Sorry for my mistake but bashing the entire 2003 Bordeaux vintage is worrying too because some very good wines do exist. It is true that 2003 is a rollercoaster vintage with some horrible wines but those do not tell the whole story.
Canāt remember when I saw someone without a smile in the cellar. Even when tasting 03, 04 and 08/11/13 (at the moment in my mind the most difficult vintages this is side of 2000.
As we say in Italian: āHey Waiter, is the wine good?ā
[Heading to Burgundy in 3 weeks]
Based on a small samples from Comte Liger Belair, Frederic Mugnier, Jean Grivot and Faiveley:
2018 is a great red vintage, beautifully ripe and concentrated yet very fresh and pure. Some producers thought a repeat of the 09 but significantly more freshness.
2018 whites are quite ripe.
https://www.cellartracker.com/event.asp?iEvent=41910&searchId=925E3A08&UISource=list
I have heard that the vintage is irregular as it was a very ripe vintage and some producers picked too late and also issues with malo getting stuck.
i have seen 14.5 abv levels in 18 reds from loire and jura. hopefully these are anomalies, but i have a feeling there will be some high levels in burgundy too.
I tasted at Bart, Castagnier and Mugnier and was very impressed (as was my best partā¦). It was mentioned though that some producers got it wrong. There was no lack of elegance ā¦ (nor ripeness and structureā¦)
I was in Burgundy yesterday for a quick visit. Some randoms observations:
- on your point above, there will be high levels of alcohol. An estate with excellent old vine material told me this could be due certain types of clones being used which in these circumstances only ripen fully at higher alchohol levels. Their wines were around 13.2 to max 13.5 % (seems to be similar to comment of J. Gillman on Lafarge);
- at certain estates, the crop is the highest since 1999 - quite remarkable. In other estates, itās maybe 10% above average due to age of vines and vineyard work;
- I only tasted at one white wine estate, and āgreen applesā came to mind on most cuvĆ©es - they started harvesting around 22 August, so very early.
Concentrated and wonderfully ripe, with sweet tannins, but also with excellent structure and liveliness, very good balance, sound acidity without any harshness, pure dark fruit, will need time to show everything. Already quite elegant, but no early drinkers. Reminds me a bit on 1990 (with slightly higher alc.) - or something in between 2009 and 2010.
See post #9 above.
14.5+ is typical for Joly and many Savennieres, but Jura?? Outside of Macvin, how do they get so high?
labet poulsard is 14.5, and for reference the same wine was <12 degrees in 16. no idea about the whitesā¦maybe he picked too late but francois cotatās rose is 14.5 in 18 as well.
Sounds like a nice vintage. So far Iāve seen pricing for whites higher than 17 which is disturbing. My understanding was that 17 was the best white vintage since 14.
Exactly. Canāt wait to load up on good quality village wines.
UK critic Tim Atkin has posted comments on twitter similar to John Gilman. https://twitter.com/timatkin/status/1193084618091745280
2018 Burgundy Vintage Overview(Claude Kolm)
Thank you, Roman, very informative.
Claude told me it was the most uneven vintage in quality and style that heās seen in his 30+ years of visiting Burgundy. Hereās his summary from the post above, based on three weeks of tasting in the region:
It was the best of years. It was the worst of years. 2018 in the CĆ“te dāOr was a very hot, dry, sunny year, and for most producers, it yielded large crops. Additionally, it yielded wines that qualitatively and stylistically are all over the map. Some are classic in style; some have overripe, jammy fruit. Some have normal alcohols in the 13% range, some are in excess of 15% (and I have even heard from one of my colleagues who tastes more widely than I that he has tasted wines at 16.5%!). And yet, some of the wines above 14% (even at 14.5%) do manage to be surprisingly good.
This diversity has caused me to delay writing about the vintage until I felt that I had tasted enough to understand this very complex vintage and give you an introduction that explains what to expect and why. I have now finished three weeks out of four of tasting the wines and finally feel competent to give that summary. . . .
The resulting red wines that I have tasted have in some cases been classic both in quality of fruit and in alcohol, others have been riper in fruit and high in alcohol but still attractive by an āobjectiveā standard, and some are very jammy in fruit and very high in alcohol. This makes for a treacherous vintage for the consumer who is not well-informed.
Perfect timing to avoid the tariffs!
![[cheers.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/0/0ff9bfcdb0964982cd3240b6159868fbdf215b1a.gif "cheers"){kind=small}
Claudeās summary is nicely put. For the reasons that he gives, it is not an easy vintage to review, and it will be even more than normally interesting to revisit the finished wines after bottlingāsomething I am doing much systematically at TWA now in any case.
My wife and were in Burgundy in October 2018 and the winemakers seemed very pleased for the most part with 2018 and based on the impression I ended up bidding and getting a barrel of Volnay in the Hospice de Beaune action. We detoured back to Beaune in June to taste it and were able to taste other 2018s. No buyers remorse in June and hopefully I can wait out the tarriffs or rethink my original bottling plan.
I started this thread since I was enthusiastic over a great vintage. Still I am finding lots of scepticism in the comments to folow. Of course I donĀ“t have a total view of the vintage in general, but at the 5 domaines I tasted the wines were really great. Including Rousseau, Faiveley, Roumier, Rebourseau and Ch. Meursault and Roulot. Powerful and ripe indeed, but certainly not showing jamminess or heat. Very miuch a reminder of 2015 with perhaps even more structure. Simply wines for the long haul and ripe and tasty wines even at lower level.