Domaine Mongeard Mugneret Richebourg 2020

The color is feminine; the nose, masculine. The mouth is full of life with an incomparable richness, a generosity which is sometimes overwhelming. To the eye, everything depends on the vintage and the age of the bottle. A Richebourg can be a velvety ruby color or a dark nocturnal red, shading towards blackish-purple. The color is always intense and dense, luminous, and shot through with gleams of carmine. When young, this wine reveals aromas of musk and Russian leather with touches of sandalwood. With age, it acquires scents of hawthorn and peach blossom. Two aromatic families can be distinguished: hints of lichen, woodland undergrowth, and mushrooms on the one hand; on the other, the scent of cherries, black currants, and cooked or preserved fruits. When young, this wine positively explodes in the mouth, intense and violent. It needs to be allowed to age for several years, in the course of which it will become expansive and warm. Elegant and racy, it is capable of a long life, and wines from the great vintages are superb, the very image of sensuous pleasure. They occasionally have more finesse than structure, but may conversely be massively fruity and enthusiastic, compact and muscular in temperament.

The Mongeard family arrived in Vosne-Romanée in the 18th century, and records show a Mongeard working as vigneron for Domaine de la Romanée-Conti in 1786. In 1945, Jean Mongeard, whose mother was a Mugneret, found himself making wine at the age of 16. His father had died five years before, and there was no one left to do the job. The entire 1945 crop was purchased by Baron le Roy, Marquis d'Angerville and Henri Gouges. Gouges instructed the young Mongeard to personally bottle the wines, rather than sell in barrel, because of the exceptional quality of the family's wines.

Robert Parker describes the wines of the domaine: 'The style of winemaking seems to extract rich, supple, concentrated fruit from the grapes...The wines always seem to show well young, but also age nicely for 10-15 years.' 

Since 1997, Vincent Mongeard, Jean's son, has been responsible for viticulture and vinification of the domaine's wines. He persuaded his father to return to the traditional method of bottling, without filtration, filtering only with certain vintages. Domaine Mongeard-Mugneret today covers a total area of more than 25 hectares, divided into 22 appellations. Their vineyards are 45-50 years old on average, and are grafted with superior Pinot Noir clones. All of the wines are 100% de-stemmed with the exception of Richebourg, for which they include 1/3 stems for more tannic structure.