In the late afternoon of July 27 as I walked from the railway station of Beaune in Burgundy back to my hotel after a long day’s tasting in nearby Nuits-Saint-Georges, the temperature was 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) with a hot wind straight off the Sahara. The sweat was pouring off me as I dashed from one piece of shade to the next. Cool climate? Ouch!
I was in Burgundy tasting the 2020 vintage wines from the bottle, and the summer of that year was similarly hot and dry to 2022. So, I was thinking a lot about what Burgundy’s warming climate is doing to the region’s famous and sought-after wines.
Burgundy is not only the homeland of the pinot noir and chardonnay grapes, it is also still widely regarded as the ultimate cool-climate region for pinot noir reds and chardonnay dry whites. However, climate change is pumping up the volume – ripeness, and with it alcoholic content – of the wines of Burgundy just as it is in other regions around Planet Wine.
What does that mean for the 2020 vintage? There’s no way you can call the 2020 red Burgundies typical, and it starts with the color. Just take a look at the photo of a rather typical well-made 2020, in this case at Albert Bichot. The reds consistently have a depth and vibrancy of color that the old wine books tell you is impossible with pinot noir in Burgundy.
I had never seen anything like it since my first visit to the region more than 35 years ago, although great vintages like 1990 and 2015 had excellent color. Every winemaker I spoke to in Burgundy talked about this, and many compared the color of the 2020 reds to syrah.
Under normal conditions, pinot noir largely relies on one color pigment (the anthocyanin Maldivin) that’s inherently unstable – hence its famously pale color. In contrast, syrah has many and much more stable color pigments in the grape skin, resulting in its deeper, more purple color.
What happened in 2020? Although the thick grape skins that the heat and drought caused are clearly part of the explanation, the winemakers I spoke to were still at a loss to fully express what transpired. However, they were united on the importance of the picking date for this literally extraordinary vintage.
Gregory Patriat of Jean Claude Boisset in Nuits-Saint-Georges explained that the picking date in 2020 was “absolutely crucial” to making great wines, and that picking late was a mistake. “In the cellar, the key word was infusion,” he said. “The biggest mistake you could make was to extract too much during the fermentation.“
That worked extremely well for Patriat, for whom 2020 is a career high point – an achievement he shares with a number of colleagues like Dimitri Bazas of Maison Champy. Their wines stand out due less to their richness and concentration – of which there is plenty – than to the fineness of the tannins and a fantastic balance with enough acidity to stay lively.
Several prominent industry figures told me they saw 2020 as a victory for the hierarchical appellation system of Burgundy, but I disagree with them. For me the real victors were the producers with expertly managed vineyards, who came through the summer heat and drought in good shape.
Even a quick glance at the more than 400 tasting notes below reveals how some of the best 2020s come from village appellations (sometimes with a vineyard designation, or lieu-dit), rather than the grand cru or premier cru sites that somss and collectors obsess about. In 2020 it really doesn’t have to be Musigny or Montrachet to be a great Burgundy!
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THE COTES SHOW STRONG
There was also a strong showing of some wines from the Cote Chalonnais sub-region, traditionally regarded as the least special of the three Cotes, behind the Cote de Nuits, then Cote de Beaune. The best example of this is the Domaine Du Cellier aux Moines Givry 1er Cru Clos du Cellier aux Moines Les Dessus 2020, a wine that has the kind of enormous depth and finesse we associate with the most sought-after grand crus of the other two Cotes!
The remarkable wines from Domaine Boris Champy, in the even less well-regarded appellation Hautes-Cote de Beaune, are another example of unfashionable appellations shining, although 2020 is this producer’s second vintage. They really push the envelope of what modern Burgundy can be! Also, higher-altitude vineyards like these are the big winners of climate change in Burgundy.
Then there are the spectacular 2020 reds from winemaker Cyril Audoin of Marsannay in the Cote de Nuits. Marsannay only became a village appellation in 1987 and it still has no premier crus. However, that didn’t stop Audoin’s staggeringly concentrated and refined Domaine Charles Audoin Marsannay Les Favières 2020 from being one of the highest-rated wines in this report.
Prices for all the above wines remain moderate, if you can find them. Excellent Burgundy need not be horribly expensive.
However, the famous names of Burgundy still sometimes come with stratospheric prices, and this is especially true of the 2020 and 2021 vintages, a result of the combination of hot global demand and small crops (2021 is even smaller than the small 2020 vintage). But the names alone are not a cast-iron guarantee of excellent quality, and that applies particularly to 2020, so we strongly recommend you study the notes below before purchasing.
Having said that, there are some magnificent grand cru wines in 2020, none more so than the perfect Louis Latour Chambertin Grand Cru Cuvée Héritiers Latour 2020, which wowed me with its incredibly deep spicy, earthy and meaty character.
Winemaking in Burgundy today is of a much higher standard than back then, but the 2020 growing season was literally a stress test that exposed how the quality of vineyard cultivation in the region remains erratic. An informant who asked to remain anonymous showed me shocking photos of a Beaune premier cru vineyard taken right before the 2020 harvest.
The vines had lost almost all their leaves and the grapes were beginning to shrivel on the vines as a result of their exposure to the hot sun. That vineyard belongs to a well-known producer whose wines are internationally distributed.
Of course, many Burgundian producers really care for their vines, and during my trip I saw some impeccably managed vineyards. However, Burgundy wine freaks tend to extrapolate from those vineyards and project a uniform excellence on the region that just doesn’t line up with the uneven reality. No wonder that my ratings for the reds are erratic compared with those for the more consistent 2019 vintage.
The 2020 whites are more consistent than I had feared, given the heat and drought during the growing season, and the perfect Bouchard Père & Fils Chevalier-Montrachet Grand Cru 2020 proves that the highest excellence was possible if a producer got everything right.
As a whole, the 2020 dry whites are less flashy and a bit lighter in structure than the 2019s, but often very attractive to drink right away. “The longer they matured on the lees in barrel, the better they tasted. That really made a big difference,“ said Veronique Drouhin, the chief winemaker of Joseph Drouhin, who made consistently impressive 2021 whites.
However, we remain skeptical about the aging potential of white Burgundy due to many wines developing “premox,” or premature oxidation, which results in some wines flipping from youthful vitality to dull over-maturity after a couple of years in the bottle.
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Some prominent white wine producers in Burgundy have claimed that switching from regular corks to Diams (composite corks that are guaranteed to be free of TCA, or cork taint) has solved the premox problem. That may sound good, but we see no scientific reason to believe this claim.
Burgundy remains frustratingly complex and the prices for many sought-after appellations have spiraled out of control as crop sizes have dwindled and the region’s reputation has soared. However, the best wines of the region taste sensationally good, and that’s the most important thing that keeps pulling us back to Burgundy. The other thing is great discoveries like Les Héritiers Saint-Genys, based in Chassagne-Montrachet but with vineyards scattered in locations as widely separated as Puligny-Montrachet, Santenay, Mercurey and Morgan in Beaujolais. And they make stunningly complex and individual wines from all these locations.
Long live real Burgundy!
– Stuart Pigott, Senior Editor
