The Nuits-St.-Georges 1er Cru Clos de la Maréchale 2006 from Jacques-Frédéric Mugnier was complex, harmonious, a wine wondering why it is not considered a Grand Cru... This Nuits billows with sappy ripe black fruits on the nose – a real change from those Gouges. It has a lovely, embracing cranberry, blackberry, dark plum and a touch of vanilla. Sweet entry on the palate, chewy tannins but very well balanced with ripe blackberry, raspberry, perhaps a touch of something fishy…oyster shells. Great persistency towards the finish. Excellent. Drink 2010-2025. Tasted March 2009.

Saturated red-ruby color. Pure, vibrant nose features smoky black cherry. Rich, sweet and pure, with superb energy to the flavors of black and red cherry and minerals. Impressively dense, broad wine, finishing with excellent lingering perfume and solid spine for aging. In comparison to this wine, the 2005 version seems a bit easier.

Here the nose is understandably quite similar to the nose of the Fourche with an earthy and moderately sauvage nose of dark berry fruit, underbrush and a hint of stone that is picked up by the rich, sweet and intense yet stylish medium full flavors that are unusually pure for a typical Nuits while wrapped in a finish supported by quite firm, dusty and mouth coating tannins. This possesses really fine depth and the firm structure is sufficiently buried that the finish appears less structured than it really is.

(this is a 9.55-hectare monopole; Mugnier vinified nine cuvees but showed me a blend of seven of them, as the other two will probably be declassified into his second wine, Clos des Fourches) Good bright ruby-red. Complex, inviting nose offers blackberry, mocha, brown spices and sexy oak tones. Juicy and sweet, with very good inner-mouth energy but nicely supple tannins considering the wine's firm acids and the fact that it's from Nuits-Saint-Georges. Mugnier echoed my sentiment when he noted that "this year, the Chambolles seem unusually structured, and this seems more Chambolle-like."