extraction of color. The wines of this estate are always on the low side in pH and have a track record for aging, but pHs in 2008 were especially low: in the 3.3 to 3.4 range. These precise, gripping wines will require considerable patience. The Mugneret sisters assembled my '08 samples by combining juice from two barrels with different malolactic end dates, one recent and not yet sulfited. (A Peter Vezan selection, imported by North Berkeley Imports, Berkeley, CA; Michael Skurnik Wines, Syosset, NY; Ideal Wine & Spirits, Medford, MA; and The Stacole Company, Boca Raton, FL)