One of the perks of being a wine merchant is that I get to taste a comical amount of wine. Questions of health aside, this breadth of exposure to Dionysian pleasures (and the occasional Promethean torment) has led me to distrust, and even sometimes to loathe the journalistic war crime known as the vintage chart.
I’ve heard it said that learning about wine is so difficult because “everything you learn in wine comes with an asterisk”. Blanc de Noirs is white wine from red grapes because the color in wine comes from the skins of the grapes, not the juice, which is clear. Well, except for Teinturier varieties like Alicante Bouschet. They have colored juice. The white wines of Burgundy are made from Chardonnay or Aligoté. Well, except for the Pinot Blanc found in Nuits-Saint-Georges (Pinot Gouges, as some fashion it, after the celebrated Henri Gouges). And then there’s the Sauvignon Blanc in Saint-Bris.
Vintages tend to work the same way, defying easy definition the closer you look. Even when the media coverage of vintage variation is detailed enough to be useful, the reactions of winemakers to the vintage is the more important element. What you tend to get in the end is a gross over-simplification that pre-colors the judgement of wine drinkers (“This Barolo is going to be great – it’s a 2010” or “That Haut-Brion will be a disappointment – 1993 was a rot year.”) rather than truly educating them. What’s more, vintage descriptions often turn into mere weather reports, leaving an aspiring collector no wiser in terms of a potential investment.
Summary by Nature
However, the very nature of vintage guidance is to reduce a large set of data into something actionable for the consumer. “I drank a thousand 2023 wines from Rioja and here’s what I learned” is a noble journalistic goal, but reducing a vintage to a single score is data loss to the point of ruin.
With all this in mind, I am proposing a slightly more nuanced vintage system focused on understanding how to purchase a vintage based on one’s own preferences. This vintage summary will focus not only on the tendency of the vintage, but the style of producer (if any) that most benefitted from it, presenting buying opportunities for collectors.
And so, I present to you, after combing through a mountain of tasting notes: The Last Five Years in Burgundy
2023
White
While some of the top producers and Grand Crus have yet to come to market in their final, bottled form, this vintage looks incredibly promising. Our tasting notes have been overwhelmingly positive across the length of Burgundy, with a combination of concentration and lively acidity (an echo of the fantastically successful 2020 vintage) seeming to be the hallmarks of the vintage. Those readers who prefer a bit more ripeness in their Chardonnay will find great value in Pouilly-Fuissé and even farther south, while fans of leaner styles should look to Chablis and the Hautes-Côtes. The icons of the Côte d’Or should be bought with all the abandon one’s means allow.
Red
A “goldilocks” vintage after the lean, elegant 2021s and richer 2022s, 2023 is a vintage where producer style is “true to fit”. Stems were ripe enough for inclusion across Burgundy, giving those producers with the inclination ample ability to use the whole-cluster approach. The wines are almost universally red-fruited and classic, with more volume to go around than any other vintage on record. Buy your favorites – 2023 allowed them to make their preferred styles!
2022
White
An incredibly hot growing season meant generally lower acidity in the whites than in 2021 or 2023, but quantity increased dramatically from the disastrous yields in 2021. For cellaring and investing, producers tending toward a leaner style made it through 2022 with more balance and finesse in their wines (a recent comparative tasting of 2022s from Roulot and Vincent Dancer reinforced this impression), which will also need less time in the cellar than ’20, ’21, or ‘23. Riper producers are by no means to be avoided, and handled 2022 far better than, say, 2018, but none of the 2022 whites are likely to be particularly long-lived.
Red
Like the whites, higher ripeness levels, alcohol levels, and lower acidity are the hallmarks of the 2022 reds, but importantly they mostly retained the classic, bright, red-fruited quality that was often lost in 2018, 2019, and even 2020. Generally successful, though the warmest sites and producers who lean towards extra richness can be overdone. Great medium to long-term pleasure can be found among the leaner producers in the Côte d’Or – J-F Mugnier and Ghislaine Barthod come to mind.
