Musigny (Grand cru) 7.25 hectares, Bonnes Mares (Grand cru) 2.66 ha,
Chambolle-Musigny 'Les Amoureuses' (Prem Cru) 60 ares, 'Baudes' and 'Fuees'
(Prem Cru) 1.8 ha, and small parcel of Village wine.
One of the finest of all domains in Burgundy and considered by many to
be the greatest in Chambolle-Musigny. The Musigny 'vieilles-vignes' is
the jewel in the crown but all their wines are much sought after by our
customers. All Musigny vines are at least 45 yrs old. Those that are younger
go into their Chambolle-Musigny 'Prem Cru' which is in itself a very good
wine.
The domaine has been much improved in the last decade by winemaker Francois
Millet, and with sales handled by Jean-Luc Pepin. All these activities
are based around a very beautiful Chateau and courtyard that date back
to the fifteenth century. Underneath lie the cellars. The wines express
the very essence of Chambolle-Musigny. Fine, fragrant, and aristocratic
wines created by perfectionists.
Musigny
The
Domaine Comte Georges de Vogüé is inextricably linked to the
Grand Cru vineyard of Musigny - in some eyes the pinnacle of pinot noir
- a wine that should be both complete and profound but never heavy: 'majesty
itself' claims Clive Coates. Until 1936 the vineyard was conveniently
(compared to some others) split into just two areas/climats, a narrow
east-west track splitting the climat of Le Musigny from the more southerly
and slightly smaller Les Petits-Musigny. In 1936 the Musigny AOC was extended
to cover an additional area of just over 0.61 ha in the adjacent 1er Cru
climat of Combe d'Orveau - these are the vines of Jacques Prieur whose
domaine successfully argued that wine from this plot had always been called
Musigny. De Vogüé have the monopoly of the climat Les Petits-Musigny
- though as Jean-Luc Pépin points out, it's not legally a monopole,
and more importantly, if bottled separately it would take away part of
the overall blend that they call Musigny Vieilles Vignes.
The only 'Tête de Cuvée' reported in Chambolle by Dr Lavalle
(1855), Musigny lies at an altitude between 260 and 300 metres, sitting
just above the Clos de Vougeot and Chambolle-Musigny Les Amoureuses. The
vineyard is relatively flat at it's junction with the road to the east
(at least in Les Musigny) but quickly rises with an incline of around
10° to it's western boundary. Below the soil is a mix of Bathonian
and Bajocian bedrock - limestone - this limestone is particularly hard
(unlike the limestone in de Vogüé's Bonnes-Mares) causing
many fissures as water freezes in it's cracks. Given the depth of the
local quarries this bedrock could be as deep as 200 metres. Walk up-slope
about one-third of the way into the vineyard and there is around 40cm
of soil covering the rocky base, walk another third in the same direction
and there is as little as 20cm of soil.
One suggestion for the origin of the vineyard's name comes from a Gallo-Roman
name - Musinus . Others suggest that it came from a prominent family by
the name of Musigny who was recorded as having lived in Burgundy at the
time of the Ducs of Burgundy. Anthony Hanson (Burgundy, revised 1999)
points to the earliest record of the vineyard dating from 1110 "when
the Canon of Saint-Denis de Vergy, Pierre Cros, gave his field of Musigné
to the monks of Citeaux". There is also cause for confusion; before
the French Revolution there was also a sub-climat within the Clos de Vougeot
called Les Petits Musigny - presumably the part now called Musigni - we
can only guess what the current 'Les Petits Musigny' was called at that
time...
