Burgundy 2024 En Primeur

Pretty, attractive, terroir driven wines

Overview – A vintage that has delivered plenty of juicy, succulent wines with a sweetness of fruit and concentration that belies the weather reports of the summer of 2024. Both the reds and the whites of 2024 are charmingly attractive, the whites in particular are very good indeed, showing balance, depth and concentration. The reds were a little less consistent but as the old adage goes – anyone can make a good wine in a good vintage, it takes a good winemaker to make a good wine in a lesser one, we’ve been working with many of our suppliers for along time now and are very pleased with their results.

The Big Picture
The 2024 vintage will be remembered by the growers as a vintage that required an awful lot of work in the vineyard, for a relatively small reward at the end. Fortunately for them, and us, it followed on from the bountiful 2023. Nature likes balance and it is often the case that a generous harvest is followed by a smaller one, this combined with some tricky weather throughout the growing season has led to, in some cases, about half the production of an average vintage. In particular, Chablis has severely affected yields. The global market is not as buoyant as it has been in the past, in part due to the economic cycle, some demographic changes, and the global political situation but Burgundy remains somewhat insulated by its lack of size so demand for the top domaines remains strong, even US tariffs are being shrugged off by the US consumer. Broadly prices are similar to last year despite the increase in costs incurred in the vineyards this year, a sense of realism about the economic situation we all find ourselves in, perhaps.

The Wines
On a very positive note the wines were a great and pleasant surprise. We try to go out with an open mind about what we will find each year, but it was difficult to avoid the reports of rain and mildew that the region experienced this year, just remember our own summer of 2024…struggling? That is because it didn’t happen!

From our first tasting we found pretty, attractive wines with sweet fruit, ripe, juicy certainly but this is Burgundy. We lost track of the number of times we wrote juicy, succulent, mouthwatering, attractive and saline in our notes for both the reds and the whites. The whites have depth and concentration which balances the natural acidity of the year, they have the capacity to age gracefully if you can be patient. The reds are much more immediate, really appealing, full of fresh, crunchy red fruit but also some darker notes particularly black cherry. These wines will age in the medium term but why would you, drink them young for the charming fruit while you wait for 2020, 2022 and even 2023, all solar years, to reach their peak.

The Weather
The year started with the first three months a little warmer than average with March being the wettest for 50 years, followed by a cool drier April with frost in the Côte d’Or around the 22nd but its effects were lost on the poor flowering. The temperatures for May, June and July all at or just below the average but with significant rainfall. Only August bucked the trend when the weather turned favourably, around the middle of the month which accounts for the sweet fruit and ripeness found in the wines. It was the rain this year that has shaped the vintage as mentioned above it badly affected the flowering and subsequently gave rise to outbreaks of mildew requiring frequent treatments, those who practice organic viticulture had their work cut out this year as treatments, largely done by hand (it was too wet to use tractors), were washed off almost immediately and had to be reapplied. Those using systemic products i.e. not organic, had a slightly easier time of it, but no one escaped.