2021
White
April frosts dramatically reduced yields across Burgundy and nearly wiped them out entirely in Chablis and the Mâconnais. The whites of 2021 are characterized by sharp acidity and much less generous fruit character. The best of these may blossom after time in the cellar, but the 2021s tend to be quite hard at this stage. Seek out the warmest sites in the Côte d’Or or try to track down the stunning whites that came out of the Mâconnais, where some producers’ yields were down more than 75%.
Red
A lean, elegant, classic red vintage in Burgundy that has been largely overlooked by the press, perhaps partly because there was so little wine to sell. Early September sunshine saved what was up until that point an abysmal vintage for Pinot Noir, and the crop that was left made remarkable wines. All producers were forced towards the leaner side of the spectrum in this vintage, and tannin levels are also generally lower, creating wines that are wonderful for early and mid-term drinking. The lighter style of the wines and lukewarm critical reception have kept prices relatively reasonable for so small a crop – an excellent opportunity for lovers of classic Burgundy. This author had the pleasure of enjoying a 2021 Roumier Chambolle-Musigny last night and can wholeheartedly reaffirm his recommendation to buy the 2021 reds with glee.
2020
White
Sublime. 2020’s warm-but-not-hot growing season produced consistently high-quality wines across Burgundy, with zippy acidity to balance their richness. Of course, buy your favorite producers, but don’t be afraid to branch out! It seems almost impossible to have made a bad White Burgundy in 2020, and many lesser-known vignerons made incredible values that are still available on the market. Up-and-comers like Armand Heitz and Benjamin Leroux can keep you satisfied with their St. Aubin and Meursault while your Lafon and Leflaive 2020s sleep for a few more years.
Red
2020 was the third scorching summer in a row, confirming in the minds of critics and winegrowers that the age of climate change had forever changed the look of a “normal” vintage in Burgundy. Of the three, the reds of 2020 are the most successful. By 2020 the average grower seems to have better grasped the use of canopy management and pick times to combat the over-ripeness that plagued 2018 and 2019. While the ripeness of the 2020 reds charmed critics, the reality is that many warmer sites and producers with riper styles can be quite modern. Lovers of classic Burgundy are better looking towards 2017 or 2021, while hedonists will find lots to love in 2020, and with more long-term aging potential than 2018 or 2019.
2019
White
Far less bountiful and only slightly less successful than the epic 2020 vintage. Poor weather at flowering and a succession of summer heatwaves lowered yields for reds and whites in 2019, but the grapes that were left were rich, ripe, and managed (at least in the whites) to maintain admirable acidity. Certainly not a vintage to avoid, but with less wine to go around and less aging potential than 2020, neither is 2019 a vintage to especially seek out. The best wines will easily last a decade – purchase as good opportunities present themselves, but with a preference towards 2020.
Red
If 2018 was almost universally over-ripe and 2020 more well-managed, 2019 was the transition year, and the landscape of reds is resultingly varied. The best vignerons (and cooler sites) managed a return to form in 2019, though even the leanest is still quite ripe by classic Burgundian standards. Those in warmer sites or who were slower to adapt their farming had their crop massacred by the relentless string of heat waves in summer, raisinating the Pinot Noir berries past all varietal recognizability. As I was once told by a Napa Valley winemaker, “Cabernet tastes like Cabernet, Pinot tastes like Pinot. But raisins taste like raisins, no matter what they were before.” Not a year to experiment with unknown growers, lest one spend for a storied village or vineyard name that is unrecognizable as such in the glass.
The Usual Disclaimer
The vastness and variability of the wine world are two of its most attractive qualities, and one can always find isolated winemakers who come through difficult vintages unscathed or manage somehow to slip up in generous ones. As ever, relentless tasting is the best policy to build your own personal map of Burgundian vintage variation.