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.

Jacques-Frederic Mugnier, whose family owns the Chateau de Chambolle, has made a huge, deeply colored wine with aromas of roses and truffles. To taste, it is rich, opulent and oozing fruit, with generous tannins and fresh acidity coming together in fine balance. It has all the seductive character of Musigny. ——R.V.(11/1/2002)—— 94