Robert Parker's Wine Advocate 30/06/2010 Mugnier’s wines of the vintage, his 2007 Musigny exudes ripe, vanilla- and star anise-tinged black raspberry and cassis, underlain by clean, marrow-like meatiness. Already satiny in texture, yet buoyant, this finishes with dark-fruited, forest floor-inflected, palate-staining persistence yet a soothing, enveloping personality that is anything but palate-straining. Even though this is an unusually approachable example of its kind, few Burgundian Pinots of its vintage, I suspect, will justify the 15 or more years of glory that I would anticipate from this Musigny. Frederic Mugnier’s 2008s – which I last tasted shortly before their March bottling – did not experience the exceptionally late malo-lactic transformation that characterized so many wines of that vintage. Yields were especially low thanks not only to vintage-typical millerandage, but – particularly in the case of Les Amoureuses – to the vines’ slow recovery from the shock of 2007 hail. ()

The 2007 Musigny Vieilles Vignes from J-F Mugnier shows modest bricking, looking a little more mature than the other four 2007 Grand Crus, with vestiges of brambly red berries on the nose. An initial dustiness blew off, while a touch of balsam never quite dislodged itself and marginally obscured the terroir. The laid-back bouquet never kicks on and flourishes in the glass, unlike other wines that eventually made its aromatics seem a little staid. The palate is medium-bodied with quite a firm backbone and fine grip, perhaps a little austere but still harmonious. Silky but slightly stolid, this is a delicious Musigny, though I would not put it in the top tier of Mugnier’s oeuvre, since it lacks substance due to the growing season.

Bright, deep red. Knockout aromas and flavors of black cherry, black raspberry, crushed stone and smoky minerality. Wonderfully deep, tangy and sweet, with a captivating creamy texture making this deceptively tastable today. Impressive today for its volume, and finishes very long, broad and classically dry, with substantial fine-grained tannins. As delicious as this is right now, its overall balance suggests it will reward a decade of aging. For his part, Mugnier says that virtually every vintage of his Musigny needs ten years in the bottle.

As it often is, this is the most elegant wine in the range but it is also the most restrained and backward and only substantial swirling liberates the airy, clean, bright and beautifully layered red pinot, violet, spice and mineral-suffused nose from the glass. As 2007s go, this is a big wine with excellent volume to the seductively textured medium full flavors that display a taut muscularity and superb focus on the brooding, refined and quite firmly structured finish. This is very much a work in progress and it's clear that the next 6 months of élevage will continue to see this develop but everything it needs to be a real gem is present.