I would be inclined to drink the better village reds before the village whites from Puligny, Chassagne, or Meursault. Wait until 2025, maybe another year for lesser premier cru whites. More serious premier cru whites call for at least as much time as premier cru reds, so hang fire until 2027 or, for grands crus, until 2028/29. They have the balance and intensity to age gracefully. Village wines until 2028 at least, and premiers crus for 12–15 years, with the very best whites longer under Coravin. Top whites will go head to head with the reds. The longevity of whites can surprise. None of that is to say that the reds will not age. A decent premier cru red should age for 10–15 years, and the best longer. The reds have modest acidity, but acidity and pH are not the only considerations for aging. Intensity and balance are equally important. Very light but intense wines, such as those from Frédéric Mugnier, mature for decades. 2021 Côte de Nuits reds have modest acidity, but the low-acid 2000s have aged far longer than expected and are still going. Balance is more important. It never ceases to delight me how well Burgundy ages, white and red. But if you have a raft of vintages, think


of 2021 as a friend. Pull it out without worrying if it’s the perfect moment. Much like 2017, it’s an accessible, accommodating vintage. There are vintages, in the wings, demanding longer aging. Among recent vintages, 2019 will be first up, but wait for 2020 and the best of 2018. 2015 is just starting to come around now. If you are ordering from a restaurant wine list with an eye and purse for high-end premier cru or grand cru, you will appreciate the quality and terroir expression more clearly and precisely by choosing this lighter vintage rather than any of the richer previous three. A high proportion of wines were reduced when I tasted them in November 2022. This may result in them shutting down after bottling, but the probability is low, and frankly the reductive notes are part of the vintage character. Go with it. Decant the whites if necessary.


Vineyard


The gods sent not only disease but pests, too, in the form of caterpillars that ate the buds. This was the least of the vignerons’ worries as they battled with frost, coulure, mildew, oidium, and botrytis. Younger producers accustomed to the new normal felt challenged on all fronts, while more


mature vintners shrugged and remarked that this was actually quite normal. Frédéric Mugnier commented, “I don’t think vines should suffer to make great wine, and they have suffered in these hot and dry vintages. No, it is the grower who should suffer to make great wines. There is a big difference between the hot vintages today and vintages in the ’90s.” 2021 saw the more traditional challenge to harvest ripe grapes while rot spread rampantly. But to begin with there was frost. A proper winter frost, temperatures dropping to between 21° and 23°F (–5° to –6°C) upslope, often accompanied by snow; quite different from a spring frost, which settles at the bottom of the slopes. Frost threatened April 5–8, and the unlucky were struck more than once within their vineyards, decimating the buds. It had been unusually warm and sunny for ten days prior to this, encouraging an early budding, which was well under way for Chardonnay. Among the worst affected places were whiter and rocky soils that reflected that early sunshine. Some parcels yielded 9hl/ha or less. Even St-Aubin, which typically buds later than the principal white villages, was affected; Jean-Baptiste Bachelet seems quite fortunate in harvesting an average of 20hl/ha for Chardonnay. Domaine Bouchard harvested Chardonnay at an average of 10hl/ha. Pinot Noir, which buds slightly later, was also affected, but less dramatically. Bouchard’s Pommard and Beaune vineyards yielded 40hl/ha, but Volnay Cailleret gave a meager 5hl/ha. Pruning dates matter. It’s traditional


to begin pruning in December. For an average-sized domaine, the logistics of pruning in March or later, across all parcels, is virtually impossible, so some were affected more than others. Gregory Gouges, however, benefiting from a large team, pruned everything late, and his domaine’s Pinot Noir was barely affected by the frost. Many will be searching for ways to achieve this in the future. One approach is a two-step pruning.


Many moderate-sized domaines—which included Chandon de Briailles and Anne Gros—prune in the winter, leaving long canes, with a second pruning in late March to select the baguette and a courson for the following year. Claude Josset uses Guyot Poussard, a growing trend, in which a cane is selected from either side of the trunk to keep the bilateral flow of sap and help prevent esca.


