James tastes the wines of Mark Haisma with importer Jason Ginsburg in Hong Kong.
James and I tasted nearly 250 wines from Burgundy this year, a good number considering we couldn’t get to France’s legendary region for obvious reasons. We tasted numerous whites and reds in Hong Kong and Adelaide, Australia, covering some of the best value bottles to some of the most outstanding grand cru wines. Burgundy offers so much right now. There are good value wines delivering better enjoyment than ever before and the most revered grand cru sites are consistently hitting high quality levels in varying styles.
We wish that more Burgundy lovers would give time to less famous producers and appellations, particularly in Asia. Places like Hong Kong are great Burgundy markets but they focus so much on trophy wines and vintages, and there’s so much more to Burgundy. This gives an impression that Burgundy is ridiculously expensive but this is really only the upper echelon. There’s so much out there at the moment to consider from Burgundy and you do not need to pay a fortune for it. You can spend a lifetime studying it and drinking it. It’s a great source of debate between James and myself.
Drinkability is something that Burgundy delivers reliably, now more than ever. And recent vintages have shown that while so many wines have immediate appeal, the best are also capable of delivering in the cellar. The intricacies of vintages are always under the microscope in Burgundy and the best producers have become very attuned to managing their vineyards and vinification regimes in the recent run of warmer years. This means greater consistency overall and in this warmer run of vintages we are seeing regional wines, satellite appellations and more everyday wines elevated in maturity and overall quality.
Nick illustrates how the trophy wines of Burgundy are expensive and rare, holding a 100 Australian dollar note against a bottle of Armand Rousseau last year in Beaune.
The recently harvested 2020 completes a trifecta of hotter, early vintages in Burgundy and is a year with reports of very healthy grapes harvested. Early discussions are of wines with good balance, low malic acid but higher tartaric acid and producers are upbeat about the overall quality of the grapes harvested this year. The harvest started and finished in August. Louis-Fabrice Latour, CEO of Maison Louis Latour, said: “It is not like 2003, we have learned that lesson and 2020 will be balanced with nice acidity.”
The story of 2019 is one of higher summer temperatures too but probably more influential was the low rainfall and the lack of soil moisture with the southern part of the region hardest hit. This, combined with some uneven flowering, lowered yields dramatically in 2019 and so the wines are shaping up to be very concentrated. The alcohols are higher but there is also good acidity, especially in the reds. The early tastings reveal wines with vibrancy but you can expect the balance will be struck at a different point than normal for both reds and whites.
But it is the 2018 vintage that is in the release spotlight this year and, across the many wines tasted, we have an impression of concentration and quality across both whites and reds. The reds are particularly consistent and, while the chardonnay wines are concentrated and have impressive sturdiness, pinot noir performed even better with very good quality levels up and down the Côte d’Or.
Thibuat Gagey of Maison Louis Jadot stands in the cellar of his winery outside Beaune with barrels of 2018 reds a few years ago.
“All the conditions were really perfect,” said Frederic Weber, winemaker at Bouchard Pere & Fils. “Winter was cloudy with twice the average rainfall and spring was early with good flowering. We had a hot and sunny June and July and we reached high maturity and high concentration with a normal sized crop, an average of 40hl/ha for pinot noir and 45 hl/ha for chardonnay.” The whites have the richness of 2015 but they are slightly fresher and appear more resilient in bottle.
Weber also says that “for pinot it was important to harvest early and maintain good balance and freshness. I adapted the style of vinification because of thick skins and beautiful tannins but also a lot of pips, so we went for gentle infusion and reduced maceration with no racking, just waiting for the terroir to appear.” So with richer skin tannins and concentrated fruit flavors, there’s also good detail in the reds from 2018 and at the humbler end of the appellation the wines have plenty of juicy, fresh fruit.
A nice selection from a lesser-known producer for review in Hong Kong.
The overall quality of 2018 wines is also explained by Veronique Boss of Domaine Drouhin in terms of the way the vintage shaped up. “We had a mild winter in 2017 with good rains with a lot of water deep in the soil,” she said. “And in late April the vines exploded with growth which set the harvest up early. We had a bright, warm and windy July and August which formed a very healthy growing season.”
The other notable fact in 2018 is quantity, with good yields across the board in both whites and reds. Availability should be better than we’ve seen in a while. We had a small crop of very plush and quite ripe wines in 2015, then 2016 was another brutally small crop of wine with good structures and longevity, a year that is particularly good for reds. Following that, 2017 is a more elegant year with fresh, crisp whites and elegant, approachable reds with lighter tannins. Notably, the quantities bounced back to more normal levels in 2017 without compromising quality.
So there are good choices in Burgundy right now. The wines from 2017 are very drinkable and more delicate and the wines from 2018 are very drinkable now but richer and more concentrated. The main difference is that 2018 has delivered more weight in the more generic end of Burgundy, making these especially good value and they are more widely available. Enjoy the 2017s and 2018s and, if you are lucky enough to have 2015s and 2016s, leave them in the cellar for a few years while you drink these two younger, approachable vintages.
Or as Veronique Boss recommends, “Drink 2017 first, then 2016 after and 2018 drink anytime!
– Nick Stock, executive editor
James tasting in a cellar in Beaune.
