Easy wines to love, and lots of them

A great vintage - for Uncorked producers!

The reds are aromatic and expressive, and pleasantly easy to read, even at this early stage. The whites have a certain richness to them, even as they maintain the good levels of acidity that bring about a sense of freshness and energy. The whites are all about apple and peach, rather than the tautness of lemon and lime. For the reds, the profile is very much red, rather than black, fruit notes – so raspberry and strawberry over blackberry and cassis. The reds have the expressive openness that characterises a vintage that’s not too densely concentrated. In both colours, the wines have a lovely sense of energy. We expect them to show well in January tastings, and they won’t take decades to come round in your cellar – though the best will certainly reward aging. 

For the many producers Uncorked spoke to, as for the BIVB (the Vins de Bourgogne trade board), 2023 was a vintage that ‘surpassed all expectations’, with extremely generous yields of high-quality fruit, leading to some fabulous wines. It was one of those rare years where the events of the growing season came together to maximise yields, rather than cut them back. It was left to the winemakers themselves to perform green harvests and adapt their vineyard practices to avoid overcropping. As long as they got that right (and all the classic Uncorked producers definitely did) then they had everything in place to make beautiful wine.

2023 was also a very hot year – globally, the hottest on record. It was not uniformly hot through the growing season, but harvest took place in scorching conditions that threatened both the welfare of pickers and the condition of the grapes coming in. At Domaine des Lambrays, I remarked to Jacques Desvauges how surprised I was not to have been tasting wines (at any domaine) that betrayed a sense of an over-hot year. He retorted, ‘that’s because you taste at good domaines.’ That was me told. So, there you have it: stick with Uncorked producers, and you won’t go wrong with 2023 Burgundy.

The season: stop-and-start

Winter 2022/2023 hardly took place at all. January and February were unusually warm and dry, and contributed to pushing 2023 up the rankings to qualify as the hottest year ever, overall. But with the vines still dormant, these warm winter conditions were irrelevant to the future fruit. They did seem to cause an early start to the season, but the very unsettled weather through March and April (with rapidly alternating warm and cool days) seemed to confuse the vines no end, and budbreak was in fact a little later than usual. Mid-budbreak took place on 10 April. This was a good thing; buds opened after the late frosts that have troubled many recent vintages.

In fact, the whole 2023 growing season was characterised by stop-and-start conditions that would accelerate growth, then reign it in again. Late April and early May were unsettled, but towards the end of May, temperatures rose and accelerated flowering. Mid-blossom fell between 9-11 June.

July alternated thunderstorms and hot spells. The first berries changed colour in mid-July. But then temperatures dropped in the second half of July, slowing growth and holding back veraison (when grapes change colour). Mid-veraison fell on the 10 August. August was warm and sunny, and the grapes ripened well. But towards the end of the month, temperatures soared, and ripening accelerated. Some fruit was lost to burnt berries.

The harvest for white grapes began in early September, with reds harvested over the two middle weeks of September. It was a tricky harvest logistically, taking place under heatwave conditions; the welfare of both pickers and grapes had to be considered. There were reports from Champagne of pickers dying in the heat. And grapes that are picked in very hot conditions are liable to oxidise. In response, many domaines moved their picking schedules back to start from first light, and to stop by midday. Some even chose to start picking at night.

When harvest takes place in hot weather, the grapes will be changing fast on a day-by-day basis, accumulating sugar and potential alcohol, while levels of acidity drop. Under these conditions, the delay of only a day or two can mean a big difference in the character of the final wine. Many domaines complained about the headache of harvest logistics, and trying to get every plot in at the right moment. There must have been some cases where that simply didn’t work out. But the fruit that came in was largely in very good condition. With conditions mainly dry throughout the growing season, there hadn’t been much disease. Some sorting was required to remove dessicated or sunburnt fruit.

Yields: the numbers

2023 was an extremely bountiful harvest. A number of domaines told us flat out that 2023 saw the biggest crop they had ever brought in. Other domaines referenced the historically generous 2009 vintage, when they made similar or even greater yields. Average yields across the region and among the producers we work with were about 45-50 hl/ha (hectolitres per hectare). Most domaines these days define a ‘normal’ harvest as 30-35hl/ha.

So why were yields so big this year? It was all down to the weather cooperating. Growing seasons start with high potential maximum yields. Weather events through the season may cut back those potential yields by killing buds, flowers or grapes. The 2023 season managed to swerve almost all of these potential disasters. Budbreak was late enough to avoid the late frosts that in several recent vintages have decimated young buds. Flowering took place quickly in warm, dry weather (rain disrupts flowering, so growers always hope for dry weather at flowering). There was enough rain for good volumes of juice in the berries, but conditions were dry enough overall for fungal diseases not to get much of a hold in the vineyard. Vine-stripping summer hail was not a significant problem. There are not many vintages where conditions line up so conveniently – the last comparable vintage was 2009, fourteen years before.

