1997 red burgundy

This vintage followed hot on the heels of the (almost) universally praised 1996 and the excellent in parts 1995 vintage. Then followed another excellent in parts vintage in the form of 1998 and a ‘once in a generation’ – or so we were led to believe - 1999 vintage. A scan of most retailers shelves shows that 1997 is as old a vintage as you're likely to find and probably the space they occupy will soon be needed for the 2001's. So there could be a few bargains out there, but after 4 years on the shelves you'd better make sure that your chosen retailer had good storage - or else! So what, then, do we know about the mid point of this series? Before I put this group together I had formed the opinion that :
  • 1997 was a very ripe, fruity vintage which could do with a little more structure if your main requirement was long term cellar potential.
  • I also considered that a relatively high percentage (10-20%) of wines were a little too low in acidity for my personal taste and were, hence, not a picture of elegance
  • Rightly or wrongly, I recently started to suspect that although mainly lush and enjoyable at release, some wines were starting to go into their shells a little and should be quietly left for two or three years to sit out this awkward period.
So what did this group of wines do to confirm or dispel these ‘opinions’?

Tasting & results

Forty wines were drunk as they should be - with friends and food over an 8 week period - so no lines of bottles in a tasting room. 50% of the wines came from my own cellar, the rest coming from a 'mopping up project' at various retailers. So here, based on these bottles, are my own 'generalisations':
- Three disappointingly corked bottles
- Very good density of fruit
- Colours show more age than 1996 or 1998
- Some subdued, but no obviously closed-down wines
- 50% of the wines had a cooked fruit profile
- No lack of high quality tannin in the better wines
- Lovely aromatics
- No 'Côte' obviously better than the other
- Some problems with unbalanced acidity in 5 or 6 wines
- Most 1er and Grand Cru's need or will benefit from further cellaring
- Perhaps proportionally better wines lower down the hierarchy
The obvious thing is to see the danger of these generalisations, no weak or insipid wines here, though some wines lacked balance, but generally, I'm pleased to have many of these in my cellar as they were often sumptuous if not cerebral and many will be better yet following a few more years of rest. These wines will not have the staying power of most 1996's or 1998's, however, in their own right they brought me some joy. Regarding the cooked fruit profiles of many, this could have as much to do with 4 years on the retailers shelves - most of those wines were not from my own cellar.
It comes down to the luck of the draw, but if there was any consistency to the disappointments it did come down to the acidities - but not low acidity as I expected from previous wines - it was actually due to a lack of balance. This manifested itself as harsh or even spiky acidity. The Clos de la Roche was the most extreme example, which with just an iota of balance would have been my wine of the series - was this down to ill-judged acidification - or just a suspect bottle?
A reason the village and regional wines presented so well might be due to the fact that the vineyards seldom reach the same ripeness as those in 1er and Grand Cru sites - 1997 being anyway a very ripe year means that perhaps they retained a little more acidity and avoided some of the problems experienced 'higher-up'.
Whether Grand Cru or Bourgogne there are beautifull wines to be had, but from this tasting I chose as my pick of the series the Ruchottes-Chambertin from Rousseau; with that perfect acidity and laser-like primary fruit this was almost a 1997 masquerading as a 1996. If I was to include value into my consideration, then the honours would easily have gone to one of the Bourgognes and choosing between the two would be by the toss of a coin - but no nose or finish came close to that of Castagnier's Clos de la Roche - a big shame!

General Vintage information

This was yet another in a run of low yielding vintages which only ended with the bumper crop of 1999. In September the weather was exceptionally warm producing a harvest of almost perfect fruit if picked early enough. Unfortunately this heat was also to some extent the decisive factor in terms of vintage quality; if left a little too long on the vine there was some over-ripeness leading to low acidities, but worse the fruit often came into the winery too warm. You need to macerate the fruit for ‘some time’ prior to fermentation in order to extract the necessary colour and structure to give the wine a long and fruitful life; today some producers might have a pre-fermentation maceration for longer than 20 days, though 4-8 might be more typical.
Because the nights were almost as warm as the days, often the fruit was a little too warm, so fermentation started much, much sooner than many producers wished. Compound this with not sufficiently effective cooling and the fermentations were over far too quickly – without extracting sufficient material from the grape skins, pips and the stems where used. If the malolactic fermentations could be delayed, then there would be the opportunity to extract more material, unfortunately these often followed on quickly from the alcoholic fermentations and it was all over far too soon. Therein lies the conundrum of this vintage – in general the raw materials were exceptional, however, the wines that were produced serve to highlight the ability of the producers to overcome the above issue. Not surprisingly where producers were able to pick at the right time and effectively cool their crop they had the opportunity to make exceptional wines, and the others . . . . . . .

40 wines tasted here