2021 Red Burgundy Part 1: (Here) The Côte de Beaune – November 2022
2021 Red Burgundy Part 2: The Côte de Nuits – December 2022
2021 Red Burgundy Part 3: Beaujolais – February 2022

Clos des Cortons – Faiveley – 6 weeks after the frost

What about the 2021 reds in the Côte de Beaune?

2021 follows a trio of, historically, hot vintages:
2018 produced very inconsistent wines, sometimes faulty but in this respect, the Côte de Beaune fared better than the Côte de Nuits.
2019 was a great and very consistent vintage for the reds, in my opinion, better than –
2020 in the Côte de Beaune which, in general (if not always) produced more structural wines – body-builder wines – wines of less flair and fluidity than 2019. Then came 2021!

2021 is a year where, at last, we have a vintage where the quality of the wines is not linked to how deep the colours are!

I was asked by a ‘fellow writer’ during the ‘tasting phase’ “But don’t you think that the wines lack a little mid-palate concentration?” Well – duh! – If you are comparing to all the other wines made since 2015 – it’s a no-brainer. If you compare with all the vintages made before 2015 – then not at all – And I fell in love with burgundy wines in the 1990s and it’s from this perspective that I write the following:

Of course, there was frost, and until mid-July, consistent rain to wash away the attempted treatments against oïdium and mildew. These contributed to some very low yields and even missing cuvées at certain domaines, which had to assemble a paltry amount of grapes from different sectors to have enough to properly ferment a single cuvée. As a measure of the severity of the frost, the largest owner of vines on the hill of Corton, Louis Latour, produced only one cuvée of Corton, so no Vigne au Saint, Perrières or Corton-Grancy in this vintage. The last 4-5 weeks before the harvest – normal service was resumed with sunshine and good light – enabling proper maturity for the grapes – but unlike most recent vintages, 30°C daytime temperatures were a rarity – and there were no days with 35°C.

Equivalent low-volume vintages pre-date the living memory of vigneron(ne)s. Some of the oldest memories come from the records of Bouchard Père et files, their technical director and winemaker, Fred Weber, tells “1910 or 1930 – that’s the last time we had such low yields – of course, we only have the writings, nobody here can remember. The biggest insurance for our domaine is the diversity of its parcels across the Côtes – but in 2021 the frost was everywhere…”

(Right – a rare sunny day in June) Anyone whose experience of burgundy wines began only from 2015, or later, will see something different in their glasses with the 2021 vintage. More direct wines with extra (visible) sweeping acidities though with some beautiful clarity of more red fruits than in recent years – and what perfume too – of roses, of peony and, of course, of violets. In some respects, they resemble the wines of the 1990s though with the technical wit and investment of the last 20 years they display more clarity and better textures versus those historic wines. These are wines that resemble the emotions that made me fall in love with burgundy wine in those years. I may have been in Volnay at the time(!) but, early in my tasting tour, one wine’s clarion call of pure red fruit and sweeping depth of flavour left me recalling Denis Bachelet’s 1996 Charmes-Chambertin – a great wine that’s forever ingrained in my memory-bank of experiences.

2021 has the magic that only happens in this place – Burgundy.

The wines are, unsurprisingly, less phenolically structured and concentrated wines but that has been replaced by incisiveness and intensity – remember those? And there has been a return of an old friend; old-vine creaminess…

20-30 years ago I was an avid follower of the writings of Clive Coates – who we lost in 2022 – he of the ‘old-vine creaminess.‘ The creamy sensation in the middle and finishing flavours which has nothing to do with oak barrels he attributed to old vines, a sensation that has been largely absent in recent years. In 2021 you will find it again.

The generosity of recent vintages is a little rarer in 2021 but you can still find it. The jumps from Bourgogne to villages to 1er to grand cru are as overt as with the white wines – this is a classic vintage to show the terroir differences. I liken the expression of terroir to an accordion-player: In recent warm vintages, the differences in the appellation, though good, were somewhat compressed. in 2021 this accordion player has opened out his arms decompressing the intricacies – leaving more space between them…

Like the whites, this remains a very modern interpretation of the word ‘classic.’ We should never forget that almost all important wines were harvested with 12-13° of natural maturity – you would never have seen that 25-30 years ago – more like 10.5 to 11.5 – even in grand crus! Some domaines resorted to a little sugar to prolong the fermentations as they thought the wines a little meagre. In fact, almost universally, the wines didn’t taste all that well for many months in elevage – practically everyone was disappointed with them – unlike the whites – until the summer months, after they had been racked, or even later after the 2022 harvest. All the producers noted this remarkable turnaround. In tastings, the level of acidity was important in the whites but not particularly in the reds. Yet the reds showed more structural austerity in the early phases of elevage – even, still, some of the Bourgognes and Villages in my September & October tastings – but not later.

