2025 … a first real sip

We are now in March, and with the 2024 yields being minuscule, the charming 2025s are already knocking on the door.

Vintages and wines are getting thrown into the market earlier and earlier, with first very initial tastings even a few weeks from harvest!

Like it or not … this is the speed and urgency in today’s market … and this is now really translating into earlier drinking wines … earlier maturing wines …. earlier, earlier … quicker … to the benefit of the consumer apparently … and with the risk of missing the indulgence of tasting the truly mature Burgundies.

The 10-year benchmark

I, for one, love old and mature Burgundies … but tasting a maturing 2015 Domaine Fourrier Gevrey Chambertin Les Goulot … made me realise and recall that a 10-year-old Burgundy can actually give me the balance and the complexity that I am looking for in a modern Burgundian wine.

More and more wines have 10 years as a drinking target, with an almost immediate tasting possibility and pleasure … giving a huge drinking window for you to enjoy until the wines reach what I would call early maturity … the 10-year benchmark.

80% of the red Burgundies are tasted within the first 10 years …. and for the whites it’s even more … 95% perhaps …

Preliminary 2025 – Domaine Millot

I normally prefer to wait to taste the new vintage … the 2025s … until the spring, and make the tasting reports starting in May. This has been a good balance in the previous years … but the short elevage and the earlier bottling are pushing me to start more thorough in April … and some more preliminary first tastings even earlier.

First full preliminary tasting this year was at Domaine Millot in Nuits-Saint-Georges, where Alix Millot offered a taste of the full 2025 range.

The optimism regarding the red 2025 is very clear and expressed … and there is a positive vibe in the cellar after the quite depressing 2024 yields and sometimes also quality … let’s face it, wines that (at best) give good and enjoyable wines in the short term.

The 2025s are quite the opposite, with generous fruit, fine phenolic ripeness, and a lovely balance and freshness. Add to this a quite modest alcohol level with most wines below 13,5%, and many are in the 13% to 12% range, with the occationall 11% popping up or rather down.

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