One of my dealer friends came to me with six bottles of this; I decided to take one, and see how it was. The bottle looked perfect, but I did decant it, as there seemed to be a fair amount of sediment. Gorgeous nose, that lovely smell of old Burgundy fruit. But it has also had an earthy quality, and at one point I was not sure if it wasn’t lightly corked.
Whatever it was blew off, and the wine ultimately drank beautifully. Not a show stopper, but a lovely mature bottle of Burgundy, with a wonderful lightness and a solid layered finish. Will buy the remaining bottles, but need to drink over the next couple of years, as although it has plateaued, not sure how long it will stay there.
The 83 mongear mugneret echzeaux and GE were the first two mature grand crus reds that I was able to buy multiple bottles in the mid 90s and they were great! Most of the 83 reds do show a hint of rot but it has never bothered me like the 04 taint. The rot smells like lightly molded stem to me. MM also made very good wines in the 78. Definitely an under appreciated producer.
I remember being in the middle of that 1983 Burgundy controversy as a retailer, and I had purchased quite a bit of the '82s to secure larger amounts of the '83s back then.
i’ve always felt that the Mongeard Mugneret wines were some of the real stars of the vintage, with a really terrific Echezeaux - They were very pure in their youth when that old “baked rot” smell seemed to haunt so many of the wines.
Nice to see they have aged well - thanks for the note -
Funny about Mongeard: after visiting a couple of times in the late 80s /early '90s, I thought they were resisting the trend away from more rustic wines and winemaking. That makes wines more difficult to appreciate in barrell. I bought and dranks several of their '83s by 2000 and was never wowed.
But, I think the '83 reds, a great vintage IMO, needed more time than I gave them and are only recently at the plateaus of consistent pleasure…when cleaned of their heavy sediment and aerated. So, I think I missed out on really evaluating Mongeard’s '83s. A lesson learned maybe?