I recently came across a burgundy bottle sans label. The capsule tells me that it is from Jacques Frederic Mugnier. The color on the importer sticker and price tag leads me to believe late 80s. I’m unfamiliar with Burgundy pricing in the 80s, so I’m hoping that someone could enlighten me as to what $34.89 would point to. Premier Cru? Grand? I’m unsure. Thanks in advance for any help!
cork is bulging. No way to know the wine w/o cutting the capsule–even then cork may not be labeled. AC Chambolle?
Yeah, the cork is definitely bulging, but the fill is good and the color looks solid.
Regarding the square basic price sticker, I’ve purchased “new” bottles locally as recently as 2010 with that very same yellow/red sticker (at least that’s what it looks like to me in the picture). Yours clearly has some age to it, so it’s probably not quite that new, but also not a sure-fire pointer to the '80s. Fill on that bottle also looks really good if it really is approaching 30 years old.
Keep in mind that there is precious little JFM from the 80’s, as Freddy took over only in 1985, and the big Clos Marechale was Faiveley’s until 2004, so there were only about 4 hectares of vines to work with. With that in mind, $34 for a Mugnier of any variety is probably a good limiting factor for how new the bottle could be. The style of the back label will probably set a limit for how old. I have no knowledge of what the Wasserman labels looked like over the years, but I bet there are those on the board who can help date the bottle that way. It doesn’t look too antique or aged to me.
I’m going to guess late 90’s Chambolle village or Chambolle Fuees on this one.
$34 in the late 80’s, probably 1er cru.
Go with Alan on this one, cut the foil and check out the cork. It may be marked by vineyard, but I haven’t opened any Mugnier in a while, so I can’t recall if he stamps the corks with the right designation.
Ask Rudy or John. They know best about wine labeling.
My guess is early - mid-90s chambolle villages
I used to pretty regularly buy 1995, '96 and '97 Mugnier Musigny on sale for $40, and the Bonnes Mare for about $35. If it’s late 1980s, it seems it could be a grand cru.