Burgundy Annual Report: A Classical Embrace

Burgundy’s 2021 vintage gave us “the uncomfortable negative side of what is referred to as a classical vintage,” said one Cote d'Or winemaker during our weeklong trip to the region in June. The year was marked by severe April frosts followed by mildew pressure during the season. And although few producers openly admitted it, botrytis was prevalent at the end of the growing season, which meant that serious selection and sorting of the best quality grapes was imperative.

But thanks to the hard work of some winemakers, the quality of the 615 wines we tasted in total on the road and in Hong Kong was very good to outstanding. 2021 is indeed a return to a more classic style, which means fresher and lighter wines without the high alcohol of some recent years. The 2021 vintage will definitely appeal to Burgundy lovers who found the 2020s overly ripe, concentrated and extracted.

“2021 is not a cool and wet vintage as many people have said,” said Frederic Barnier, the winemaker for Louis Jadot. Barnier told us that the harvest was relatively late not because of a cold season, but because the frosts delayed the vine cycle and secondary bunches further delayed ripeness.

The acidities are moderate, comparable to recent warmer vintages, and the reds are not austere, as might be expected. “The malic acid level was very high, but it makes a huge impact when you do malolactic fermentations,” Barnier said. “It’s why the reds are so accessible and soft in 2021.”

Whites in 2021 can be equally impressive. Two top wines from 2021 are serious chardonnays from the same great grand cru site. The Joseph Drouhin Montrachet Grand Cru Marquis de Laguiche 2021 and Louis Latour Montrachet Grand Cru 2021 are both complex and powerful with plenty of weight, and they should be approached after a couple of years (perhaps even more for the firmer Louis Latour Montrachet).

Two other incredible 2021 whites – another Louis Latour and one from Domaine Jacques Prieur – are from the larger grand cru site Corton-Charlemagne.

The reds that shined in our tasting were the Domaine Georges Comte de Vogüé Musigny Grand Cru Vieilles Vignes 2021, Louis Latour Chambertin Grand Cru Cuvée Héritiers Latour 2021 and two Marsannays from Domaine Charles Audoin – Au Champ Salomon 2021 and Les Favières 2021.

Yields were extremely low in 2021 across the board, particularly for whites, according to producers we interviewed. Christophe Deola, the director of Domaine Louis Latour, said their yields were only 6.1 hectoliters per hectare from their 10.5 hectares of Corton Charlemagne in 2021, compared with 49.5 hectoliters per hectare in 2022. In Chablis, the yields were higher in better-placed vineyards (around 30 hectoliters per hectare), while the lower vineyards of Chablis and Petit Chablis were badly hit by the frost. Pinot noir fared slightly better, according to Deola, and were about 30 to 35 percent of normal volume, compared with 25 percent for the whites.

Due to miniscule quantities and high production costs, prices are sky-high for the 2021s. Nevertheless, recent high prices for the top wines of Burgundy and increasing scarcity since the large 2017 vintage may be coming to an end with a bountiful 2022 vintage.

"2021 was the smallest vintage of the last 30 years and 2022 was the largest vintage of the last 30 years," said Jean-Luc Pepin, the director of Domaine Comte Georges de Vogue. Pepin and other winemakers we interviewed seemed positive about the quality and quantity of the 2022 wines in barrel, a wholly different vintage in the pipeline than 2021. Like 2020, it was a hot season, but the grapes seemed to retain excellent acidity and clarity of fruit. Check out barrel samples below like the three at the very top of this year’s report: the Bouchard Père & Fils Chevalier-Montrachet Grand Cru Domaine 2022, Domaine Faiveley Mazis-Chambertin Grand Cru 2022 and Domaine Georges Comte de Vogüé Chambolle-Musigny 1er Cru Les Amoureuses 2022.

So far, 2023 also looks set to produce a bumper crop. “2023 seems good, but the mistake is to fall in the trap of making quantity rather than quality,” said Jean-Claude Boisset winemaker Gregory Patriat. “It's human to want to make more wine after 2021, but people with 16 to 18 bunches per vine will need to do green harvest.”