Cordon-trained vines, which are spur-pruned, fared better, because they bud later. Most of the Pinot Noir in Chassagne-Montrachet is spur-pruned, not only to control yields, but trained by generations of vintners wary of frost. In Volnay premier cru Roncerets, Domaine Terre des Velle’s cordon-trained vines produced a decent crop of fruit that was nicely exposed and ripened well. Producers lit candles to raise the


temperature around the vines. Lighting fires, as some did in 2016, isn’t very effective. Producers focused on their best parcels. Erwan Faiveley used one candle per vine in Musigny, while others, including Domaine Lafarge, did nothing. At biodynamic producer Domaine


Trapet, Louis Trapet is trying another approach, using tall grasses to shelter the buds. He finds it works, but the seeds must be sown in the autumn for the grasses to grow above the budding zone, or the frost risk is exacerbated, and the grasses must be swiftly rolled down. In general, the vines took a couple of weeks to recover from the frost and resume growing. Isabelle Raveneau described the complication of having shoots of different generations, some tall and some short. Her cousin Maxim had to pass through the vineyards several times to tie them to the wires. Christophe Roumier found “the most difficult thing was getting in to plow the weeds because of the rain. They were causing more humidity.” By mid- to late June, the vines’ growth


caught up sufficiently to flower, later than recent vintages. Weakened by frost, many vines were affected by coulure. Biodynamic producers Rossignol-Trapet and Chandon de Briailles found preparation 501 helped with the flowering. At Domaine Marquis d’Angerville, François Duvivier made three sprays of 501 before flowering; he is convinced it builds immunity and produced a better flowering. (501 is finely ground silica matured in a buried horn and sprayed at just 3g per hectare after mixing in a dynamizer.) He also sprayed two weeks before harvest, remarking, “This gives a real tension and energy to the fruit when you taste the grapes. They are more perfumed and have better acidity.” Nicolas Bachelet, son of quietly spoken Denis, describes how their season was made worse by a hailstorm in the Brochon area of Gevrey and Fixin. Many trees have been felled in the area above Evocelles,


THE WORLD OF FINE WINE | ISSUE 79 | 2023 | 169


2021 BURGUNDY: INTRODUCTION


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84  |  Page 85  |  Page 86  |  Page 87  |  Page 88  |  Page 89  |  Page 90  |  Page 91  |  Page 92  |  Page 93  |  Page 94  |  Page 95  |  Page 96  |  Page 97  |  Page 98  |  Page 99  |  Page 100  |  Page 101  |  Page 102  |  Page 103  |  Page 104  |  Page 105  |  Page 106  |  Page 107  |  Page 108  |  Page 109  |  Page 110  |  Page 111  |  Page 112  |  Page 113  |  Page 114  |  Page 115  |  Page 116  |  Page 117  |  Page 118  |  Page 119  |  Page 120  |  Page 121  |  Page 122  |  Page 123  |  Page 124  |  Page 125  |  Page 126  |  Page 127  |  Page 128  |  Page 129  |  Page 130  |  Page 131  |  Page 132  |  Page 133  |  Page 134  |  Page 135  |  Page 136  |  Page 137  |  Page 138  |  Page 139  |  Page 140  |  Page 141  |  Page 142  |  Page 143  |  Page 144  |  Page 145  |  Page 146  |  Page 147  |  Page 148  |  Page 149  |  Page 150  |  Page 151  |  Page 152  |  Page 153  |  Page 154  |  Page 155  |  Page 156  |  Page 157  |  Page 158  |  Page 159  |  Page 160  |  Page 161  |  Page 162  |  Page 163  |  Page 164  |  Page 165  |  Page 166  |  Page 167  |  Page 168  |  Page 169  |  Page 170  |  Page 171  |  Page 172  |  Page 173  |  Page 174  |  Page 175  |  Page 176  |  Page 177  |  Page 178  |  Page 179  |  Page 180  |  Page 181  |  Page 182  |  Page 183  |  Page 184  |  Page 185  |  Page 186  |  Page 187  |  Page 188  |  Page 189  |  Page 190  |  Page 191  |  Page 192  |  Page 193  |  Page 194  |  Page 195  |  Page 196  |  Page 197  |  Page 198  |  Page 199  |  Page 200  |  Page 201  |  Page 202  |  Page 203  |  Page 204  |  Page 205  |  Page 206  |  Page 207  |  Page 208  |  Page 209  |  Page 210  |  Page 211  |  Page 212  |  Page 213  |  Page 214  |  Page 215  |  Page 216  |  Page 217  |  Page 218  |  Page 219  |  Page 220