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.