Aside from grand crus, one wine at the village level snuck into our top 10. The Marsannay Les Favières 2022 from Domaine Charles Audoin wowed Stuart Pigott and I with its breathtaking minerality and vivacity during a barrel tasting with winemaker Cyril Audoin in his dimly lit cellars. The tastings at the winery, both of 2021 in bottle and 2022 in barrel, cemented our belief that Marsannay has immense potential, rivaling the villages a little farther south in the Cote de Nuits.

Marsannay still has no premier cru designations, but there are clear vineyard specificities. Compare Charles Audoin's 2021 vintage of Marsannay Les Favières with their Marsannay Au Champ Salomon 2021, for example. These are adjacent vineyards on the mid-slope, but Les Favières is more peppery, mineral and aromatically complex (the 2020 was our No. 3 wine from France last year), versus the muscular Au Champ Salomon, with its dark and brooding fruit profile. These single-vineyard offerings represent excellent value amid more exorbitantly priced wines in the list below.

FROM THE BOTTOM UP

The contention that grand cru vineyards make the best wines has somewhat unraveled in recent years, particularly with the concentrated wines from such a hot and sunny year as 2020. Lesser appellations and designations are making equally compelling wines. We again found a strong showing from lesser appellations in 2021, not only from Marsannay but also Cote Chalonnaise and Hautes Cotes, such as the excellent Domaine Boris Champy Bourgogne Hautes-Côtes de Beaune Clou 377 2021, which is made from grapes grown on the upper slopes of Cote de Beaune.

“Wine is about terroir and also about the work you put in,” said Boris Champy, who grows his vines biodynamically. “There is no limit to the quality in the Hautes Cotes de Bourgogne.” Champy’s operation is an extreme example of something more widespread, with its north-facing and higher-altitude vineyards suddenly an advantage in hot and sunny years. Such sites are also much more affordable. Nonetheless, most wines at the top of this report are from revered grand and premier cru appellations.

Some of the highest-rated wines in our report are from a Chassagne-Montrachet tasting James attended last December in Hong Kong, highlighting the class of this appellation. In our top 10 wines is the Louis Jadot Criots-Bâtard-Montrachet Grand Cru 2012, which was drinking incredibly well, with a full and creamy texture, yet was still fresh. It shows the heights of complexity a grand cru Burgundy can achieve with a decade or so of cellaring.

READ MORE CHAMPAGNE ANNUAL REPORT: FRESHNESS AND ENERGY COME TO THE TABLE

Premier cru wines with a few years of age from the tasting that are worth seeking out include the Domaine Coffinet-Duvernay Chassagne-Montrachet 1er Cru Les Blanchots Dessus 2015, Bruno Colin Chassagne-Montrachet 1er Cru En Remilly 2019, Jean-Claude Ramonet Chassagne-Montrachet 1er Cru Les Caillerets 2017 and Jean-Marc Pillot Chassagne-Montrachet 1er Cru Les Chevenottes 2009.

James said that the tasting underlined how Chassagne-Montrachet continues to be an underrated appellation for great white wines. And that it also added credence to the saying that the appellation is a “red wine appellation making whites.” In other words, the whites have the excellent phenolic structure found in reds. Moreover, the hotter years have ripened some of the rusticity out of the grapes and into the wines, he noted after the tasting.

You'll also notice a few 2013 wines from Bouchard Père & Fils, which I tasted at a press event earlier this year, including the stunning Chevalier-Montrachet Grand Cru La Cabotte 2013. Bouchard has been using Diam corks since the 2000s and their whites, even in 2013, are made without lees-stirring with minimal oxygen contact and using a maximum of 10 percent new oak for more purity of fruit. Ten years on, the 2013 La Cabotte feels very youthful and powerful, with bright acidity and hints of white truffle.

Stuart and James remember that the equally challenging 2013 was also described as a “classic” vintage when it first came out. And the wines, both red and white, give excellent pleasure now, just like the whites I tasted on Diam earlier this year. It will be interesting to see how the current “classic” – 2021 – develops in the future.

– Claire Nesbitt, Associate Editor

Note: You can sort the wines below by vintage, score and alphabetically by winery name. You can also search for specific wines in the search bar.