2010 Burgundy: A Blue-Moon Occurrence
|
Mushroom growing
in the woods near our gîte in
Burgundy
|
N.B. Click on the
photographs to enlarge them
|
Vintages like this
come ‘round very, very rarely. Okay, so I do
appreciate that there have been no bad harvests in
the region for a considerable period of time. All and
any have the potential to light up one’s
synapses with pleasure messages when the wines reach
maturity.
|
Drive over the
top from the Hameau de Blagny and suddenly the
village of Gamay appears, surrounded by the vineyards
of St Aubin
|
And, largely, wine
writers and journalists have things quite wrong. It
seems to me that these people, first of all, get hold
of the weather report for the year and at that stage
make their first assessment of the quality of the
vintage. Thereafter, many won’t even take the
trouble to go to the region to taste the new wines.
(Don’t overlook the fact that we are talking
here about what is arguably the greatest
wine-producing region in the world and one that is a
mere hop and a skip from our shores.) Many journos
make a definitive assessment based on more-or-less
extensive tasting of barrel samples shown by
one-or-other merchant in London.
|
The monocultural
landscape split by the RN74: the Beaune-Dijon
road
|
And the thing
about barrel samples is that they can be pretty much
okay, or they can be shot/oxidised/gone/overly
sulphured/other, or all points in between. What they
cannot be is as good as a sample drawn fresh from a
barrel in the cellar.
|
Meursault
through the mist
|
What apparently
cheers a journalist’s heart is to see weather
reports showing a great deal of sunshine, a little
rain in all the right places (just to ensure that the
vines do not suffer from hydric stress) and to hear
about the healthiest fruit arriving at the winery
with barely any requirement for sorting (carefully
picking over the harvested grapes to ensure the
removal of over/under-ripe berries, along with
anything else that shouldn’t end up in the
wine).
|
N.B. I am, of
course, generalising. Some journalists are highly
diligent about their work. I just wish that some of
the others would recognise the responsibility they
have for properly guiding the consumer and also
assisting the trade to sell good wine.
|
I now tend to
think of Burgundy vintages in terms of whether they
are Pinot Noir or terroir vintages. For
example, a vintage like 1999 was widely welcomed by
the press as a great classic. It defines a Pinot Noir
vintage: lots of delicious, ripe fruit, with
terroir taking a back stage.
|
Then take vintages
like 2001, 2004, 2008. Panned by the press on release
(the wines simply cannot be any good following
growing seasons of such inclemency, surely?), it then
takes a number of years for everyone to sit up and
say “hang on, there’s something special
here after all”. (In the case of 2008, I
believe that – as with 1993 – the
vintage’s reputation will continue to grow over
time and that the wines will be something really very
special indeed, but…oh well, the journalists
and wine critics failed to talk it up, ergo we
didn’t sell very much, ergo those who decided
to skip it will just have to take our word for it
when future tasting notes wax lyrically about these
superb bottles.)
|
Personally, I want
something more than ripe Pinot Noir fruit when I buy
burgundy. I want Gevrey to have that wild, smoky
hedgerow character that makes one murmur “Mmmm,
Gevrey” when one encounters it. I want
Chambolle to show off its aristo DNA; Marsannay to
taste like Marsannay, Puligny to differ from
Chassagne. In short, I want 2001, 2004 and 2008,
rather than 1999.
|
And now we come to
the thing about 2010. And it’s a very Big Thing
indeed. 2010 offers ripe, dense, concentrated fruit
that crackles with energy and vim. Yet it also offers
some of the most clearly defined terroir I
have ever encountered. These are statuesque wines of
great definition, scintillating purity and
other-worldly beauty. I had been thinking all these
things as we tasted through the days of our week in
Burgundy and then we went out to dinner one evening
in Beaune and I sat next to an American: Claude Kolm
(whose website is
well worth a read, by the way), who has been visiting
Burgundy since 1986 (I presume he then tasted the
‘85s). Claude’s opinion was that he had
never tasted wines of such class and sheer quality as
he was finding in the ‘10s.
|
Leaves turn to
their autumn setting
|
Now the bad news!
Quantities are very short. Various vintage conditions
conspired to shorten the crop. There was widespread
millerandage, that condition in which the
fruit doesn’t “set” properly and
one ends up harvesting tiny berries that contain a
minute quantity of super-concentrated juice. In some
instances, producers are down 40% or more compared
with ’09.
|
Volnay in the
sunshine
|
And the Chinese
have arrived. They are visiting the region in ever
greater numbers; it was, after all, only going to be
a matter of time before this emerging interest turned
its attention to wine-growing regions other than
Bordeaux.
|
The Clos St Jean
1er Cru in Chassagne where Pinot Noir and Chardonnay
rub shoulders
|
All this means
that prices are creeping up. These might be the
twilight years of “affordable” Grand Cru
Burgundy wine. Yet one can temper one’s despair
with the realisation that there are a great many
superb and good value wines in the region. The lesser
reds of the Côte de Beaune (red Chassagne,
Santenay and Maranges being the classic examples
here); the white wines of St Aubin and the Bourgogne
Blancs of the better producers. There is a great deal
about which to be excited still.
|
The sun starts
to burn the mist from the vineyards of Maranges in
the south of the Côte de Beaune
|
So here it is: a
vintage in which everything came together, a vintage
that has produced super-fine wines – both red
and white - that’ll keep (at least at the
middle to top levels) into the long term.
|
I recommend them
to you with all sincerity.
|
Click here
to go to our offer of the wines of the Domaine Joseph
Voillot
|
Click here
to go to our offer of the wines of the Domaine Paul
Pillot
|
And click
here to read a minor rant about Burgundy on
Caspar’s blog
|
