I don’t understand lumping 2022 with warm low acid vintages. From what I have tasted, 2022s have excellent acidity to go along with the ripeness and, at least at this point in time, I like the 2022 red burgs I have had a good bit more than the wines from vintages like 2018 and 2020 I have had.
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09 is not low acid, at least not from the producers I’ve had, which is actually more than I typically drink, for some reason I bought and opened a lot of random 09s like Comte Armand, both Esmonin, Maume, Mugnier, Marc Roy, Jouan, Dominique Mugneret, Damoy, Jadot, Chevillon and Angerville as well as my typical MG, Hudelot, Rousseau, DRC, Roumier, Trapet, Lignier, Barthod, Bertheau, etc
The pair we just opened last month had every bit as much acidity as the 13s we compared them to.
Yes, yes. That must have been the reason. 
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Comforting to see @MChang slummimg it with the rest of us down in steerage, opening a Comte Armand.
As a special treat, I opened Cecile Tremblay’s 2008 Chapelle Chambertin. I love this wine, and am now down to my last two bottles. There is a shard of fruit in mid palate that appears unexpectedly, and pushes the wine to an incredibly long finish. Still showing a little young, but there are signs of tertiary development.
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The fourrier 08s were absolutely brutal at the London ep tastings. Very hard to imagine that they could ever have emerged from that overwhelming blanket of acid.
It’s the colors and sounds streaming out of the glass. 
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I was waiting for someone to crack a joke based on this post. Well done
Enjoyed this with a pizza and roasted vegetables. Nicely balanced with lots of red fruits. Great depth with just a tinge of heat on the finish that has mellowed now that it has been open 1.5 hours. A very nice bottle.
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I wouldn’t have bet on a Jadot GC showing well!
We drank a bunch of 08 this weekend and none showed particularly well except 08 lignier CDLR; it drank younger than previous bottles and will improve. Rousseau ruchottes was promising but clearly needed time, Dujac CDLR and Mortet LSJ were not tight but needed more fruit to balance out the acidity.
Chevillon’s Vaucrain is notoriously ripe, for my tastes. 2008 might be the ideal vintage to tame that ripeness.
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For someone who is looking for more fruit, the 09s probably would be the choice. For those of us who prefer less fruit and more site, along with acidity and structure, 09s are not better.
They’re just not.
YMMV
And if I was trying to illustrate the difference in terroir of Burgundy, I would use 2021 over 2022. To see the difference of site you need wines you can see past the fruit to the site. And 2022 isn’t that.
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That might have been true in 2011, I’m not sure. As far as this last weekend goes, on Friday we had a pair of 09s and three 08s and not even the most AFWE person would have picked the 08 wines. The 08s could have been in an awkward place and needed more time, sure. The two 09 gibourg were just perfect burgundies just entering their prime drinking window but with significantly more structure than any of the 08s except the Lignier and plenty of acidity. I drank the 08 versions of these wines a few months ago and while they were good they weren’t nearly as good as the 09s. You could also clearly see the difference between the terroir. The Ruchottes had the iron you’d expect from gevrey on the palate with more forest floor on the nose and the Clos Vougeot had slightly more spice on the nose.
Certainly not all 09s are in a perfect place, lots of them were opened this weekend and some may have been overdone and unbalanced, or needed more time. One could certainly make the argument that I’m mostly drinking wine from top producers etc, but the 08s we had this weekend were from Rousseau, Lignier, Mortet and Dujac, obviously top producers, and they just weren’t drinking well. In the case of the Rousseau and Lignier, perhaps they just need time, but only the Lignier was enjoyable and @Nick_Christie opined that it was a bdx drinkers burgundy.
Notoriously ripe based on what vintages?
Did you see Yule Kim’s over in Recent Burg Experiences last week? From one of Yule’s wine mentors on how vintages (in their totality) often move & shift in their relativity to each other rather than hold firm over decades?
