1996 Dominique Laurent Musigny

Dominique Laurent is a former pastry chef who started a small negociant business in Nuits-Saint-Georges, in Burgundy’s Cote d’Or, in the late 1980s. He produced his first vintages a few years later, and quickly developed a reputation for making very small quantities of excellent wine sourced from old vineyards. In 2006 Laurent made the leap from negociant to grower with the purchase of a few acres of vineyards. Today Domaine Laurent Pere et Fils owns 23 acres in Nuits-Saint-Georges. He is known for his extreme approach to “hands-off” winemaking, and for his habit of sometimes using “200% new oak,” meaning that one cuvee is sometimes transferred twice to new oak barrels. About 30,000 bottles are produced annually and his wines have earned cult status with some Burgundy collectors.

Musigny is considered one of the greatest vineyards in the Cote d’Or, in Burgundy. At 26.5 acres it includes two sections, Grand Musigny and Les Petits Musigny. The vineyard is 260 to 300 meters in elevation and the soil is unusual for the region, a mix of limestone and red clay. Comte de Vogue owns about three-quarters of the vineyard, with a holding of 17 acres. The next largest landowners are Jacques-Frederic Mugnier, with 3.2 acres; and Jacques Prieur with 1.7 acres. Also noteworthy is Leroy’s tiny .7 acre holding. Though most of the vineyard is planted to Pinot Noir, Comte de Vogue plants a small parcel of Chardonnay, which is sold as Bourgogne blanc due to the relatively youth of the Chardonnay vines. Wine writer Clive Coates has written that “at its best the red wine (of Musigny) can be quite simply the most delicious wine to be found in Burgundy.”

This red wine is relatively light and can pair with a wide variety of foods. The grape prefers cooler climates and the wine is most often associated with Burgundy, Champagne and the U.S. west coast. Regional differences make it nearly as fickle as it is flexible.