1999 Musigny

Moderately saturated medium red; the color seemed to deepen with aeration. Deep, slightly roasted aromas of raspberry, coffee, dark chocolate and underbrush. Very dry and powerful, conveying a subtle balsamic quality but at the same time more vibrant in the mouth than on the nose. Wonderfully tactile, mouthcoating Musigny with penetrating soil and mineral qualities. Finishes with outstanding length and grip and a serious spine of fine-grained tannins that saturate the entire palate. "My wines always age more slowly than I expect," said Frédéric Mugnier, who has told me through the years that the rule of thumb for his top bottlings is to wait ten years. In fact, I'd still give this wonderfully savory, deep, soil-driven wine another year or two in the cellar before pulling the cork.

Mugnier's 1999 Musigny Grand Cru is still a very youthful wine, but a few hours' decant gives a more than adequate sense of its immense quality. A beautiful bouquet of raspberries, black cherry, cocoa powder, violets, peony and incipient notes of rich soil and cedar introduce a pure, full-bodied wine with pitch-perfect balance and a deep, spherical core of ripe tannin, juicy acidity and reserved concentration. This is not an especially flamboyant wine, but it's incredibly authoritative and sophisticated; and in another decade, it will be just irresistible.

A highly expressive, indeed even explosive nose offers up wonderfully pure spice and methol-infused black cherry fruit aromas that complement elegant, sexy and beautifully refined medium-weight flavors that are underpinned by velvet wrapped tannins and stunning persistence. Though this is not what I would call a dense wine, it has a finish that lasts for minutes and exudes energy and vibrancy plus the impeccable balance should permit the '99 Musigny to drink well for a long, long time. A terrific wine that clearly is still on its way up so there is no rush to at all to drink up.