2024 Burgundy Report

The View from Monthelie/Meursault border, looking at Auxey-Duresses and Saint Romain in the distance.

This is now my 10^th consecutive Burgundy EP report and will be the 20^th Vintage I have sold on release. A lot has changed in those 20 years, popularity of Burgundy has soared, technology has hugely developed and increasing global temperatures have meant winemakers are having to employ new methods to adapt. However the 2024 wines due to the unusual amount of rain have more than a few characteristics of vintages of the past such as my first report in 2014. I tasted the majority of the 2024 wines in November and will admit went into the tastings with some apprehension given the weather during the growing season. How wrong I was!

2024 is a small but pure and ‘real’ Burgundy vintage: charming reds and excellent well defined whites, in what all vignerons described as one of the hardest seasons to work. It’s a year defined by relentless mildew pressure but also out of the possible disaster some truly excellent wines. It is however far from a homogenous vintage, but one where vineyard and wine making decisions have created some fascinating and very different results, the highs can be extremely high but as is expected with some unfortunate lows.

The reds will undoubtedly charm and provide lovely earlier drinking options, however the cote de Beaune and Cote de Nuits are stylistically quite different. At their best bright, ripe but chiselled strawberry/raspberry ‘real’ pinot fruit in cote de Beaune, reminiscent of 2017 and perhaps 2014. The Cote de Nuits is a slightly more complex proposal (and much smaller crop), some really lovely open and quite concentrated in places, but also a little astringent in some. If well-chosen (guided!) then these will reward for near and mid-term drinking but I would suggest are not wines we will be appraising in decades to come.

The whites, however are 100% my style of White Burgundy. I kept coming back to 2017, 2014 and 2020 in my notes, leaning more on the 2017 for comparison. They have a lovely core of ripe green and perfumed orchard fruit, with a mineral sometimes saline freshness. More importantly they were energetic and the definition of wines of place, each cuvee showing it’s nuance brilliantly, both traits I look for in excellence. Yields here are also smaller yet there are some cuvee where crops are loser to average thus not as bad a picture as perhaps the average production figures would suggest. As Marc Bachelet of Domaine Bachelet-Monnot said “at least the outcome of the hardest vintage I have ever worked is something to be proud of, the quality is great”

I think all would admit there was a few moments where they thought about throwing in the towel and admitting defeat.

Vintage Overview

Rain defined the 2024 growing season. From early summer through August, precipitation ran roughly half again above the long-term average, and total rainfall over the preceding twelve months was close to double what growers expect. Despite this, temperatures were not cold, more unremarkable: neither especially cool nor especially warm, landing close to the long-term mean.

The combination of persistent moisture and moderate warmth created ideal conditions for Mildew (fungal disease). Many spoke of the year as an unrelenting struggle. Mildew appeared exceptionally early, well before flowering and far earlier than normal. When flowering arrived, it did so under cold, wet skies, resulting in poor fruit set and immediate yield reductions. Many estimated that between a tenth and nearly a third of the crop was lost at this stage alone. Much worse for Pinot than Chardonnay.

As spring turned to early summer, the pressure intensified. Many of the vignerons I work with do so with organic practices, the repeated rainfall rendered many protective treatments short-lived, making mildew control extraordinarily difficult. There were weeks where the treatments were washed off hours after being applied which meant spraying every single day. My neighbour in Auxey-Duresses sprayed over 30 times in the summer alone, compare that to the previous year when he only did 5 treatments in total! There was also another new issue for some, where simply accessing the vineyards became problematic due to lack of cover crop protecting the soil and making compaction and muddy unworkable conditions.

These challenges forced some difficult decisions. Some domaines no doubt questioned whether organic viticulture remained viable and I am sure like in Bordeaux some decided to abandon these practises not only to save their crop, but also to save their finances. It is easy for the gossips in the streets of Beaune, but in reality it’s hard to judge when you consider not all properties have hectares of grand cru to swell the coffers. When you consider using treatments which are not washed away by rain not only reduces the cost of buying the treatment (tripled or more in 2024), but also reduces fuel consumption and workforce hours. Add this to the reduction in crop already, the choice of organic or not can add up to covering your expenses or writing a huge loss. One winemaker who works as a negociant and grower told me that finding organic fruit to purchase was almost impossible in 2024.

