Entries from 2026

This year’s – the 55th – Cave Prestige…

By billn on July 16, 2026 #annual laurels#degustation

There’s an endless stream of articles about ‘good value’ Burgundy, but I only take notice of 2 sources before following up with my own research.

  1. The annual Cave Prestige and
  2. The Tastevinage ‘Masters.’

Here’s the former list, unveiled yesterday in Beaune – and it’s big list !! You will find many new names – also new to me – and wines that have succeeded through multiple rounds of tastings.

The room was a little too warm (it’s 2026!) and there were too many tasters to properly attack the displayed samples, but I tasted a number, and all rated from ‘great’ to ‘technically completely fine.’

The 2026 Cave Prestige

Click right for the full list…

The Press Release:
The 55th edition of the Burgundy Wine Board’s Prestige Wine List recognised 140 wineries, houses, and estates at its awards ceremony on Wednesday, July 15. This demanding selection honours wines that, each year, embody the high standards, diversity, and expertise of Burgundy winemakers. It will support the Burgundy Wine Committee’s promotional, training, and outreach activities, both in France and internationally.

The 2026 line-up has 188 ways to express Burgundy out of 1,491 submitted samples, representing a particularly demanding selection rate of 12.6%.

In total, 140 companies were represented out of 340 participants. This edition also confirms the dynamism of the Burgundy wine region, with 33 companies recognised for the first time or returning to the selection since 2017, representing 23.5% of the winners.

The selection is based on a blind tasting conducted by expert panels composed of technicians, oenologists, and industry professionals. Wines must obtain a minimum score of 16/20 in the initial tasting before being submitted to a “super panel” tasked with confirming their inclusion in the Prestige Cellar. They are then deemed “exceptional.” In 2026, six tastings were organised, involving 200 judges.

The 2023 vintage once again takes first place (101 wines, representing 53.7% of the selection), partly due to production volumes. The much rarer 2024 vintage comes in second place (58 wines, representing 30.8%). As a side note, only one wine from the 2025 vintage appears on the list: the tastings took place in March, and this vintage was only exceptionally bottled at that time.

A diverse Burgundy, from the Mâconnais to the Châtillonnais

The 57 Regional Appellations also reflect the diversity of this essential gateway to Burgundy wines: 28 Bourgogne and Mâcon plus appellation, 20 Crémant de Bourgogne, and 9 Bourgogne, Bourgogne Aligoté, or Coteaux Bourguignons. Let’s not forget that this category represents 50% of total Burgundy wine production.

The geographical distribution of the selected wineries confirms the regional focus of the selection, with 15 from the Mâconnais, 25 from the Côte Chalonnaise and Côtes du Couchois, 55 from the Côte de Beaune, 16 from the Côte de Nuits, 12 from Chablis, 14 from the Grand Auxerrois, and 3 from the Châtillonnais.

A few wines tasted:
2023 Jean-Baptiste Jessiaume, Bourgogne Hautes Côtes de Beaune Les 3 Terroirs
Fresh, stony attractive notes. Broad,modestly generous and nicely textured. Delicious easy wine, but also with detail – that’s a great Bourgogne.

2023 Guillemette & Xavier Besson, Givry 1er Les Grands Vignes
A rounder, more woolly cushion to this fruit aroma. Extra scale and dimensions of flavour, with more finishing bitters. Fine but less delicious today – keep it 3 year…

2023 Chanzy, Bourgogne Côte Chalonnaise La Fortune
Wide, darker fruit but aromas of clarity and energy. Lovely shape, quite sensual texture in the mouth. Lots of concentration too. A more serious wine than the Jessiaume today, and just a little less delicious – but clearly excellent in a couple of years…

2023 Arnoux Père, Chorey-lès-Beaune
Direct, good depth of aroma. Wide, more stony and structural style but with delicious intensity – yum!

2023 Françoise André, Beaune 1er Les Reversées
Deeper colour. High tones and plenty of aromatic interest. Wide, layered, stony flavours and some structural depth to this flavour too. Really wide finishing – excellent but young wine – wait 3 plus years.

