JUST WILLIAMS
Why bet the farm on the vagaries of vintage? As he considers the inflated prices of 2020 Burgundy, anticipating the shortfall created by the 2021 vintage, David Williams wonders if more wine producers might consider blending not only between regions, but harvests too
A
s I write this, the UK wine
trade is in the middle of its
annual celebration of the most
influential wine region in the world. With
numerous omicron-inspired cancellations,
Burgundy 2020 en primeur season may not have been quite up to full strength in terms of physical tastings. But what might be
called the Burgundian worldview has never been more powerfully dominant.
Burgundy, after all, is the home of the
singular, the place that has done most to promote the idea that quality – or at the
very least interest – in wine comes in the smallest possible discrete units of space and time.
It’s there that you find the most vivid
example of the Google Earth-zoom view
of vineyard hierarchy, the idea that, as you
zero in on Europe-France-Bourgogne-Côte
de Nuits-Vosne-Romanée-La Tâche, each step represents an exponential rise in quality and price.
Burgundy is also, of course, one of the
homes of the single-varietal wine, the idea being that those infinitesimal changes in terroir are best displayed in wines
made from one variety, whether that’s Chardonnay or Pinot Noir.
Most of the coverage I’ve read about
2020 Burgundy, as well as the few wines
I’ve managed to taste myself, suggest that
it’s a vintage in which Burgundy’s singular virtues were fully on display. Despite the
hot, dry growing conditions, it was a year of fresh wines with high acidity, with
whites being particularly, consistently
good, but plenty to charm in the reds, too. Yet it was also a year in which the best
sites stood out, when the grands crus really
With so many producers having a much-reduced crop, it’s clear that most have taken the decision to recoup the anticipated loss from 2021 by adding a few digits to the price of their 2020s THE WINE MERCHANT february 2022 24
were that crucial bit more interesting,
more vibrant, more focused than their village peers.
Curiously, however, while 2020 may be a
classic Burgundy vintage, the en primeur
campaign also prompted questions about
the value of the last element of Burgundy’s singular vision: the single vintage.
As is clear from the early offers, the price
of Burgundy 2020, and not just for the tiny production top wines of the region’s star producers and crus, is going to be high, even in the context of a region that has
become a magnet for the world’s super rich.
The reason is simple enough: the frost-
bitten, hail-battered, yield-shredding
struggle that was 2021. With so many
producers, at all levels, having a much-
reduced (in some cases, disastrously so) crop, it’s clear that most have taken the
decision to recoup the anticipated loss of
funds from 2021 by adding a few digits to the price of their 2020s.
Of course, such is demand in Burgundy,
this is a perfectly rational move, if
not exactly welcome for impecunious
Burgundy-lovers like me. But the stark juxtaposition of 2020’s graceful plenty
