Lignier-Michelot Nuits-Saint-Georges 1er Cru Les Murgers 2014

Variety: Pinot Noir
Country Region: France, Burgundy, Cote-de-Nuits
Appellation: Nuits St Georges 1er cru

Just 3 barrels produced yielding one of the most perfumed and seductive Burgundies imaginable.

'(released under the Maison Virgile Lignier label, 30% whole cluster). Here too there are notes of menthol and wood on the ultra-earthy and spicy aromas of game and various purple fruit scents. The robust and tautly muscular broad-shouldered  flavours possess excellent mid-palate concentration before terminating in a quite firmly structured but not really austere finish. Once again patience will be required as this is tightly structured. 2026+.' (91-94) points, Burghound, January 2016.

'I really like the style of the 2014s as they’re dense enough to be serious and age-worthy yet not particularly austere or backward and thus should also please those who like their burgs on the younger side.' Burghound, January 2016.

'The Lignier-Michelot range attains the heights that Morey-Saint-Denis can achieve courtesy of their Premier Crus and obligatory Clos Saint-Denis and Clos de la Roche cuvées.' Neal Martin, Vinous, January 2019.

The Lignier family have deep roots in the village of Morey Saint Denis and own 10.5 hectares of some of the very best vineyard sites in this village, and also in the two neighbouring villages of Chambolle Musigny and Gevrey Chambertin. Virgile's father and grand-father had always produced wine and sold it to negotiants until Virgile started working with his father in the early 1990s and he decided to sell the wines himself. Now with almost 20 vintages of experience Virgile has moved the domaine to fully organic viticulture and is producing what many believe to be the best wines of this prestigious village.

In the last 10 years Virgile has modified his wine-making using whole-bunch vinification ranging from 30-100% depending on the vintage and the vineyard and he has also reduced the percentage of new oak (mostly Seguin-Moreau and Francois freres) for maturation with most wines seeing around 30% making its effect seamless in the final wines. He also completed a new winery in time for the 2013 vintage that now enables him to work with temperature control and to gain a very gentle extraction of tannins for all his wines. This results in wines showing great precision and energy with remarkable perfume and also beautiful fine tannins and very silky structure. They are wines which are often very seductive at a young age which also clearly have the potential for ageing superbly. This very young domaine is now regarded among the very best in the Cotes de Nuits.