You will know far more about barrel tasting & younger wines showcasing (or not showcasing) various qualities. For obvious reasons 
. And the tasting guidance given to Maureen 15 years ago sounds like it had some thoughtful thinking/merit behind it.
In 2026, this notion is much more amorphous. More acid? Okay, sure, on the whole 2008s will usually show more acid & structure. But reflecting ‘site’ and where the wine is from? I wouldn’t be so definitive at all 
.
Of the wines from the three days tasting together this past weekend, the 2008 Rousseau Ruchottes might be the one wine that walks your proposed line of generalization. Wonderful aromatics. Acid & structure (not releasing the wine to maximum openness). High quality and opinions would vary based on personal palate preferences. Marcus Goodfellow could go ‘Ah, I feel this one. The aromatics are phenomenal and the acidity keeps this potentially opulent Grand Cru in such restraint.’ (hypothetical paraphrasing).
But the point I’d make is the 2009 Mugneret-Gibourg Ruchottes (which was utterly glorious) certainly shows ‘site’ just as well if not better. Because it was exceptionally light & elegant in the glass & mouth, regardless of how wondrous the fruit was. And a very pure finish.
I’d also say the 2009 Chevillon NSG Les St Georges on Thursday evening showed tremendous site purity. Yes, it was a luxurious showing (and definitely the marquee showing an NSG producer would want when advocating for the vineyard to get bumped up to Grand Cru status). But that’s not exclusive to showing the vineyard & the wine’s totality.
In 2026, I think ‘site showing’ in regards to 2008 or 2009 versions of the same wine will be all over the map.
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2008 Chevillons were quite good a few years ago. Perhaps they peaked already.
Idk, I thought the 08 Rousseau Ruchottes while possibly holding a little back for future development was clearly the worst wine of that dinner and the issue for me wasn’t the fruit like it was in the Dujac and Mortet, as I think it had plenty but the fact that the wine was completely out of balance and disjointed, with far too much acidity for even the abundant fruit. There was a lot of structure that maybe a question of time to unlock but it wasn’t nearly a complete wine and as far as terroir goes, could have literally been from anywhere in Burgundy. The aromatics while high toned and palate weren’t revealing of the filigreed texture and elegance that I’d expect from the site. For those that weren’t aware, I also brought that wine.
Contrast that to the 10 Rousseau CDLR, which was clearly Clos de la Roche; you could taste the terroir elements that helped you recognize the Ponsot blind, and you got from the lignier and the otherworldly 05 truchot CDLR. The Dujac 08 CDLR on the other hand, was a pleasant wine that was nice to drink, but there was no there there, it could have been a nice burgundy from literally anywhere.
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The comment on viewing each individual vintage independently rings very true. I like a range of wines, and that range may be very different from another taster, but it behooves me to buy a bit from almost every vintage. Perhaps more from 99, 01, 02, 07, and 10, a bit less from 00 and 08, and a bit less than that from 06 and 09. Or buying the smaller Crus in 06 and 09 where the good weather was balanced by the at-that-time cooler aspects of those sites and communes.
I’ve enjoyed the 06 and 09 red Burgundy I have had, as fruit forward, easy drinking, reasonable wines that were good wines, if not what I spend the money on Burgundy for.
And top producers from GC sites makes a difference. In tasting a slew of 1990 red Burgundy a number of years ago, of 18 wines all were good wines except one corked bottle but only the two GC wines really showed any distinct element of terroir of the sites. I still found the vintage to be filled with good wines but more fruit driven and less about terroir. And perhaps even today, producers focused on producing elegant wines, like Mugneret-Gibourg or Barthod, may produce wines that I would enjoy.
But just to put it plainly, and probably commit social suicide on the Berserker board, I don’t actually like or buy wine with any regularity from Burgundy anymore. And it has nothing to do with price, though the excessive pricing doesn’t help.
i appreciate Michael’s notes, comments, and participation on the board quite a lot. But where he sees the 18-20 vintages as strong, I have found them to be basically unenjoyable. Thick, heavy, and too much like over ripe WV wines for my taste.
