1 February I thought you might be interested in specific evidence of how limited are allocations of this frost-shrunk vintage. During Burgundy Week in London every January Justerini and Brooks usually host one of the widest ranges of Burgundy producers pouring their latest vintage. This year, even though adding newcomers Ch de Meursault and Ch de Marsannay, they had many fewer tables and were lacking, for instance, Robert Chevillon, Philippe Colin, Jean-Noel Gagnard, Méo-Camuzet, Denis Mortet, Paul Pillot and Eric de Suremain. Let's hope that the generous 2017 crop in Burgundy results in much more choice for us all this time next year.
26 January Thanks to extremely hard work on the part of Tam, Emily and Francesca, we now have 1,891 tasting notes that have been uploaded and checked. We publish more than one tasting note on a handful of wines and have left them all in the belief that they may help you make up your mind. We'll keep this guide pinned for a few more days in the hope that it is helpful. It doesn't seem as though all the 2016 burgundies on offer from UK merchants have been sold, and I can tell you that I have thoroughly enjoyed tasting the majority of them. I expect to keep adding a few more since one or two producers have offered to send me samples.
23 January We expect to upload our last 2016 Burgundy tasting note this morning and Tam is working her way through each tasting article checking and neatening, so our task is just about done. The paucity of the 2016 crop is evident in the fact that for the first time since the 2012 vintage, our tally of tasting notes is less than 2,000. There's still a lot to choose from, however, and it has been a delight to see that prices have remained pretty stable, thanks to the generous size of the 2017 crop in Burgundy. The 2016s have been a delight to taste.
13 January Please note that in some instances we may have tasted the same wine more than once. For the moment we are including all tasting notes. When everything is uploaded, we will review the lot and, if we decide a note looks a bit out of kilter, we may delete it.
8 January This year, rather than cluttering up our home page with all 15 tasting articles with our tasting notes on hundreds of wines from Burgundy's ultimately very successful 2016 vintage, we will publish only this guide to them on the home page. Just click on a link below to read the relevant article – or find it by clicking on 'Articles' above. (We have so many tasting notes that putting them all into one massive article would be unwieldy.)
Last autumn we went to Burgundy three times. Jancis and Tam went briefly in October, principally to support the Zimbabwean team that many of you so kindly helped in their quest to participate in the World Wine Tasting Championships. Jancis went again at the end of October with the Royal Household Wine Committee to taste at some of the more exalted domaines. And Jancis and Julia went at the end of November to complete the roster of producers whose wines are not usually shown in London during the Burgundy Week that begins today and now seems to extend well into a second week.
Even though the 2016 crop in the Côte d'Or was lamentably small, we know of at least 32 tastings of Burgundy 2016s in London (and one in Bristol) and attended seven of them in 2017. Tam, Emily and Francesca will be hard at work from today, adding the tasting notes from this year's burgundy tastings in London. So the tasting articles published today are very much unfinished, as the article titles indicate, but, particularly since the 2016s are in such short supply, we thought you would rather have access to our assessments of them as soon as possible than wait until they are all complete and copy-edited.
GENERAL ARTICLES
Dom de la Romanée-Conti 2016s in bottle 30 January 2019
Négociants multiply in Burgundy 27 January 2018
Two 2016 red burgundy bargains 19 January 2018
Burgundy 2016 – UK merchants offering en primeur 8 January 2018
Burgundy 2016 – good news and bad 6 January 2018
Burgundy 2017 – when smoke saved grapes 11 November 2017
Time to buy Chablis 2014 and 2015 31 August 2017
Jacques Carillon – a vertical 26 August 2017
TASTING ARTICLES