Can those high prices really be sustained? A shorter version of this article is published by the Financial Times. See our guide to coverage of 2023 burgundies. Image of harvest on the hill of Corton by Jon Wyand.
Vintage 2023, whose wines will be shown this coming week at multiple tastings in London, yielded the most plentiful crop ever in Burgundy. It is being launched into a world in which wine lovers have complained loudly about the excessively high prices asked for burgundy in recent vintages, including the generous 2022 harvest. Prices for mature burgundy in the secondary market have been softening quite markedly. So one might expect a drop in prices for the 2023s, no?
No. With a few exceptions, prices of these embryonic 2023s, most of them still in cask, are much the same as for the sky-high 2022s. The rump of Burgundy’s production from the Côte d’Or heartland, wines carrying a simple village appellation (as opposed to those from a vineyard rated a premier cru or grand cru) can cost hundreds of pounds a bottle if made by a celebrated producer. And bottles of their grands crus carry four-digit price tags. Producers accuse those further along the distribution chain, especially restaurateurs, of gouging. Merchants are keen to insist that their prices reflect what vignerons charge.
Part of the excuse for the continued high prices for the 2023s is that 2024 was a truly awful growing season: grey and so soggy that vignerons sprayed against the fungal diseases to which grapevines are so prone up to 20 times rather than the usual handful. The crop was so small or rotten that some vines were left unpicked. Red wine grapes suffered even more than those for white wines and, although official figures are yet to be confirmed, the 2024 vintage in Burgundy may be the smallest ever.
Two more factors may be used to sustain these high prices for young, very young, burgundies. Although almost all wine lovers complain about them, those who can afford the top names still seem willing to buy them. And the most sought-after wines are made in quantities that are a tiny fraction of the typical output of the Bordeaux châteaux that are currently finding it much more difficult to sell their wines.
There may still be demand for the most lauded names, especially the holy trinity of Rs: Roumier, Rousseau and Domaine de la Romanée-Conti. But it is far from a general rule. According to Master of Wine Peter Mitchell, who buys wine for the Jeroboams group in London, ‘many village burgundies now seem overpriced compared to their global competition and we’re seeing that in what sells in our shops’.
Having, like most professional burgundy buyers, spent some time tasting with producers in cellars on the Côte d’Or last autumn, Mitchell also describes 2023 yields as sky-high, sometimes in excess of the official maxima laid down in the detailed regulations for each appellation, so grapes with even the slightest lack of perfection had to be rejected at the sorting table, in theory anyway. There had also been widespread, though not universal, trimming of excess grapes during the summer to stay within the rules.
Unlike 2024 and 2021, but like 2019, 2020 and 2022, the 2023 growing season was hot. And 2023 also saw a dangerous heat spike at the end of August that threatened to send the levels of refreshing acidity in the grapes plummeting. According to Greg Patriat, who has made a superb set of 2023s for Jean-Claude Boisset, ‘the key point with whites was to pick before 10 September’ when over-ripeness, and rain, set in. Many if not most producers began to pick their white wine grapes in late August. In his excellent overview of the vintage, our Burgundy specialist Matthew Hayes was told by Paul Delorme at the much-admired Domaine Guy Roulot in Meursault that they even wondered whether their harvest, between 28 August and 8 September, wasn’t too late.
Well-heeled producers, presumably those benefiting from the sky-high prices, could afford to pick only early in the morning, and one or two even hired refrigerated containers to cool just-picked grapes down to preserve every ounce of flavour and freshness. Finding a picking crew is no easier in Burgundy than anywhere else in the wine world today and it’s a job increasingly delegated to an outside vineyard management company. According to Patriat, his grapes were picked by Albanians this year, Moroccans last year.
Although Patriat and his team do much of the farming, and there are long-term contracts in place, the vineyards he buys from are not owned by Jean-Claude Boisset, which makes the business a négociant, as opposed to a domaine, which vinifies only grapes from its own vineyards.
The good news for lovers of burgundy is the relatively recent proliferation of so-called micro-négociants, generally younger, enthusiastic winemakers setting up in premises that are likely to be rented not owned. They may even be able to afford to buy a few vines in a less glorious appellation. An outstanding example is Camille Thiriet, who concentrates on carefully selected vines around the village of Comblanchien in the Côte d’Or ‘no man’s land’ between Aloxe-Corton and Nuits-St-Georges.