It’s been coming for a bit, where 02s were ripe and approachable early, they still also had beauty and purity to them, and the small sites Lefliave’s monopole in Mercurey was supple and delicious on release (and at $13 wholesale it was the last delicious Burgundy I ever poured by the glass).
05s were blocky and foursquare, perhaps that’s changed but I still don’t see them as what I aspire to drink.
And 06 and 09 (03 less so) over performed my expectations showing red Burgundy could handle some heat and still be pretty and delicious wines to drink. But I didn’t see the sites showing in the wines, perhaps that’s different now, I am certainly not tasting many 09s.
2010 was the last vintage that I bought significantly in. And I probably would have bought 2016-2017, except that pricing is such that buying enough to contextualize the vintages was beyond what I could aspire to. Call it being priced out but still wishing I could afford Burgundy.
Then came 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2022. And I haven’t tasted any wine from those four vintages that I have been enticed by in the slightest. As I age, my palate moves to less fruit and lower alcohol, and climate change moves the region against that. 2021 is the only vintage I would consider buying and it, like 2008, is not really a great vintage. But it is a Burgundy vintage at least. The “solar” vintages taste too much like over done new world wines to me. The “top producers” may be making wines that out perform those new world producers (and perhaps they’re not) but they still have the same increase in abvs and fruit extraction that I simply do not care for.
In any vintage, there are great producers who work successly against the drawbacks of a vintage to produce beautiful, balanced wines. So I definitely acknowledge that 09 M-G wines may be absolutely stellar right now.
But as a whole, red Burgundy recently has become so much about fruit, and the world is already filled with ripe fruit driven wines. For the most part, I would rather drink/taste the challenging vintages these days. I’m fine working my way around the prickly parts. And if I see a 2020 1er Cru as tasting like an overdone Willamette Valley wine, then (IMO) the terroir really isn’t coming through. In fairness though, I haven’t had the 2020 M-G wines or Barthod or Dujac for that matter. I don’t see 14% abv as being Burgundy though, and that is where many of these wines are at these days.
My biggest point in responding to Michael is simply that YMMV is a real thing. It’s really easy for us to taste wines and feel that what we taste is obviously correct. But palates are different, many of us used Parker’s scores to determine what wines not to buy-no disrespect in anyway to RP in that, just an understanding that he was very sure of himself and lots of us were seeking a different type of wine. And I’d openly say that I think that Parker would be scoring current Burg vintages much higher than he used to, though that is 100% speculation.
Cellar palate is a thing as well. In tasting base wines so frequently, Megan and my palates have moved further that direction and a couple of days ago, when she told me that a 12.5% barrel we tasted was “boozy”, I was a bit surprised. But it’s still her palate.
Long response, but I appreciate your post and it’s thoughtfulness. I don’t mean to be disrespectful to the Burgundy region as a whole, but more to put up a data point that illustrates that some of us do not feel the same way as some other posters. I’m happy to leave room for them, but I’d also like some room left for myself.
For most of my wine consuming life Burgundy has been the pinnacle. I’m glad people love the wines as much as I ever did. But there’s no sense of excitement for me in that region anymore, and it’s not the off vintages that are my issue.
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Marcus, the next time I see you, I’ll open a 09 MG Ruchottes and you can tell me if it doesn’t reflect the terroir, because honestly I can’t imagine a more complete Burgundy in a early drinking phase than the wine we had on Friday. It’s my personal opinion that in time, 19 and 22 will be equally pretty.
I think 18 and 20 are vintages that ARE difficult to enjoy currently and am not opening them at all, except for the otherworldly 2018 Lignier CDLR which is certainly young, but really drinking well, and I think that shocked a lot of people. I think given a lot of time, they’ll be great vintages, though, because the raw material is there. 19 and 22 are a bit different, because I think they’re more accessible, in a young way, but still perhaps not the best vintages to open currently.