The Harvest

The complications continued through to harvest where pickers were asked to cover far more ground than usual, searching out healthy bunches to avoid rotten or diseased crop on the sorting table. There was a brief respite in conditions around mid-September which prompted most domaines to begin harvesting at roughly the same time. Although rain continued to make progress difficult, the harvest itself was shorter than average (less grapes) and in contrast to 2023 almost a month later. Many of the older growers commenting of a return to days of old, such as my first vintage back in 2004 when the picking dates were late September and into October.

Selection proved especially demanding. Even with vineyard selection meticulous work at sorting tables was incredibly important. Paul Delorme at Domaine Roulot told me they went as far as choosing individual berries one by one, painstaking work. Given the tiny yields, this however was a mandatory approach and one which was employed at many addresses.

Production Levels

As I mentioned crop in the Cote de Beaune tends to be better than in the Cote de Nuits as Chardonnay was earlier flowering, however it varies domaine to domain. Maxime Lafouge of Domaine Lafouge who together with his father Gilles has made a wonderful set of wines, both white and red, told me that it was the old vines which suffered the most due to the inherent smaller yield being reduced even more. Therefore, where they have vineyards of vines with 25-30 year old vines the crop was down but not by a dramatically low number. Conversely Olivier Lamy of Domaine Hubert Lamy (who will be releasing 2023’s this year) said he was affected far more with around 40% loss, some vineyards even more. In the Cote de Beaune some growers reported losing the majority of their crop in certain cuvee, Sebastien Cathiard for example has had to blend his Nuits St Georges 1er cru Murgers and Thorey into one cuvee this year creating a Nuits St Georges 1er cru (unicorn?) cuvee.

Ironically, it was the scarcity of fruit in these more northern vineyards that allowed quality to emerge. The season was warm enough to permit ripening, and leaf health remained largely intact. Mildew damaged berries far more than greenery meaning photosynthesis continued even as fruit numbers dwindled. The surviving grapes were small and less compacted and thus were able to ripen under the more overcast conditions.

Winemaking

Finesse and elegance are always words you hear in less ripe vintages mainly due to the lower alcohol levels and tannin, this leads to in many cases less use of new oak to promote fruit and perfume particularly for reds. Some winemakers used older barrels in entirety and other less new oak in the blend. Less whole bunch and dramatic stirring of lees to prevent green or harsh extraction. Mark Bachelet again told me that longer fermentation at cooler temperature allowed him to extract bright fruit flavours but nothing harsh and it is a practise he feels he will continue with for future vintages. His wines across the board were as excellent as ever and some of my favourite of the 24 tastings.

Olivier Lamy delighting us with a rare Jeroboam of Criots Batard Haut Densite 2018 after the 23's, Alvina Pernot's new hand drawn vineyard map and the cellars at Marc Morey in Chassagne-Montrachet

The Wines

If you look purely at the vintage weather conditions you would be forgiven for thinking this is a vintage to miss, however you would be in my opinion very wrong to do so. The reds were delicious examples of pure, fragrant ripe yet crunchy Pinot fruit, a mix of 2014 finesse and 2017 ripeness with generally ,lower alcohol levels. If you like young Pinot then these will be drinkable early and will be immensely pleasurable. The Cotes de Nuits has produced some lovely wines and where volumes and prices allow these are worth buying. For me however the real value is in the Cote de Beaune reds where volumes are ok and the quality largely very good. Think Volnay, Pommard, Maranges, Santenay and Auxey-Duresses where you will be able to pick up 1er cru wines for a fraction of the price of the Cotes de Nuits.

The whites are far more consistent and of high quality, in-fact I did not taste anything I did not like and conversely a lot that I loved, but I am lucky to work with very high quality wine makers. The quantities will be lower and thus allocations tighter but as long as prices are not up it’s a vintage to buy for the cellar. My biggest regret personally from a wine buying perspective was not buying more 2014 and 2017 white and I would put the 2024’s on the same qualitative step.

James Pymont