2022 Bachey-Legros, Santenay Les Champs Claudes Vieilles-Vignes
A first attack of high toned freshness. Hmm, concentration that melts over the palate. Flavour-packed, tasty young wine but still accessible – a lovely finish!

2023 Jean Fournier, Marsannay Clos du Roy
A more delicate but detailed nose – very pretty. Open, fluid, flavour packed with a long finish. Top!

2023 Stéphanie Colinot, Irancy La Comme
A rounder, quite delicious impression from this nose. Large in the mouth, concentrated but accessible flavour. Long finishing too – keep it 2 years but this is super…

2023 Jacques Prieur, Corton-Bressandes
Hmm, breadth, depth and a subtle perfume to this large-scaled aromatic – of course, there’s a little oak too. Hmm, a different level of depth, width and sinuously growing flavour – by far the most oak – too much for today, but that’s got great potential – wait 7-8 years, primarily for the oak to be consumed…

And some whites:

2023 Alain Geoffray, Chablis
Subtle, delicate, flowers and fruit. Narrow after a Corton , but delicious mouth-cleansing and moreish. Love…

2024 Chateau du Val de Mercy, Bourgogne Chitry Le Fort
Extra scale and lots of vibrational energy to this nose. More mineral and melting, wider too. Also more structural – delicious wine, just less delicious than the Geoffray today !!

2024 Vignerons d‘Igé, Mâcon-Villages Terroirs des Brigands
The longest name! Breadth of aroma with an extra warmer depth and spice to the flavours. Very attractive wine.

2023 Belleville Rully Les St.Jacques
A nicely direct nose, subtly, attractively fruited and even a little floral. Good scale, some very modest oak flavour today too. The finish is super !!

2024 Guerrin et Fils, Pouilly-Fuissé 1er La Marechaude
Stony white fruit from this more vertical nose. Wide, some minerality to balance a little generosity. A strong finish. Excellent PF !!

2023 Albert Morot, Savigny-lès-Beaune 1er Bataillère, Clos de la Batalliere
A narrower, more linear nose – clean, pure a very fine invitation. Mouth-filling with a fine blend of structure and shape… Yum !!

2023 La Chablisienne, Chablis 1er Montée de Tonnerre
Here’s a more floral freshness – not large in scale, but it doesn’t need to be. Cool, wide, mineral, everything that it should be. The finish just keeps widening. Better in 1-2 years but a super wine. La Chablisienne is not the cheapest, but in this company it is great value…

Comments for this entry

An all Chablis weekend…

By billn on July 13, 2026 #degustation

weekenders

2022 Jolly, Chablis 1er Fourchaume – Homme Mort
From the part nearest Maligny and opposite the pump for the ‘aspersion.’
An attractive nose – some generosity but also an obvious salinity. That generosity is visible in this delicious width of flavour – but never tumbling into richness. Just such an easy wine to drink despite it’s impressive concentration. Lovely!
Rebuy – Yes

2021 Julien Brocard, Chablis La Boissonneuse
Magnum. Here in 1998 were the domaine’s first tests in biodynamics
Clearly also a hint more generous than when first tasted – aromatically and from a flavour perspective – but here is more zing than the Homme Mort – if a little less concentration – but still with fine impact. Subtly, this is even more delicious. This is a great villages !!
Rebuy – Yes

Comments for this entry

Clos de la Maréchale 2007

By billn on July 08, 2026 #degustation

Clos de la Marechale

2007 Mugnier, Nuits St.Georges 1er Clos de la Maréchale
The cork breaks in two, but the last part comes out easily enough with an ‘Ah-So.’
A round but attractive nose, more than subtly smoky. Wide over the palate with decently juicy, smoky (oaky) flavours too, and still a small line of finishing bitters that bookend the transparent red fruit. There’s fine depth of flavour here from a wine that’s showing rather young – it’s more of a very good wine than an outstanding one. I have a couple more and would think that 5 more years should be adequate. Only to note that on day two, the last of this was subtly bretty…
Rebuy – Maybe

Comments for this entry

Michelin 3-star domaines ?

