I am happy to report that 2022 is finally a decent crop in Burgundy across the entire region. That is a great piece of news.
Sadly we’ll have to cross the desert while 2021 is more than meager and little wine at outrageous (even more than already) pricing will make it over.
All of the producers in our portfolio (we cover the entire Greater Burgundy including Beaujolais) are happy with not only the quantity of grapes harvested but also the quality.
We are now starting to see an interesting phenomenon where the vines are “shutting down” due to the heat and although the Summer was scorching hot, the degrees were not too high when the wines were brought in and and the fear that there would be little juice for the white after the press were lifted.
As for the reds, if you follow a lot of producers’ IG you’ll see that the colors are amazing and all the ingredients are there for a fantastic vintage.
I am excited to be there in November and try the wines.
There can be low natural acidity and freshness in a hot weather season— will be interesting to see how this piece turns out. Are you seeing more use of whole cluster in this vintage (can help lower ABV by 0.5% or more)?
I think overall we are seeing more and more Estates work with WC and those that did not are trying. I think it is a general tendency across Cote d’Or. We are also seeing less oak and longer ageing for those that have the space and the luxury of time.
What I can tell from here, there will be microclimate variations based on who got water when (we mainly received rain through very local storms).
Alcohol should be low, we picked basically 2week later than most around us and reached 12.4-13.6 ABV, cellar average around 13. As said above vines shut down due to drought, we also got a bit of hail in june that augmented the phenomenon, so the sugar accumulation stopped then. Malic acids are low (due to heat) but not a huge issue as most Burgundy go through malolactic fermentation. Late picking incurred cool night (8°C at night on our last picking week), ideal for aroma formation. Bunches were super healthy (of course, no rain…)
My feeling for the vintage compared to recent vintages is something in between 2017-2020 and 2018: Ripe, juicy wines, low alcohol, moderate acid, probable good structure (small berries) should drink well!
Sounds like it has the potential to be a very happy year, both in terms of volume and good quality. Lots of interesting observations but you might as well hear it from Jasper himself:
A year later and I haven’t seen a single thread or update on 2022 Burgundy and I’m starting to get offers. Based on the one post last year, whites could be in between 17 (excellent tension), 20 (more ripe, less acidity, but good balance) and 18 (overripe and lacking acid). Leads me to want to stay away, but not really enough information to work with. And what about reds?
There will be a lot written about 2022 in my opinion, I am not a wine critic but a few are part of the group. We’ll wait to see what their thoughts are.
Buy a few wines, make your own opinion and trust your palate, that’s all I can say.
Burghound just published his reviews of 22 Chablis in bottle, so you can get some idea about the vintage from the report. Here’s an excerpt from the Raveneau producer notes:
Isabelle Raveneau explained that the 2022 growing season was “basically as easy as its 2021 counterpart was complicated. While there was again a series of April frosts, they didn’t cost us a lot of yield in the same fashion that 2021 did. Thereafter the two growing seasons were completely different as 2022 was hot and dry with essentially no disease pressure while 2021 visited a succession of disease attacks upon the vines that included mildew, oidium and botrytis. We began picking on the 1st of September, or exactly 3 weeks earlier than in 2021, and continued through to the 7th. The fruit was spotless so there wasn’t any sorting of consequence, which again is another contrast with 2021 where everything was sorted with a fine-tooth comb. One interesting aspect of 2022 is that there were a lot of berries but not much juice in them. We pressed very carefully and slowly using low pressure as acidities were not high and we didn’t want to lower them further, or exact bitter elements from the seeds, by pressing too hard even though we could have obtained slightly more juice. Put all this together and yields turned out to be perfectly good though not high at around 45 hl/ha, which also contrasts with 2021 where they varied from 15 to 45 hl/ha. Ripeness levels were largely uniform as potential alcohols ranged only from 12.5 to 13%. The fermentations were straightforward, which is always nice. While it’s still very early, stylistically the 2022s remind of our 2020s for their generosity and ripeness while not sacrificing much in the way of punch.”
Sounds exactly like a cross between '20 and '18 in terms of acid levels, which leads me to believe it’s going to be average at best at least in terms of whites. That should save me some money!
Extrapolating from one producer in Chablis to the whole of Burgundy would be a mistake. And in any case Isabelle doesn’t mean that pejoratively: their 2020s are excellent, and their 2022s are reminiscent of a somewhat more open version of 2020.
I am being positively impressed by the tension of the 2022 whites. My own Meursault Narvaux is pH 3.04, my Aligoté pH 3.07 after the first winter in barrel. Not exactly numbers one would associate with a flabby vintage.
Let’s not rush to judgement, in one direction or another, as tastings are only just getting under way in earnest.
Fortunately, we don’t have to wait for scores to come out to sell wines… most of our Chablis 2022 were gone in no time.The wines from Cote d’Or are not quite out yet.
When I was in Burgundy in early June, I got to taste some barrel samples of 2022s at one winery - Rossignol Trapet. I was impressed. Yes, the wines were very rich, like most modern vintages. Yes, they tasted very different from the one 2021 we tasted there - a fascinating Chapelle Chambertin. But, in the hands of RT, the 2022s were tasted were not low acid, flabby wines. Rather, the RT wines had excellent acidity to go with the ripe fruit and my guess is that these wines will age very well.
