Winemaker Notes
The Mugnerets’ Echezeaux, from the highest point of the vineyard (‘Les Rouges du Bas’) and a plot bordering Clos Vougeot (‘Quartier de Nuits’), combines the grand cru’s classic roasted notes and spice with light, floral tones and smooth tannins.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Red raspberry and red currant confiture, ginger, cinnamon, and Latakia tobacco-like smokiness comprise the alluring scents and flavors of the Mugnerets’ 2007 Echezeaux. Rich and rounded – with a hint of caramel emerging as it moves into its long, spicy finish – this still manages to be infectiously juicy throughout.
Thin-skinned, finicky and temperamental, Pinot Noir is also one of the most rewarding grapes to grow and remains a labor of love for some of the greatest vignerons in Burgundy. Fairly adaptable but highly reflective of the environment in which it is grown, Pinot Noir prefers a cool climate and requires low yields to achieve high quality. Outside of France, outstanding examples come from in Oregon, California and throughout specific locations in wine-producing world. Somm Secret—André Tchelistcheff, California’s most influential post-Prohibition winemaker decidedly stayed away from the grape, claiming “God made Cabernet. The Devil made Pinot Noir.”
Claiming the two famous Grand Crus, Echezeaux and Grands Echezeaux, the identity of this village, Flagey-Echezeaux, rides predominantly on the glory of those two crus. All of the village or Premier Cru status vineyards in Flagey-Echezeaux market themselves under the name of their neighbor, Vosne-Romanée.
Echezeaux Pinot noir tends be light, bright and full of finesse, whereas those of Grands Echezeaux typically have more heft and complexity.