It’s of little surprise then, that the early tastings of the reds were far from positive and this, taken together with the difficulties of the growing season, constructed a negative narrative around the vintage reds. A narrative that this taster – nay drinker – is more than happy to rubbish! 2021 in the Côte de Beaune is a bridge between 2019 and something more classic. The balance of the 21s ensures interesting wines even if you choose to wait 20 years to open your bottles.

Who to follow

Of course, I advise you to be guided by the individual notes in my reports – for those excellent and great wines worth searching out – but there were three domaines that just left me with a feeling of elation when I exited their tastings – wines of emotion – and those were:

Albert Morot in Beaune
Chevalier Père et Fils in Ladoix
Joseph Voillot in Volnay

And what of the major ‘Houses?’
The top three have a lead these days – certainly for 2021s – Bouchard Père, Drouhin and Jadot. The quality of these Maisons’ wines leaves nothing under the table. Louis Latour make great whites – I can emphasise ‘great‘ – but their reds, often miss a part of the equation for great – sometimes power, often clarity – they are good but they should be better. With Bichot it’s just a small step back – often excellent reds but less regularly great. And Chanson? I’d say that they are in a transition phase; since parting ways with their old technical director they now pick a little earlier and no longer use 100% whole clusters – though still around 50%. In 2021, despite using fewer stems, the wines still have slightly gothic stemmy aromas and structure – their 2021s are certainly wines that still need to be aged but I ask myself if I’m as confident with them as those of the Confuron days – I’m unsure – though at 60 I’m probably too old to wait around to confirm that – patience will be a must! But size is not everything – just look at the wines of Philippe Pacalet and Segiun-Manuel!

The yields

Figures courtesy the BIVB in hectolitres: 1 hectolitre (1 hl) = 100 litres

More-so for the reds than the whites, 2017 is the high-water mark for red production in the Côte de Beaune, not 2018. And the regionals excepted – as the frost was generally less severe here – you can easily see that 2021 brought half the volume of 2017 – and much less than that in the (Corton) grand crus…

What the growers said…

Encapsulating the vintage:

Geoffroy Choppin de Janvry – Domaine Albert Morot:
“It’s the lowest volume I ever made, including the hailed years of 2012-2014.”

Christophe Chauvel – Albert Bichot:
“My first impression during elevage was of disappointment but with time we became agreeably surprised, the terroirs are very visible and the wines have persistence. They are frank and crystalline.”

Françoise Bitouzet – Domaine Bitouzet-Prieur:
“…there wasn’t just frost of course – mid-June to almost mid-July it was very, very wet – the dryer weather came from about 10th July which paused the worries of mildew. ”

Boris Champy:
“…in the côtes (de Beaune) the flowering weather was very good – but 10 days later in the Hautes Côtes de Beaune the weather was not as good for the flowering – it took a few weeks – so we were not touched by the frost but had bad flowering!”

Fred Weber – Bouchard Père et Fils:
“There was never really heavy rain but there was consistent rain that followed (the frost) – we hired extra people to treat by foot as we had no chance to enter the vineyard with tractors – it was just too wet.”

Pablo Chavrot:
“We have a 1/3rd of a harvest – some of the 1er crus of Maranges you have to go back over 75 years to find such an important instance of frost…”

Claudie Jobard:
“The vines were exploited by my grandfather and he has all the notes since 1951 – and (the volume) was never so low – between 60-80% down in the whites and not much better in the reds – it’s 25% of a normal harvest – almost traumatising … In elevage I always found the tannins austere – I even racked, which I don’t often do – but only after the malos were done did I start to find the wines interesting and less austere or meagre.”

Thibaud Clerget:
“I’m working with 32 countries but I will only have 5,000 bottles.”

Sarah & Guillaume Glantenay:
“…only 40% of a normal vintage for us. Happy with the cleanliness of the grapes though – it made such a big difference in 21 and allowed purity and a nice terroir impression”

Etienne Chaix – Domaine Joseph Voillot:
“I couldn’t have dared to wish for the quality I see right now.”

Philippe Pacalet:
“And this year we have 12.5° – so compared to recent vintages you can drink the bottle and still remember your name!”

Vincent Guillemot – Domaine Pierre Guillemot:
“12.5° for the reds – I didn’t want to add sugar – only the Corton reached 13°”

Pascal Roblet – Domaine Roblet-Monnot:
“You have otherwise to look at the 1979s for something similar. I had long cuvaisons – up to 30 days. I also harvested quite late so roughly 13 degrees without chaptalisation.”

Thibaut Marion – Seguin-Manuel:
“…less structured than the sun-driven vintages but very approachable – I like the type of aromas and the freshness – I suppose this is more of mid-term vintage in terms of drinking. I don’t expect 2021 to be a marketing problem, even for people who only know the wines of Burgundy since 2015 – a) because the wines are quite exciting and b) because there will be so little on the market! “