Vintage d’Emotion: The Charts

I often recommend wines to friends and clients, and when I look at my recommendations there is a clear pattern: my recommendations are uniformly vivid, lively, and with an edge of hedonistic joy. Wine should have energy and tension rather than being impressively concentrated or intense.

Some vintages give more hedonistic joy and pleasure than others. They naturally have more energy and tension, and these are the wines and vintages you should search for – I give you Vintage d’emotion.

I have therefore included a new emotional rating – Vintage d’emotion – in my revised Vintage Charts, rating the vintage on its emotional qualities as I have been doing for individual wines. These Vintage Charts are your guide to Vintage d’emotion hence also the emotional wines, whether you are in a restaurant or choosing what to drink from your own cellar.

Young vintages are often enjoyable young, but as the wine ages its true good and bad sides appear. They reveal themselves, and with this the long-run tension – or not – in the wine.

The heart ratings are my current drinking recommendations (they are updated when needed) and mainly cover the last 15-20 years. I taste older vintages relatively rarely, and storage and other factors start to play a big role in the emotional qualities, so I am a bit more reticent rating the 1990 vintages.

Check out the red and white vintage charts here.

Ratings of older vintages

I have made minor adjustments to earlier vintages; particularly, the readiness to drink has been updated. White vintages before 2014 should be looked at regularly, as many of them are starting to reach full maturity, and premox is for some wines a big factor.

The reds: Go for pleasure

Some wines and vintages have more energy and tension than others, and some lesser vintages have another, unexpected gear.

Vintages like 2019 and 2015 have scads of energy, and this often shines through in the reds. But it will often be too early to enjoy the bigger wines, which are simply too rich and ample and need more time.

But take a vintage like 2017, that currently shows the best sides of red Burgundy. Lively and seductive, and quite frequently with fine emotional values, this comes from a year that is not a top vintage. Yet taste a wine like the Musigny 2017 from J.-F. Mugnier and you will find tremendous emotional joy.

Also, a vintage like 2013 is currently showing great energy, presumably due to the uneven ripeness of the pinot noir. This is a treat now, even though it’s not a top vintage. Always remember: Great producers produce hedonistic wines; poor producers can ruin even the most lively and hedonistic wine’s potential.

So the vin d’émotion hearts will show you which vintages can provide you with hedonistic, seductive drinking experiences.

The whites and the P word

Premature oxidation has declined dramatically in white Burgundies, but one still finds evidence of the problem until at least 2013 – if not beyond.

With Diam closures, this issue should be more or less eliminated. But with natural cork, it can still be found, even in recent years.

I feel nonetheless that the problem has been reduced dramatically, and while one should always be wary with vintages older than 2014, we are able to enjoy white wines more freely these days.

The emotional whites

Many whites today are quite rich and voluptuous. Global warming is taking its toll, but I must say that the vignerons are working magic in some of the hotter vintages. In the end, the wines keep well, but are not built for 30 year of cellaring.

I have tried to identify the exciting, lively vintages primarily from 2014 onwards, as these are the wines that are worth collecting and enjoying. In any case, finding old whites in restaurants is not an easy task.

The years from 1995-2006 were difficult due to premox, and while 2007-13 show some improvement, these wines are rare these days and can still be risky business. In a restaurant, you should have the bottle replaced if it is clearly premoxed, but when we are talking about a 10+-year-old wine, the “pre” in premox becomes a matter of experience and goodwill.

Vintages like 1988, 1990 and 1992 can still shine their magic, being from the days before the pox. So can the grands crus from Domaine Leflaive from a year like 1996. These are however very rare, and still present a risk of premox.

I have done the white vintage chart to the best of my ability. However, premox is random, and drinking old whites is becoming a rare treat – sadly.

Check out the red and white vintage charts here.

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