2005 Nuits St Georges Les Chaignots

Cask sample. Dark with pale rim. Rather exotic, spicy oak. Lots of sweetness and perfume. Quite racy and with a bit of oak in evidence but the fruit still dominates. Very confident. (JR)

From barrel, the Mugnerets’ 2005 Nuits-St.-Georges Les Chaignots continues a line of recent successes from this site (including the 2004, from the year in which they took back complete control from tenants). Fresh blackberry with subtle hints of vanilla and chalk dust on the nose lead to a palate nicely counterposing creaminess of texture with infectious juiciness and a tart berry edge. The wine finishes with polish and refinement, its pure black fruit tinged with spices and citrus zest and underlain by nut oils and wet stone. The Mugneret sisters (I take the liberty of heading this report with what is about to become their official, unified domaine name) have rendered a 2005 collection illustrating the chiseled-precision, complexity, refinement and restraint for which their wines are famous. They were still trying to coax their Bourgogne through malo at the time of my visit incidentally, and it was too gaseous to properly assess (although it showed very promisingly pre-malo). A Peter Vezan Selection (various importers), Paris; fax 011 33 1 42 55 42 93.

Deep red-ruby. Crunchy red and black fruits dominate the nose. Sweet, lush and creamy in the mouth, but with lovely ripe acidity giving shape to the wine's fruit. The tannins and acids are rather pronounced on the back, giving this brisk wine a youthfully spiky impression. This, too, shows some obvious wood tannins. A sample from an older barrel was more floral and aromatic and less oaky but still seemed a bit disjointed.