A concentration of wild tiny berries red and black seems to inform the nose and palate of Mugnier’s 2007 Bonnes Mares, with pungent brown spices, medicinal herbal concentrates, and game adding site-typical complexity. The compactness here seems to mirror the wine’s flavor concentration, and an underlying note of crushed stone lends a hint of austerity in the long, bittersweet finish. All in all, this is hardly a typical representative of its vintage, and I am willing to believe that its relatively unevolved but impressive personality presages a decade or more of fascinating potential. Frederic Mugnier’s 2008s – which I last tasted shortly before their March bottling – did not experience the exceptionally late malo-lactic transformation that characterized so many wines of that vintage. Yields were especially low thanks not only to vintage-typical millerandage, but – particularly in the case of Les Amoureuses – to the vines’ slow recovery from the shock of 2007 hail. A Becky Wasserman Selection, Le Serbet; fax 011-333-80-24-29-70