By billn on July 07, 2026 #annual laurels#in case you missed it

Michelin
Link…

Announced today, there are 9 in the Côte d’Or:

Côte de Nuits
Domaine Cécile Tremblay
Domaine Dugat-Py
Domaine Roumier
Domaine de la Romanée-Conti
Domaine Leroy
Côte de Beaune
Domaine d’Auvenay
Domaine Coche-Dury
Domaine Jean-Marc & Thomas Bouley
Domaine Hubert Lamy

Feel free to discuss 🙂

EDIT: For those who didn’t find the link to the wider list:
https://guide.michelin.com/gb/en/article/wine/the-winners-of-the-first-michelin-grape-selection-in-the-heart-of-burgundy-france
I think the omissions are more glaring than a few strange inclusions…

Comments for this entry

Young ones! My weekend wines…

By billn on July 06, 2026 #degustation

weekend wines...

2024 Hamelin, Chablis 1er Beauroy
From the Côte de Savant – planted in 1985 & 1987.
Very open aromatics – perfumed, with a small richness of citrus fruit. I remember this as more incisive at the domaine, but the richness of the nose is also bringing some generosity to the flavour. Yet, here is still a wine of salinity and energy – it’s also quite delicious !!
Rebuy – Yes

2024 J&J Archambaud, Vosne-Romanée
A domaine that I visited for the first time last week. 3 parcels assembled – Communes, Chalandins and Au Dessous de la Rivière – the oldest vines coming from the 1930s, Chalandins has the youngest vines, and these date from the 1990s…
Fine aromatic scale and lots of width to this aroma – stylishly spiced. A wine that’s fluid but also delivers impressive concentration – even ignoring that this is from 2024! Modest but attractive bitters in the finish and excellent texture too. An excellent villages !!
Rebuy – Yes

Comments for this entry

Oups! Burgundy Report was AWOL…

By billn on July 06, 2026 #site updates

My apologies.

For the first time in 24 years, Burgundy Report had some ‘downtime’ that lasted more than 5 minutes – it was actually for about 15 hours over the weekend.

Mea Culpa. I updated something that I shouldn’t have updated – or at least not at the weekend with hardly any support cover !!

Sorry…

Comments for this entry

Where is the 2026 vintage today?

By billn on July 02, 2026 #vintage 2026

Beaune-Weather

It’s the start of July, so time to take stock…

Rain needed...Last week it was super hot, with temperatures that are usually reserved for August. This week it’s ‘quite’ warm. What rain was in the last days’ forecast for the Côte d’Or hardly materialised, and the prognosis for the next two weeks is largely dry and getting hotter again – but for some light relief, at least the nights are forecast to be cooler…

So the domaines are mostly trying to avoid any stress for the plants. Few are ploughing or even moving the soil right now as the soil will dry out faster, and likewise, the trimming of the vines has been significantly curtailed to avoid ‘stress.’ So far, there’s no indication of ‘blocking’ in the vast majority of soils, just a few yellowing leaves on flat gravelly (draining) soils or very stony soils without much earth (right)…

It’s a vintage where I’ve never seen so much watering of recently planted vines. As you will know, it is against the rules of AOC to irrigate vines, or they will lose their right to this appellation d’origine contrôlée – the resulting wines become, for example, Vin de France instead of Clos de Vougeot. Young vines, under 3 years old, are the only exception to this rule.

I wonder if we are witnessing a modern 1976 in the making. A vintage in Burgundy where the drought was more marked than the heat of some other regions/countries. This year, it seems that we have both !!

As for the Côte d’Or hail of Wednesday 17th June, significantly hit were Beaune to Pommard, and hail cannons were not used as the storms ‘came from the wrong direction(!)‘ The insurance assessors were in the vines during the last week of June, as much as 30% losses were forecast – but today, 30% ‘of what’ is the fair question. The effect should be less in the pinots, but there was already some coulure in the whites of Beaune, so it could be a ‘real’ 30% here. Then this week (Sunday evening), multiple violent storms came through Beaujolais, mainly bringing some much-needed water, but hail came too. There was some significant damage on the hill of the Côte de Brouilly and the nearby valley of Brouilly Saburin… Too early to say for sure, but vigneron(ne)s are suggesting 60-80% losses, see the images…

Back to the Côte d’Or, Frederic Mugnier told me yesterday, “I’m surprised how the vines currently look – they look fine – but I don’t like this period of heat, we need rain, but there’s nothing in the forecast. The vines looked great 1 week ago and will still be great if we get some rain.”

