Wine & Spirits - Winter 2020 - 47

O LD WO RLD

Top 100 Wineries

FRÉDÉRIC MAGNIEN

Maison Frédéric
Magnien
FRANCE | BURGUNDY
Frédéric Magnien is using his négociant wines to
reimagine terroir expression in the Côte de Nuits.
AFTER STINTS EXPLORING PINOT NOIR WITH Josh Jensen at Calera in California and with Gary Farr in Australia, Frédéric
Magnien returned home in 1993 to nudge his father, Michel,
a fifth-generation grape grower, to bottle his own wine. While
he studied oenology at the University of Bourgogne, Frédéric
made his family's 45-acre domaine his coursework; by 1995,
he had established his own négociant label at his great-grandfather's cellar in Morey, just behind the Clos des Lambrays.
"I was curious about the true differences in the terroir of
my region, the Côte de Nuits," he says, recalling how he set
out to compare the expressions of different sites held to the
same winemaking and farming philosophy. He started with
two parcels, one owned by a friend of his parents, the other
a small piece of the premier cru Ruchots that had been in his
family for four generations. Today, he is working with those
two and 20 more, and the Ruchots parcel, last planted in
1973 by his father and grandfather, provided one of his most
beautiful wines of 2017.
Frédéric continued to work at the domaine with his father,
and took ownership in 2008, when Michel retired. Frédéric's
first move was to convert the domaine to organic farming; he
converted many of his négoce parcels as well; today, 90 percent of his négociant wines are organically farmed, and his
goal is to convert them all.
His next major change came in 2015, when he swapped
out new barrels for terra-cotta jars. "The wood is good, but
maybe too massive for our terroir," he says. He knew, from
tasting Burgundies from the 1920s and earlier, that the wines
had the potential for long aging without new oak. "I replaced

the wood with the stems," he explains, having increased
the percentage of whole clusters in his fermentations,
based on the parcel and the vintage, to between 20 and
80 percent. "It's more logical to use something coming
from the soil for this complexity, and it's what the people
of Burgundy always did," he says.
Magnien believes aging his wines in terra-cotta may
also diminish the slight reduction he found when he aged
them only in oak. Once he fills the jars, he tops them up
once a month, otherwise leaving them alone until racking
them off when he's ready to fill them with wine from the
next harvest. He's also begun to experiment with white
wine in clay, and finds it enhances the mineral expression.
What our tasters found, especially in his greatest terroirs,
is that Magnien's wines enjoy beneficial interactions with
oxygen: Rather than unraveling, the wines continue to
improve over the course of days, becoming more compellingly delicious until the bottle is empty. -J.G.
2017 Chambolle-Musigny 1er Cru Charmes Vieille Vigne
($140, 96 points) From a parcel of organically farmed vines
ranging in age from 50 to 70 years old, some more than 100,
this wine ages in older barrels (56 percent) and clay pots (44
percent), providing a glimpse of Chambolle at its essence. A
wine of stark beauty, it feels grand and lifted, a serious, somber wine that breaks out in joy.
2017 Morey-St-Denis 1er Cru Ruchots ($100, 96 points)
This comes from a parcel at the top of the slope where the cru
borders Clos de Tart and Chambolle's Bonnes-Mares. Farmed
organically and aged in a mix of clay pots (56 percent) and
used French oak barrels, it delivers its energy through a supple
texture and sustains its freshness with astonishing complexity
and drive.

FOUNDED:

1995
OWNER/
WINEMAKER:

Frédéric Magnien
ACRES OWNED:

None
2017 Morey-St-Denis Herbuottes ($65, 93 points)
This grows at a parcel just below the premier cru Les Charrières, its soils deep and rich in limestone and clay. With no new
oak to suppress or enrich it, this wine's magnetic pull draws on
a host of small details-hints of dark cherry and plum, heady
scents of roses and game-coming together in a Morey that
glows with energy.
WINE & SPIRITS

ANNUAL
PRODUCTION:

200,000 cases
IMPORTER:

North Berkeley
Imports,
Berkeley, CA

BUYING GUIDE 2021

47



Wine & Spirits - Winter 2020

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