2018 Jacques-Frederic Mugnier, Musigny Grand Cru

The 2018 Musigny Vieilles Vignes Grand Cru has a wonderful bouquet, brambly red fruit, sous-bois , just faint touches of iodine. The oak is seamlessly integrated and there is deeply impressive delineation considering the vintage. The palate is medium-bodied and very cohesive, a discrete whole bunch character lending peppery notes that become quite prominent on the mid-palate. Saline and full of character, it melds together beautifully in the glass, the imprimatur of the growing season just molding the finish more than the terroir, yet there is always a spine of mineralité that keeps drawing you back. Tasted blind at the Burgfest 2018 red tasting.

For reports and full tasting notes, go toTim Atkin MW's website.

The 2018 Musigny Grand Cru Vieilles Vignes is, as usual, the most backward and reserved wine in the Mugnier cellar, unfurling in the glass to reveal aromas of ripe cherries, wild berries, frost floor and dark chocolate, framed by lovely top notes of musk and violets. On the palate, it's full-bodied, deep and multidimensional, its concentrated core of sapid fruit framed by an ample chassis of powdery tannin, concluding with a long and lively finish. Less demonstrative than the 2017 was at the same stage, this is a brooding, muscular Musigny that will require time to show all its cards.

Some vines planted in the 1940s and others 1958–1963. Barrel sample but already racked and back into barrel. Deep crimson. Lifted with intense and pure cherry fruit and something almost a little minty/herbal even though it is fully ripe. At the moment the tannins are deeply layered, compact but not resistant. Majestic in its darker underlying power and restraint, with a dark, almost rocky finish that is dry and yet full of energy. Tannins are smooth but chalky because the grain is so fine. Endlessly long. (JH)