And where are we in terms of maturity?

Well, already in the last days of June, there were photos of the first (red) veraison – potentially the earliest in a sequence of very early vintages. Assuming no blocking to retard maturity, the crémants will already be harvesting around 7 August and the still whites only a week later, then the first (young) reds only a few days later – but it’s usually the case that the combination of heat and dryness causes the process of maturity to stall and is usually ‘unlocked’ by events of rain…

“The season is clearly ahead of schedule. We have compared 2026 to other great early-ripening vintages—often characterised by heat and dry summers: with mid-flowering on May 24 and bunch closure around June 20–22, it is hard not to recognise the hallmarks of an exceptional season. However, the water deficit since the start of the season is among the most severe ever recorded. Also noteworthy is that June temperatures were 4.4°C above the 30-year average.
Apex Vineyard Consulting”

The hail on the Côte de Brouilly, Sunday 28th June:

Comments for this entry

More accommodating accommodations ;-)

By billn on June 26, 2026 #events#producer update#tours#travel

If you are looking for upmarket accommodation, there are two new options within minutes of Beaune. First, lets start with Beaune:

Domaine Albert Morot

Wednesday was the official ‘inauguration’ of the Domaine under new ownership and following significant renovations.

It is the husband-and-wife team of Guillaume Poitrinal and Sophie Desmazières-Poitrinal who acquired and renovated this important Beaune property, and not just the property; the winery and the walls of their monopole Savigny 1er cru Clos de la Bataillère (in Vergelesses) have also seen similar treatment.

In the (relatively) short time for renovations here, at least in the glacial timescales of LVMH or Artémis, the work which has been completed still bears comparison with domaines under those marques. The fully air-conditioned mansion-house (the old Château de Creusotte) sports 10 rooms for rent, of course with views over the vines. The impressive kitchen seems shared, but I’m sure that you can bring your own chef! If interested…

I have seldom seen such an assembly of ‘worthies’ of the Côte de Beaune and Côte de Nuits in one place to celebrate the inauguration of another winery – much kudos for that – more people were waiting in the 30+ degree heat of the garden than all of Place Carnot that afternoon!

I will continue to visit and taste the wines of their winery head Jean Pierre Villa who made such a good start with his 2023s…

Hotel Château la Commaraine

Commaraine
Image from the Hotel…

Looking out onto its 3.6 hectare Pommard 1er cru Clos, and after 5 years of construction work, the hotel was finally opened at the end of April. I visited today, and they already had ‘95%’ occupancy.

Integrated into the property’s footprint is the winery of the Commaraine domaine, which covers over 7 hectares – this work should be completed in time for the ‘early’ 2026 vintage…

The château – which dates from the 1100s – now sports 37 rooms and suites, a spa, a swimming pool (a must-have for some visitors) and ‘almost’ two restaurants; the ‘gastronomic’ restaurant will open soon, and the bistro is already in full swing. Paint me impressed !!

Infos here…

Comments for this entry

les weekend vins…

By billn on June 23, 2026 #degustation

weekend wines

2023 Roland Lavantureux, Chablis Vau Renard
Plenty of colour. Depth and ripeness of atoms – I’m not sure that I’d say Chablis, blind. In the mouth though, there’s minerality to balanc the generosity and plenty of salinity too – yes it’s a wine of Chablis, but a generous one…
Rebuy – No

2005 Michel Lafarge, Beaune 1er Grèves
Plenty of colour. The nose is An attractive blend of depth and freshness. Mouth-filling and very wide – framed with slightly drying, young, tannin – but grainless. Finishing flavours with plent of bitters and salinity. What a young wine! I shall continue to enjoy it, whilst mentally noting ‘not for 5 more years’ for the next bottle!
Rebuy – Maybe

Comments for this entry

Burgundy Report

Burgundy Report

Big Red Diary overview

Burgundy Reports overview

Latest reports:

Translate »

You are using an outdated browser. Please update your browser to view this website correctly: https://browsehappy.com/;