Article: 2023 Domaine Henri Magnien
2023 Domaine Henri Magnien
It is a great honor to officially announce the 2023 vintage of Domaine Henri Magnien, tariff free! After 30 years in the wine business, I couldn’t be more proud to be the exclusive west coast importer for a domaine positioned to stand shoulder to shoulder with the greats.
There is going to be a lot of bad news regarding tariffs, but today we focus on the good news! In an effort to avoid tariffs, Charles agreed to ship the 2023s in December, rather than wait until the Spring as we normally would. You may remember that he bottles the wines in November (which is on the early side), and instead of letting them sit at the Domaine, it made more sense for them to sit in my warehouse. It has been my experience that while the wines drink well when they arrive, it does take some time to fully integrate into the seamless, hallmark Magnien style.
2023 marks the 5th year working with vigneron Charles Magnien and since I was not able to visit France in November ‘24 (launching our new website instead), I’ve been extremely eager for 2023's arrival. I had tasted a number of them in Nov ‘23 when they had just finished their malolactic fermentation and they showed incredible promise. The wines arrived in Jan just after some of the early press had begun to trickle out. Neal Martin provided a glowing review and I’d had an email exchange with Allen Meadows who said “there was a lot to be excited about.” Now, having tasted through the lineup several times over the past months, I’m amazed at how supple and elegant the wines are showing at this early stage.
Allen could not have been more accurate - these are an exciting set of wines!
This past weekend, Vins Rare was invited to showcase Henri Magnien at the Ojai Food + Wine festival. We poured a few from the 2022 vintage, but I brought along a couple of the 2023’s for fun as some side pours for comparison. People were amazed at how well the 2023s showed, as was I, given they have only been in bottle for 4 months. We received so many positive comments from chefs, industry people and consumers alike.
In 2023, the conditions at harvest were unseasonably warm (no one is surprised). Picking began in the early morning and concluded most days by 2pm when temperatures pushed into 90s. Charles' vineyards are all relatively close to the winery and he insists that the time from grapes being picked until they are in the vat is less than an hour. Having a state of the art winery and modern equipment pays huge dividends in a year like this.
When the grapes come into the winery, Charles has the ability to cool them prior to the start of fermentation, rather than it being underway with warm fruit sitting around from the vineyard. All fruit in 2023 was de-stemmed and one of the things he learned with the 2021 vintage (a cool harvest by comparison), was that fermenting the wines at a cooler temperature, 26 celsius vs 32, allowed for a much gentler extraction, resulting in the “elegance” and “purity” that is the hallmark of the Magnien style.
The 2023’s are a lighter style in comparison to 2022 but do not sacrifice anything in terms of flavor. The seamless character is already present and the wines can be enjoyed in the near term, however they will surprise many of you with their ability to evolve and develop over the next couple of decades. Don’t miss wines are the Gevrey VV & Cazetieres but one that is often a fan favorite is the Aloxe Corton 1er. Don’t let the critics bias towards Aloxe steer you away from this - truly exceptional!
French wine and the way we buy it appears will cost 20% more in the coming months at a minimum - take advantage of today's Pre-Tariff/Cellar Direct pricing on one of Gevrey Chambertin's rising stars and arguably one of the best values anywhere in Burgundy!
