VIEW OUR FULL BURGUNDY 2020 EN PRIMEUR OFFER HERE

We are delighted to you offer to you the excellent 2020 Burgundy vintage, with wines from fourteen domaines, including two for the first time this year; Antoine Jobard in Meursault and Jean Collet et Fils, from Chablis.  2020 is an excellent vintage for white wines and an very good one for reds. 

We began offering the vintage last November, with all domaines releasing their wines by early January.  Allocations are even more limited this year than usual and some wines have already sold out, but you will find a wealth of brilliant burgundies still available.  With unprecedented worldwide demand, rising prices and a tiny harvest to come in 2021, there has never been a more compelling argument for buying en primeur.

You will find our thoughts on the vintage as a whole and the wines in list format below.

view the full release offers (by domaine) here

Introduction 

Visiting Burgundy in the autumn to taste the new vintage is always a great pleasure, but in November 2021 it was particularly delightful.  The Côte-d'Or seemed more beautiful, unique and beguiling than ever, after being absent for two vintages.  Anxiety around filling out additional Covid-related travel documents was soon displaced by the familiarity of people and places we have been visiting for twenty-five years.  To find that we were also tasting a great vintage made the experience even more memorable, with the wines showing almost miraculous balance and elegance, after the warm summer of 2020.

Clearly, the domaines have been busy during the lockdown, taking advantage of reduced visitor numbers to build new cellars, with large cranes looming over several villages, particularly Pommard.  Happily, most of this modernisation is internal and in sympathy with the beautiful local architecture.  We saw more signs of modernization at one domaine, where we were proudly shown their bijoux, ultra-high-tech new bottling line, housed in an ancient Burgundy cellar.  An NFC chip in the label allows each bottle to be tracked as it makes its way around the world and can even inform the winery when the bottle has been opened and drunk!  Thankfully, the influence of nature and the individual was more evident at all the other domaines we visited. 

Despite the ancient landscape and architecture, there is a huge amount of innovation on the Côte-d'Or, with a continual exchange of ideas and knowledge between the brilliant winemakers who work there.  These conversations are especially lively in November when the harvest is over.  We arrived at the end of the weekend of 'Les Trois Glorieuses', the three events celebrating the harvest; the grand dinner at the Clos de Vougeot, the Hospices de Beaune Auction and the 'Paulée de Meursault', an enormous bacchic 'BYOB' dinner for around 700 winemakers, who vie with each other to bring the most outstanding bottles to the dinner.  The weekend is a collective celebration of the harvest, but also a time to compare notes and hear what your neighbours have been up to.

Whilst we were in the Côte-d'Or to taste the 2020 vintage, it was the 2021 harvest that had just been brought in and inevitably this was at the forefront of the minds of the growers, with such huge reductions in volume due to frost and mildew.  The final figures will not be known until February, but it was common to hear figures of a 60% reduction, leaving empty cellars and barrel rooms, which we saw everywhere.  There will be a severe scarcity of burgundy over the next couple of years and the 2020 vintage will have to tide us all through (luckily it is a brilliant one!).  Release prices have already risen anywhere from a few euros per case to up to 50% for some grands crus.

Harvest

2020 was the earliest harvest on record, with many growers picking from the middle of August, sometimes even picking their pinot noir before their chardonnay, to retain acidity levels and freshness.  The growing season overall was not as short as the picking dates might suggest, as it began early in 2020, with bud-break in mid-March, compared to early April in 2019.  Rainfall was an issue throughout 2020, but the year did at least begin with some useful winter rains topping up the reserves of groundwater.  With a mild spring, frost, for once, was not a major concern.

The hot summer was different to the summers of 2018 and 2019, with consistently high temperatures but fewer extreme heat spikes.  Nevertheless, the heat and lack of water created sufficient hydric stress on the chardonnay vines to send them into a physiological shutdown.  This paused the 'sugar accumulation phase' where tartaric acids in the grape are converted into sugars.

Not only were the acids preserved, they were also concentrated, as the overall water content of the berries fell.  This is the miraculous aspect of the 2021 harvest, a unique set of conditions that occurred quite unexpectedly over the space of a couple of weeks in August.  With very few diseases of the vine during 2020 (unlike the mildew-ridden 2021 harvest) the grapes were harvested in excellent condition.

Winemaking

The consequent concentrated, thick-skinned grapes required careful handling in the winery.  This is the first year we have heard the term 'infusion' to describe red winemaking, a term which appears to be all the rage amongst some winemakers, but which is also a source of some raise eyebrows and leg-pulling from others!  Essentially, with such thick-skinned grapes, the usual techniques of remontage (pumping the juice from the bottle of the vat over the top of the cap of skins, to extract colour and tannins and pigeage (punching the cap down into the juice, to similar effect) had to be used carefully, to avoid over-extraction.

Instead, reduced maceration times and gentle handling were required.  The use of whole bunch fermentation was also more widespread, with even the more traditional domaines, like Tortochot, using up to 30% whole bunches.  Whole bunch fermentation is complex, one of the numerous techniques which can convey the personality of the winemaker in the wines, depending on how it is handled.  The stalks add tannins and other phenolic compounds to the juice, but can also have an unpredictable impact, creating air spaces in between the bunches which can slow the fermentation time or have other outcomes.

Whilst the winemaking approach was important, in general, it was picking dates that determined success in 2020, with those picking earlier usually producing fresher and more balanced wines.

Antoine Jobard looks very pleased with the 2020s at his domaine in Meursault: "I do not think I will see another vintage like this in my life".

The Wines

We loved tasting the 2020s.  The whites had a really unusual combination of freshness, tension and ripeness, so unusual it made us question our palates...how can wines like this come from such a warm year?  They were almost classical in their balance.  Or perhaps these are 'new classics'.

The reds had their own distinct profile, often very aromatic on the nose, with ripe black fruits and floral (rose) aromas, and a fine tannic structure leaving an impression of elegance.  We enjoyed the fact that despite the ripeness, many of the reds finished dry (often a consequence of whole bunch fermentation).

Quality was pretty even across most appellations, with the variation between producers (depending on the aforementioned picking dates).  The Côte de Beaune reds stood out, but we may be influenced by the growers we visited.  In general, cooler climats, which might struggle to achieve full ripeness in less warm vintages, really shone in 2020.

As with other recent vintages, the wines were very open and easy to taste, though some growers speculated that the 2020s may need a little more time in the cellar.  They should age very well.  It is well worth remembering that, compared with Bordeaux, the wait for en primeur burgundy is relatively short, with many Bourgogne Rouges and Blancs landing by summer of next year and immediately ready to enjoy.

Stock currently lying ex-cellars in France, wines due to land in the UK by late 2022.  Prices are shown in bond (IB) per 6 or 12 bts (unless stated otherwise). Onward delivery within the UK not included.  Stock and orders are subject to confirmation.