It’s true – I’ve bored you enough about a year that has experienced wave after wave of rain – but with some nice sunny days too. Unfortunately, for many producers, the balance has seemed to be more in favour of the rain this year, evidenced by even more thunder-storms in the Côte d’Or over the weekend – and so my message is unchanged.

If you haven’t been hailed, it’s predominantly been a year of fighting the mildew.

The best exposed and drained soils — unsurprisingly, mainly in the grand cru locations — have suffered less, but it’s not all roses here either. A simple walk around Montrachet will reveal beautiful bunches but also bunches with dried-out grapes (due to mildew) or grapes pitted by hail impacts — as good as the location is, it’s no protection from the hail.

I was in Beaujolais and the Mâconnais last Thursday and saw the first truck-loads of white grapes heading to wineries – but in this early case, the grapes were for crémant – these are always picked earlier, at closer to 11% potential alcohol than the 12-13% of the still wines. But I did also see a single team harvesting reds too. A few more were in the vines over the weekend – notably Lafarge-Vial.

I chatted with Richard Rottiers who can easily position the vintage at the top and the tail of greater Burgundy:

“2022 and 2023 were two good years for volume so I have managed to keep some stock here in Beaujolais – fortunately! – because 2024 is a year with lot of mildew – it was very hard to fight against the ‘fungals’ with this year’s rain. It all depends on where the storms went; I lost a lot due to hail in some parts of Moulin à Vent and none at all in other vineyards. I will start my harvesting on Monday (9th September) as I already have sectors with 13-14°. I think I will have half a harvest but I have some friends here who may not harvest at all…
“Likewise, the volume in Chablis was very good last year – fortunately – this year I think 5-10 hl/ha is realistic !!”

“5-10 hl/ha” – that would be pretty shocking – 10-20% of a normal harvest volume – and Richard (Domaine des Malandes) has about 5 hectares that are protected by hail nets…

Anecdotal, but the vines around Solutre looked nice last week – still some sub-optimal bunches – but easy to triage, indeed avoid cutting completely…

My own ‘home’ domaine in Beaune will be starting their harvest next Monday (16th September) – Dujac, maybe, on the 17th, though many more in the Côte de Nuits will be waiting almost another week. There are, of course, many outliners too in the Côte d’Or – Thibaut Clerget is starting in a couple of days and the team of de Montille was already picking some pinot grapes yesterday in Pezerolles and today in Taillepieds – but I’m assuming that they were picking some young vines – these are usually the most precocious.

But never forget that since the late 1990s burgundy became a wine of triage. It’s not how the bunches of grapes look at the start – it’s what you choose to throw away and therefore how best grapes will express themselves as wine. That’s the fun – though clearly we will have many fewer bottles to have fun with in this vintage !!

Here are a few images that date from mid-August up until last Thursday:

Montrachet 20 August

Montrachet 20 August

Richebourg 25 August

Pommard 1er 26 August

Pouilly-Fuissé 5 September