The harvest is almost over except for a few late starters and bloomers. A very difficult harvest with yields well or even way below the normal … “a disaster,” as several growers have described it.
I do not dwell on the statistics. Still, production and recent talks with producers like Louis-Michel Liger-Belair and Étienne Grivot indicate that this is the smallest vintage they have ever seen. Even smaller than 2021!
This will certainly have serious consequences for the market and prices.
Burgundy prices in the years to come
Losing 75% of the red Burgundies in one vintage will have dire consequences on the marketplace. Additionally, significant loss of yield on the whites would render this vintage a complete catastrophe.
The prices of the 2023 vintage will be reevaluated and the possible downward revision will most likely be canceled. With a vintage reduced by 75%, the quantities just went from abundant to scarce.
As prices adjust to the new situation, we could see some short-term volatility. The adjustment will primarily be in the high-demand wines. The big names and labels. And there will – in my opinion – still be some downward adjustment waiting for the poorer and lesser wines.
Burgundy prices continue to be a real problem for even well-off consumers – they can pay – but will they continue to pay the current prices?
My guess, and it is a guess … no! I think we will see the markets sway away from Burgundy in general, and look for new and exciting tasting opportunities instead of chewing the well-known Burgundy brands like Jadot and Latour.
Then, we have newer speculative brands shooting up, and not all of them will be able to get the prices they were dreaming of!
This will also hit smaller producers who currently have excess supply. You know, the brands you can always find in the shops at inflated prices.
Burgundy will move to be a super luxury brand, and to sell wine as a luxury brand – it will need to have luxury appeal- be it a tasting, occasion or experience. They should have emotional qualities that really move you and not just a middle-of-the-road 1er Cru at 200-300 EUR.
This will be a new day for Burgundy. For some, perhaps the end of days!
Burgundy is terroir
When I started Winehog 10 years ago, my focus was terroir. It remains the core of my interest in Burgundy today.
But with global warming, the expression of terroir gets more difficult. For example, 15% alcohol does not give you a sharp display of terroir. It gives you a stem of Pinot soup with alcohol playing the dominating role.
Vin d’émotion to the people – not over extracted, oak-dominated wines with little expression of terroir and Pinot Noir!
We need producers who develop Burgundies that display and express the terroir i.e. a style that works in symbiosis with the effects of global warming …
A Burgundy should be lightfooted and complex. Otherwise, I can find attractive Italian and Spanish wines that will give me plenty of emotional joy.
and yes, what can we say?
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- A true vin d’émotion – a Burgundy of passion
- A truly hedonistic wine – lively and enjoyable
- A vivacious wine for pure indulgance
- A Vin Vif - fresh, energetic and with a light appearance
Hello Steen
your writings are always interesting and, with the problems you describe in Burgundy this year, that continues – if not increasingly !
I am 72 y.o, English and live in the Charente and I got interested in wine alongside my late wife in the early 1980s. I have always loved burgundy’s wines but it has always been expensive.
My wife was mostly a Francophile, though I did get her interested in Pinot Noirs from around the world as well.
I had a background as a young man of buying all sorts of things – furniture – antiques – from auctions in the UK and, perhaps because of the English penchant for collecting and storing (and aging) wines, I started to buy wines from auctions.
I did not start visiting the Burgundy region until a few years ago; when we came over to live permanently in France in 2002, we brought over our modest cellar – 60 to 65 cases of 12 (so 700-800 bottles) which comprised the bottles we had collected (and not drunk !) over the years.
I saw the problems of increasing wine prices in the UK (en primeur and all it’s problems as well) and all of that got me more and more interested in older wines; so many wines taking time to throw off their youthful robes and mature.
Since my wife passed away in 2015, I have thrown myself into my wine ‘hobby’ (so I am a ‘grand amateur’ now) and my cellars now have 5500 – 6500 bottles in them.
The Burgundies are a significant part of it but I have lots of clarets and plenty of New World wines (including North American, South American, South African New Zealand and Australian bottles, which count Pinot Noirs amongst them)
My lesser Burgundies – Chanson, Latour, Jadot, Mommessin, etc – in village category often offer wonderful tasting experiences due to them coming from lovely, older vintages (1962, 1969, 1971, 1972, 1976, …) : I never know for sure that a bottle will be good or not but, even with levels often down quite a bit, they are often revelations (and very rarely disappointing)
It is only eating down in Beaune and other towns in Burgundy over the past few years that I have gotten back to drinking some newer burgundies; they have been a joyful surprise but, sadly, the typicity of my (our, since I should still include my wife here) favourites, such as Gevrey Chambertin and Nuits-Saint-Georges are largely lacking in the wines. My wife and I always felt so lifted when drinking them in the UK, when we could taste the characteristics of those communes.
It is perhaps, as you say, that the increased alcohol levels in the wines are turning them more into ‘soups’. Robert Parker wrote a lot, commenting on how sturdier wines would develop more slowly into grand old bottles but the overall effect was that producers turned more and more to doing that and creating wines which you just couldn’t drink young anymore; he did that to an extreme (in my opinion) with the Languedoc wines of Pic Saint Loup, which I used to find entrancing at 3-4 years old and now, the good producers there that I know produce wines that are still not ready at 10 years of age 🙁
It was interesting to note that you will drink other countries wines rather than any ‘boring’ bottle of burgundy; I hope now that you live in Burgundy you have the opportunity to get / drink some of the excellenrt Pinot Noirs from South Africa (Hamilton Russell is my favourite) New Zealand (lots of good producers there; and some age extremely well !) and North America (they are expensive bottles these days, so I am very happy to have quite a few older bottles tucked away)
Excuse my ramblings – I too love (good) wines !
best wishes
Nick Cobbett
Spot on Steen