Burgundy 2023
Burgundy 2023 Vintage Report: a good vintage
Marion Javillier – ‘C’est un bon millésime – voila!’
Normally we go to Burgundy in the early autumn, before the first frosts lower the temperatures in the cellars and close the wines down. This year our visit was in early December so we were fully prepared for some sullen reds and
truculent whites, disturbed from their winter élévage, but the reality couldn’t have been further from the case. Across the board we found juicily ripe Chardonnays, with ample acidities to balance their fruit, and wonderfully expressive, cool and poised Pinots – a positive joy to taste, and all the more unexpected having spent the first week of September 2023 in Burgundy in temperatures over 35C, watching growers frantically picking in the relative cool of the very early hours.
The 2023 growing season was called many things by many growers, ranging from ‘brutal’ to ‘incredible’ and ‘chaotic’, but they all unanimously agreed that the resulting wines were a positive joy both to make and to taste. The season started with a mild winter, with only a brief cold snap in late January. February and March were around the seasonal averages, which is mild, and then temperatures increased until mid May, when they returned to the cooler norm, and during which time it remained relatively dry with below average rainfall. Flowering at the end of May into early June was generally successful and plentiful, auguring a full crop for once, so long as nothing untoward happened meteorologically. June and July were mostly hot so the vines came on in leaps and bounds, only to be stalled by a cooler than normal August, with sporadic rainfall through all three months and severe storms in July. The first week of September has been credited by many for saving the harvest as temperatures rose to an unseasonal 35C and remained there until the 10th September, with nighttime temperatures not dropping much below 20C, forcing growers to harvest only in the morning and stopping by early afternoon when it was too hot for both pickers and grapes. The storms and intermittent rains brought with them the threat of mildew and growers needed to be vigilant not to be caught out.
The combination of successful flowering, warm weather and sporadic rain caused a new, rather novel problem for growers this year, one of too much fruit rather than too little – bunches were huge, and individual berries were larger than usual so many growers carried out a green harvest and, in some cases, a second cull around the time of véraison (a ‘blue’ harvest as one grower put it) to remove some of the later-ripening bunches and reduce the load on the vine. Chardonnay is more forgiving when carrying a heavy load of grapes and can ripen them well, but Pinot Noir needs to be tightly controlled to avoid dilution and underripe flavours – whilst some wines reflected this, you won’t see them in our offer.
Harvesting started in the first few days of September as the heat began to build, and time became of the essence. Whilst Pinot Noir really benefitted from the warmth, allowing the grapes to reach full phenolic maturity, Chardonnay, which increases rapidly in sugars once it is ripe, needed to be picked speedily to ensure that the fresh fruit and acidity remained and almost without exception all the wines we tasted achieved that knife-edge balance of ripe fruit, sufficient acidity and alcohol levels of around 12.5% or 13%. The whites are wonderfully fresh and racy, with enough acidity behind the plump fruit, and they will drink well early and, in many cases, keep well too. The Pinots all had beautiful floral fruit, with ripe tannins and acidities but none of the cooked notes which the temperatures suggested, with most looking approachable early and drinking well in the mid-term, some with the wherewithal to make old bones, but not all by any means. Their attraction will lie in the wonderfully fruit-forward notes. No harvest report for 2023 would be complete without a brief nod to the 2024 harvest which was incredibly varied and difficult for the growers. Just as we have had almost non-stop rain and storms here in the UK, so has Burgundy, with very low levels of light which has a major impact on photosynthesis and therefore ripening. By far the most stressful part of the 2024 growing season was the disease pressure – in some places, this sounded like the four horses of the Apocalypse as mildew, oidium, black rot and grey rot were mentioned time and again. The impact was significantly more marked on thin-skinned Pinot Noir, and particularly in the Côte de Nuits, where yields were between 3 and 20 hectolitres per hectare – compared to a normal year of 40 hl/ha and ermitted yields of up to 50 hl/ha. Chardonnay suffered less and the further south we went, the more relaxed the growers looked, with Côte Chalonnaise and Mâconnais growers happy with a normal harvest, albeit after a difficult season.
Inevitably, this will have an impact on the market from both sides of the equation; growers are once again looking at all but empty cellars after two hard-earned abundant years, yet they are very aware of the sensitivity of the market to price rises given the global economic situation. Most have held their 2022 prices for the 2023, with some in the Mâconnais making welcome reductions and so we recommend stocking up on 2023s whilst the quality, quantity and pricing are in such harmonious alignment.
If you have a wish list for Burgundy, please be sure to share it with your salesperson, call us on 01353 721 999 or email hello@privatecellar.co.uk. We will be sharing our full tasting notes and pricing with you in the coming weeks.
Nicola Arcedeckne-Butler MW
December 2024
To discuss the vintage, learn more about the wines and for help in preparing your wish list, please call us on 01353 721 999 or contact your usual salesperson.
