2021 in the Mâconnais sets the stage for all of Burgundy in this vintage.

A year that was complicated by frost, hail and weeks of incessant rain – rain that additionally led to a fight against mildew and oïdium.

Fine and sunny were the few weeks that led up to the harvest – albeit a harvest almost 1 month later than in 2020 – ensuring proper maturity of typically 12-13 natural degrees – but the result was still one of the lowest volume white wine harvests in living memory. The chardonnay being an earlier riser than other varieties was more seriously compromised by the early-April frosts and snow.

The 2020 vintage was the debut of the premier cru labels from Pouilly-Fuissé but it was predominantly those very 1er crus that were hit by the hail in 2021 – though vines were hit in St.Véran and other places too – the Pouilly near Fuissé a little less so…

Some domaines experienced longer fermentations than the norm – but compared to recent, higher alcohol vintages, most domaines commented that they had fast, easy, fermentations.

But how are the wines?

Well, assuming that you can find some – losses were anywhere between 30 and 100% – you are likely to be very happy with the few bottles that you can amass.

There is a freshness, clarity and energy to the wines that have many people reaching for the word ‘classic.‘ That’s unfortunate from 2 perspectives:

• Over many years, classic has become a pejorative term to imply (though even more so for the reds) under-ripe, acidic and meagre. A term that invokes the old joke “In a good year you should wait for 20 years to drink the wines – in a bad year you HAVE to wait 20 years to drink the wines!”
• Ignoring the pejorative baggage that the term classic suggests, classic certainly also suggests looking backwards to a time when vigneron(ne)s would have been thankful for seeing a ripeness that equated to 10.5-11° of potential alcohol. By comparison, 2021 is a very modern vintage with high, seemingly complete, ripeness. Rare are the wines that were picked below 12° and many were closer to, even over, 13°

This a vintage of energy, intensity and rarely fat. These wines don’t seem to lack concentration unless you directly compare them with a 2019 or a 2020 – but it will be the 21s, for now, that you prefer to keep drinking. 2021 has vigour and a moreish drinkability – it is properly refreshing. It is also a vintage with uncommon clarity of flavour – where not clouded by young oak – some domaines only used barrels for elevage as they had so little volume and wanted to preserve (not let dry out) those containers. Others chose to use no new oak – there are no hard and fast rules.

Vigneron(ne) comments on the vintage:

Frantz Chagnoleau: Strongly frosted – some areas were 90% though we protected 2 hectares with candles, and the areas most susceptible to frost we pruned late which definitely helped.

Sebastien Giroux on 2021: “Frost principally but some hail too – which was quite violent – so lower volumes than in 2016.”

Laurent Tripoz on 2021: “I feel that the gamay supported this vintage’s conditions quite well – but it was much more difficult for the pinot. The pinot is more fragile and we have deeper soils so when it’s very wet it’s a problem as the pinot is less tolerant of this ‘humidity’ – much less. Overall, for us, it was about one-third of a normal harvest. I don’t think they are wines for long keeping – just for drinking!”

Françoise Vessigaud on 2021: “2021 was really the depths – really the worst quantity. We have seen low volumes for a number of years but we really asked ourselves if we could continue if we had a second vintage like this in 2022 – fortunately, that wasn’t the case!”

Jean-Marie Chalande on 2021: “(In Viré) According to my father, the domaine’s worst volume vintage was 1967 – it was a catastrophe says my father – but this was the worst that I’ve seen – 50% less.”

Christine Saumaize on 2021: “(Vergisson) 2021 was the tightrope vintage – frost, hail, mildew and oïdium resulted in 70% losses – all the high vines were frosted on the first night and the lower vines got some frost the following day. But for the wines we return to a Burgundian vintage – fruity but with tension.”

Julien Desplans on 2021:
“It’s good that the wines are refreshing and tasty but the price point brings expectations that are hard to meet. For us it’s 30% of a normal harvest volume – many of our normal contract purchases were not available so we produced less but tried to buy the best. Instead of 30 wines, we have 14. “The harvest wasn’t the easiest thing; we started about the 17th but every few days it rained so we harvested then had a couple of days off then harvested again then rested again – so we were only finished in October. At one point there was 100mm of rain so it was over, the porriture was installed – it was like in 2013, on the Monday the grapes weren’t ripe and on the Tuesday they had porriture. So it was a little like that, maturity was a very short window. We don’t like unripe here so chose to wait but that meant we had to do quite a lot of triage. Some parcels were perfect but for many, we were playing with balancing the attributes to try to make the best wine possible, and we tried to make the wines as coherently as possible – the balance between the buttery, lactic, accents from the malos and the forward acidity.“