But more often these newcomers vinify grapes exclusively from vines farmed by others. To succeed financially they need really close relationships with their suppliers, however. Reflecting the prices of finished wines, grape prices on the general market have risen so high that the bigger négociants such as Jadot and Drouhin have been finding it difficult to buy enough for their established customers. And, as a sign of the times, the highly regarded Domaine Dujac has substantially trimmed its sideline négociant business Dujac Fils & Père because it feels it can no longer deliver the value originally intended. According to Dujac fils Jeremy Seysses, ‘We have been selling these wines at something very close to cost for the last decade’.
Having tasted a limited range of 2023 burgundies, so far I can report that the wines are generally pretty good: charming with signs of dilution in only a few instances and, perhaps surprisingly, with sufficient acidity to suggest a reasonably long life, too.
Such 2023s as I tasted didn’t seem to suffer the faults of the two recent heatwave vintages 2019 and 2020 when quality and stylistic distinctions between village wines and premiers and grands crus seemed to become blurred and all reds were so ripe that it was even possible to recommend those carrying the lowliest of appellations, Bourgogne.
A UK merchant who has been visiting Burgundy for 35 years and has a reliable palate for its wines reckons that since the cooler vintage of 2021, the distinction between quality levels, and different terroirs, has re-established itself. He argues it’s not just that growers have become accustomed to dealing with grapes from hotter summers, but that the vines themselves have gone through some process of adaptation.
With 2023s, and in fact in general, the wisest advice for those trying to squeeze value out of the Côte d’Or is to seek out a combination of the less famous appellations and the most adept producers in them. It’s too early to identify the latter in 2023 but obvious examples of the former are the Hautes-Côtes de Nuits and Hautes-Côtes de Beaune, Beaune itself, St-Aubin (though the reputation of this Chassagne neighbour has been growing steadily), St-Romain, Monthelie, Côte de Beaune-Villages, Côte de Nuits-Villages, Ladoix, Fixin and Marsannay (though the reputations of the last two are on the rise, too).
Or, wean yourself off burgundy entirely and go for some of the superior Pinot Noir alternatives listed below, although prices are rising to mirror those of burgundy.
Graham Gardner, who has been importing burgundy into the UK for decades, and boasted that prices of Domaine de Bellene’s 2023s have been cut back to 2019 levels, observed darkly as I tasted these wines, ‘Producers need to be aware of market conditions but the Burgundians don’t seem to be.’
Alternative Pinot Noirs
Mayu, Gran Reserva Pinot Noir 2022 Elqui, Chile 14%
£14.99 Majestic
Knipser Blauer Spätburgunder 2019 Pfalz, Germany 13%
£16.50 The Wine Society
Matetic, EQ Granite Pinot Noir 2021 Casablanca, Chile 14%
£24.49 All About Wine, £25.10 VINVM, £25.75 Hic!
Moya Meaker Pinot Noir 2022 Elgin, South Africa 13%
£27.95 Lea & Sandeman
Holger Koch * Pinot Noir 2022 Baden, Germany 13%
£28.40 Howard Ripley
Dog Point Pinot Noir 2021 Marlborough, New Zealand 13.5%
£28.80 VINVM
Alma de Cattleya Pinot Noir 2021 Sonoma County, California 14%
£32 The Wine Society
Dr Heger, Ihringer Winklerberg Mimus Spätburgunder 2019 Baden, Germany 13.5%
£34.40 Howard Ripley
Chacra, Sin Azufre Pinot Noir 2021 Patagonia, Argentina 12%
£43.50 Lea & Sandeman
Donnachadh, Estate Pinot Noir 2022 Sta Rita Hills, California 13.5%
£44.99 Majestic
Saurwein, Nom Pinot Noir 2022 Elandskloof, South Africa 14%
£45.21 Lay & Wheeler, £47 Swig
Racines, Cuvée Pinot Noir 2020 Sta Rita Hills, California 13%
£47 Berry Bros & Rudd
Giant Steps, Applejack Vineyard Pinot Noir 2022 Yarra Valley, Australia 13%
£48 London End
Valli, Gibbston Vineyard Pinot Noir 2019 Central Otago, New Zealand 13%
£48.81 Lay & Wheeler client
Jane Eyre Pinot Noir 2021 Tasmania 14%
£50.57 Shelved Wine
Tasting notes, scores and suggested dinking dates in our tasting notes database. For international stockists, see Wine-Searcher.com.