Burgundy 2013 first impressions

Barry_Rothof · January 6, 2015, 6:43pm

PRICES DROP FOR BURGUNDY 2013

Guillaume_Deschamps · January 6, 2015, 6:47pm

Chiming in to say that vintage assessments (in general, but especially in Burgundy) are nice to get an idea about the style and general characteristics of a vintage (such as, in no particular order: high/low acid, ripe, fruit forward, early/late drinking, red/black fruit and so on).

But they are absolutely worthless when it comes to ranking vintages or trying to assign any kind of general value or quality to a vintage. We all know that 2004 is a minefield, but I find it absolutely useless to say that 2004 is “worth” 14/20 or 16/20 or any other kind of grade. I had a 2004 Chambolle from Roumier last week and it was a great village burg, vintage be damned.

I’m sure that as in any given vintage there will be some stunning 2013s and some lame ones and a majority of mediocre wines.

Dale_Bowers · January 6, 2015, 6:52pm

Burgundy in a nutshell. Well done.

Howard_Davis · January 6, 2015, 8:21pm

Absolutely no problem Gerhard. It’s a good discussion to improve all of our understandings of the vintage …

I intend to try some ‘lesser’ 2013s in bottle when I hopefully visit Burgundy in June, at some of the big negoce houses. In the meantime I’d be interested if any London-based WBers are going to the 2013 en primeur tastings, as to their impressions …

David Strange has in the past done some good notes on these tastings … it’d be great if he was able to do the same this year …

Cheers, Howard

Nick_Ryan · January 6, 2015, 9:03pm

Gilman is my favorite critic since he always scores according to his own palate, he never tries to “appreciate” wines he doesn’t like. And since his palate is the polar opposite of mine, I can easily predict what I’ll like based on what he doesn’t. Far more useful than Meadows, etc.

Nick_Gangas · January 7, 2015, 12:36am

Received my first offer for 13 today. The same price on Arnoux but it was very reasonable last year so happy to pay.

Gerhard_P · January 7, 2015, 7:44am

fwiw : Arnoux made exellent 2013s !

Herwig_Janssen · January 7, 2015, 8:44am

My take on 2013 is that the wines are all over the place , even coming from 1 producer . I agree with Hans that Gevrey is excellent at Faiveley … while I was not so enthusiastic about some other wines there .
The prices will be high as the volumes are lower . Burgundy producers are very much alike Belgian fries stands ( the famous frit kotten ) : prices go up when the price of potatoes goes up … and then they forget to lower them when the potatoes prices go down again .
I am going to be conservative on 2013 ( only buying Domaines I always follow so I don’t lose my allocation ) and wait for the 2014’s : apparently stunnning whites … excellent reds and good quantities .

R.Oesterle · January 7, 2015, 2:32pm

old letter is “nice”;

C_0_R_E_Y_M · January 10, 2015, 4:52pm

Jancis with a report on the vintage (may be behind paywall): Subscribe to read | Financial Times

Takeaway seems to be, “not nearly as much of a disaster as was initially feared!” Doesn’t exactly sound positive, especially if prices don’t come down. A few interesting nuggets:

some top producers (including Dujac and Mugnier) experimented with deacidification
almost nobody got to 12.5% alc without chaptalizing
the biodynamic farmers produced better, riper fruit than the others.
it was a very difficult year for whole-cluster

dbailey · January 10, 2015, 6:17pm

Admittedly, it’s just based on one merchant’so tasting so far, but I just don’t get the acidity Jancis refers to in her article today. My main criticism was that most of the wines, whilst supple and fleshy on the attack, seemed flat and devoid of acid/energy on both the attack and mid palate.

Peter_Chiu · January 10, 2015, 6:38pm

Merci…this kind of information is interesting to me as comsumer

Howard_Davis · January 10, 2015, 6:54pm

Corey, thanks for the Jancis article - very interesting (people can register for the article free).

Nick_Gangas · January 17, 2015, 9:26pm

Burghound out today. I didn’t get the love from skimming it.

g.colangelo · January 17, 2015, 10:13pm

With this link you don’t need to register:

dbailey · January 17, 2015, 10:38pm

Really? Seemed quite a lot of love except for 02 salon which he totally trashed!

Nick_Gangas · January 18, 2015, 1:00am

I didn’t see that Dan. He basically calls it a fine vintage but variable. Some great successes at the top but some big misses also. Not a GREAT vintage.

dbailey · January 18, 2015, 9:27am

Says it’s on a par with 02 in terms of overall quality, better than 01 and 08 and stylistically he prefers it to 12. Not every year can be VOTC but this is clearly a very good year that will particularly appeal to those seeking refreshing/racy/terroir focused burgs and he is quite explicit on that.

kristofstevens · January 18, 2015, 6:16pm

What are the big misses in 2013?

Peter_Hirsch · January 18, 2015, 6:22pm

Come on. People. Read between the lines. I read the BH pdf. Every grower starts with “A difficult season”. He can’t say terrible things as he wants to go back next year. The vast majority of the ‘Don’t Miss’ stuff is 91-93 or 91-94. When’s the last time you saw the ‘Don’t Miss’ with a mean of 92 or 92.5? He’s damning with faint praise. At these prices, the juice has to be amazing. Pass. Backfill. Wait for 2014.