Burgundy 2021 Supplement

BURGUNDY EN PRIMEUR 2021 Vintage Report The Burgundy Phoenix rises from the fire…frost! Terroir, Terroir, Terroir!!!

BURGUNDY 2021 ENPRIMEUR

Welcome to 2021 Burgundy Vintage In our vintage report last year, we mentioned that 2021 yieldswere looking really rathermeagre after the devastating April 2021 frosts. We did our best to look the other way when shown a few lonely barrels in growers’ caves . We hoped and prayed that somehow, just somehow, therewouldbemore wine to taste than we saw. Of course, they haven’t managed to conjure something from nothing! This year’s tastings confirmed that for Burgundy 2021 there is very, very, very little wine indeed! Some parts of Meursault suffered 85% losses , with a number of white producers we’ve known for years declining our request to taste, given the scarcity. The Côte de Beaune was around 60% down . The later bud-bursting Pinot in the Côte de Nuits wasn’t hit quite so badly by the frosts and fared somewhat better. Despite these somewhat morbid statistics, L’Equipe Farthinghoe headed toBeaune for aweek of tastings and set up HQ in a Gîte just out of town to hunker down for the week. Working in two teams, we managed to scoot up and down the Côte d’Or and get in to see thirty or so Domaines – pretty good going given some merchants gave up trying to taste at all. As always, we’re disinclined to read up too much about a vintage prior to tasting, as pre conceptions, good or bad, can skew one’s view, diminishing the purpose of one’s visit. We were very excited to see what Burgundy 2021 had in store for us. First Impressions The past three vintages were warmer and riper than usual (what’s usual these days?), though 2019 and 2020 were somewhat of a paradox given their relative freshness despite the summer’s intense

heat. It felt like “solar” vintages were here to stay. So, 2021 has come as a breath of fresh air, a step back in time to the ‘classic’ vintages of the past, yet with all the benefits of expertise, organic and bio dynamic philosophy, technology and selectivity of contemporary vine-growing and winemaking. When fruit is particularly ripe, it can mask its definition of place and, although I’m a believer that terroir tends to express itself more with bottle and vine age, that’s only true to an extent. The 2021 wines are very clearly Bourguignon not Méditerrannée . Delicacy, perfume, precision, purity repeat time and again in our notes and, of course, that wonderful vineyard definition and terroir that makes Burgundy so unique and special. What was also lovelywere the alcohol levels – it was the one word that wasn’t repeated, apart from to notehownatural it felt and, at 12.5%toamaximum 13.5%, it plays a supporting second fiddle to the fruit. So, a vintage of terroir definition if ever we saw one, but as always, how did it come about? The Vintage Conditions The barometer hit 20°C at the end of February and touched a remarkable 30°C over Easter in late March. The vines could resist the inviting warmth no longer and started their growing season with delicate buds bursting from hardened vine. Punishment for this impatience was meted out by the most severe of frosts lasting three long nights anddays fromApril 6th – a bitingly cold, persistent ‘black frost’ with temperature down to nearly -10°C - annihilating the delicate new shoots. Fresh snow then locked in the cold. Jacques Devauges at Domaine de Lambrays told us that for the rest of April the vines were so shocked they showed very little growth. The cycle started in earnest in

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