Gérard Mugneret

Location: Vosne-Romanée, Côte de Nuits, Burgundy
Size: 6 ha (14.83 ac)
Variety: Pinot Noir
Viticulture: Lutte raisonnée
Vinification: Some whole-cluster, 33-50% new oak, unfined, unfiltered

Biography
At the age of 16, Gérard Mugneret began working at the domaine with his father. At the time, taking over the estate was not his plan, “I would have preferred to work in the field of electricity. I found it much more interesting!” he says, laughing. He would not change a thing today, though. It was through working along side his father, whose passion was contagious, that Gérard learned to love working the earth and the vineyards. In 1964, Gérard enrolled in a viticulture program in Beaune. He says that school was not where he learned the most, but rather his greatest training in viticulture was provided by his father and other colleagues. Gérard's father accompanied him in the vineyards until he was 80 years old. He remained passionate for the vines and the land up to the very end of his life in 1997.

Today Gérard works 8.5 hectares (20.4 acres), all of which are red grape (Pinot Noir) territory. A portion of the vineyards are worked on sharecrop contracts, so the actual production brought back to the winery is equivalent to approximately 6 hectares of vines. His wife, Françoise, who has been working the vineyards with Gérard since their marriage in 1973, also helps with all levels of administrative work of the estate.

Gérard takes his profession very seriously “a winemaker must have much humility, as is true in every day life! Once money and success arrive, too many people quickly forget the warmth of human contact, friendly ties and the help that can exist between winemaker colleagues”. His philosophy towards the domaine is to vinify and bottle his entire harvest every year. This is why he is so attentive in the vineyards, working with just one employee that he himself trained. Between them exists trust and mutual respect, which is very important to Gérard. For Gérard, the vines are living beings and he treats them as such, actually speaking to them as he works. He has the impression that the vineyards respond to him in their own way, with the crop that they offer him at the end of each season.

Viticulture
This respect for the earth, the vineyards and nature is manifested in his dedication to physically working the soil, for example through regular ploughing which greatly limits the use of herbicides. For the last five years Gérard has not used any chemical fertilizers, which have the effect of congesting the soils with potassium ( ultimately dropping the acid level), and instead uses organic compost. To battle against erosion, which he already finds dramatic in his vineyards with little soil depth, he has planted grass in and around the vines, in hopes that the natural growth will return . Although he has planted minimal grass, the erosion is already limited, all the while providing aeration and bringing life back to the soil.

The vines are pruned and trained in the traditional Burgundian manner: Guyot. The yields are very regular as the vines are all relatively old, the average age between 40 and 45 years. The pruning is done in two steps, first in November to remove the excess branches from the recently completed cycle and conserve the cane and the spur, then in February for the final pruning step. Gérard does not like the idea of a green harvest, believing that the summer time is too late in the cycle to effect grape concentration, and instead feels that it is important to do a severe debudding in the spring to limit excess grape production from the very beginning: “psychologically I have a hard time removing grapes that are already formed. It is much easier to remove buds” he admits.

Gérard predicts the beginning of harvest at roughly 100 days after the peak of the springtime flowering. The only time that Françoise is not in the vineyards with him is during the harvest, when all of her energy is put towards satisfying the appetites of the regular harvest team. “They have become friends who come back every year for the ambiance!” The well-trained team of harvesters sorts the grapes directly in the vineyards, eliminating as thoroughly as possible any unripe or rotten grapes. Several years ago, Gérard replaced the larger capacity harvest bins with small cases to ensure the healthy transportation of the grapes. Limiting crushing and manipulation of the grapes ultimately improves the quality of the harvest at its arrival at the cuverie.

Winemaking
The grapes are 100% de-stemmed, then dropped into the fermentation vats by a conveyor belt. Total de-stemming allows Gérard to use a higher percentage of new oak barrels. The vats are cooled to a temperature of 13 to 14°C if necessary to allow a period of pre-fermentation maceration, favoring the extraction of color and aromas. After four to five days, the indigenous yeasts begin their work transforming the sugars to alcohol. If ever a vat does not begin fermenting, he simply adds some fermenting juice from another vat. The total cuvaison period (maceration and fermentation) can last from 15 to 21 days. Gérard prefers vinifications that are on the long side, permitting the alcoholic fermentation to progress slowly and more thoroughly. Generally he pumps over once in the morning and punches down he cap (pigeage) in the evening. Punch-downs are done with the entire body, not just the feet. Because of this, he is very careful to eliminate as much carbonic gas from above the vats as possible, and as an extra precaution, always keeps as many people on guard outside the vats as there are pigeurs inside the vat. He often tastes the developing wine directly from the vat to follow its evolution, and likes having outside opinions of the wines just prior to de-vatting. He feels the same way about the importance of following the evolution of the wine as it develops in cask, finding critiques important and constructive. Once the fermentation has completely finished, Gérard de-vats the new wine, never leaving it to macerate after fermentation, to avoid extracting any “rough” tannins.

Once the new wine has been devatted the marc (solid matter) is pressed in a pneumatic press, which he prefers to the Vasselin press. He has noticed with the pneumatic press that the marc is less battered, resulting in less debris in the pressed wine. After a light pressing, the free-run wine is assembled with the first press wine. This new wine is not systematically decanted before being placed into cask; this decision is made based on the characteristics of the year. The wines are placed in barrel with around 33% new oak, up to 50% for the 1er Cru Nuits St. Georges appellations (which are more full-bodied and integrate the wood very well). The Bourgogne AOC and the Passetoutgrain are placed in barrel in the month of February, after having spent four and a half months in tank. None of these regional appellations will see any new oak. They stay just six months in barrel before being bottled. For all other appellations, the barrel aging period lasts for 16 to 18 months and they are racked just once, after the malolactic fermentation has finished. After this racking, the wines are placed back in barrel with some of the fine lees which continue to nourish the wine, enhancing complexity and aromas.

The wines of the domaine are neither fined nor filtered. They are racked by hand and assembled, then placed back in barrel where they stay for another two to three weeks before being bottled by hand from each individual barrel. Bottles are not sealed with capsules but with wax, as the Mugnerets want to provide wine in the artisan tradition from start to finish.

Gérard’s favorite parcel is the Chambolle-Musigny “Les Charmes” which he planted in 1983. Even though the vineyard is not old, he has worked it since the beginning, with its first harvest in 1987. The vintage which most impressed him is 1978, “these wines are still not very old, are fantastic on the palate and do not have dry tannins. This is the vintage that I most liked as much in barrel as in bottle… What a coincidence, it was the birth year of my daughter!”