Château de Chambolle-Musigny

Château de Chambolle-Musigny is the home of the Mugnier family, and has been such since 1863, despite the fact that at one point they actually had to fight a court case to prove that their château was in fact the genuine article! Over the years the vineyards in Chambolle owned by the château were rented out to Faiveley and then Bruno Clair, before Frédéric Mugnier took over the property in 1985, and began fully dedicating his time to it in 1998.
 
The vines are treated very organically: there haven’t been any herbicides present since 1991 and no pesticides since 1997, but Frédéric has little interest in biodynamics, finding the process to be a somewhat excessive level of overworking.
 
The grapes are fully destalked before maceration for a few days, and then the fermentation takes place with small additions of sugar. Frédéric uses very little new wood for the maturation process, and the small amount he uses decreases year by year.
 
The wines tend to express themselves with both elegance and power, as is the supposed trademark of Chambolle, and take many years to realise their full potential. Wine from the Bonnes-Mares Grand Cru is known to have more body to it; a powerful, butch wine, with admittedly a hint more Chambolle to it than Morey. The Musigny Grand Cru on the other hand combines some of this power with an element of finesse; when given plenty of time to mature it is a wine that can display many complex layers.