Hot, Jim, but not as we know it

Overall, 2023 was a very hot year, but that really doesn’t seem to show in the wines (at least, those that Uncorked tasted). 2023 reds are often generous, but usually still have a mineral base note. The whites have a discernible (and often quite attractive) richness across the mid-palate, but married to a fresh, brisk finish. Why? For one thing, the headline figure about 2023 as the hottest year ever are misleading. The biggest divergence from the average seasonal temperatures took place in the winter months, when the vines were still dormant. There were very hot spells during the growing season (in particular, during harvest), spliced with cooler stretches. But as many winemakers pointed out to us, the real reason that the wines come across as fresh and balanced is because yields were so high. If yields in 2023 had been lower for whatever reason, it might well have been a vintage of concentrated, jammy wines. Big yields may have been a blessing for more than one reason.

Alcohol levels

For the same reasons, with ripe sugars spread among a larger-than-usual volume of grapes, alcohol levels in 2023 are surprisingly moderate for such a hot year. Most wines Uncorked tasted came out between 12.5-13.5%, with the naturally more concentrated grand crus often coming out around the 13.8% mark.

Terroir focus

2023 is an immensely terroir-transparent vintage. At Duroché, I tasted two Gevrey Villages cuvées. Both were good - and each was entirely different. Both came from village vineyards, but in different parts of the appellation. One was stern and firm, the other was soft, ripe and fine. It’s unusual to find such a clearly marked difference inside one portfolio. Ripe, concentrated vintages (2020 is my exhibit A) offer dense and succulent fruit – and have a habit of making everything taste the same (at least until cellar aging has had a chance to work its magic). 2023 is fresh, open and balanced, and it’s a great vintage for immediately opening the door on a particular terroir. This an illuminating exercise; it also means that weaker terroirs are more immediately apparent. Taste, know your terroir, and choose accordingly.

How much is too much?

Winemakers love big yields. Of course they do – more yields is more wine is more money. But from a qualitative point of view, there is a ceiling. The number of grapes that reach fruition on a vine can vary greatly from year to year. But a vine can only metabolize a certain amount of sugar plus the many minerals and chemicals that inform flavour. If these have to be spread between too many grapes, the result will be dilute fruit and, if the dilute fruit goes to the winery, dilute wine. So the job of the vineyard manager in a vintage like 2023 is to stop yields getting too high. But how much is too much?

Antoine Gouges laid out some numbers for me. In a given vintage, Gouges aim (or hope for) yields of 30-35 hl/ha. In 2023, they achieved yields of between 45-50hl/ha of top-notch, ripe fruit across their portfolio. 2009 was their biggest ever vintage, when they brought in an average 55 hl/ha of ripe fruit. But Antoine was sceptical of the idea that you could get good, ripe Pinot Noir at much higher yields than that, even in the most cooperative of vintages. (Chardonnay can go a bit further than Pinot Noir in terms of producing good quality fruit at higher yields). In a cool, wet vintage, the ceiling on yields at which ripe fruit can still be achieved will be much lower.

Green harvest

With a potentially huge harvest on their hands in 2023, vignerons needed to do something to limit the size of the crop. Otherwise, individual grape bunches would remain underripe, which would of course mean the resulting wine wouldn’t be up to much. So in the month of July, it was green harvests all around.

A green harvest is a form of crop thinning. It involves removing a proportion of the grape bunches on the vines, with the idea that the remaining grapes ripen faster and more fully through an improved leaf-to-fruit ratio. It is usually carried out at veraison (when berries change colour and soften) since it should be obvious which bunches are struggling to ripen. Some winemakers are philosophically against a green harvest, arguing that if you get winter pruning right, you shouldn’t need to do a green harvest. But with potential yields in some cases (on the more fertile, low-lying soils) approaching 100 hl/ha, every winemaker we spoke to in Burgundy carried out a green harvest in 2023. They usually emphasized it was quite a severe green harvest; many growers carried out two green harvests over the month of July. Some made a point of telling us they usually don’t expect to green harvest, but had to this year.

Old vines are naturally less productive, and in the natural course of events produce a smaller crop of more concentrated fruit. That’s part of what makes old vines something that winemakers value (at least, if they value quality over quantity). Green harvests will normally bypass old vines; but many (not all) winemakers told us that in 2023 they also felt the need to remove some fruit on their old vines.

Whole bunch: no room at the inn

One of the big winemaking debates in Burgundy in recent years has been over stems, and whether or not to include a proportion of them in fermentations alongside black grapes. It is a complicated debate with ardent proponents (and great wines) on either side. Proponents of what is referred to as whole bunch fermentation argue that it brings an increased sense of freshness to a wine, and often exuberant aromatics. That supposed sense of freshness is an interesting question, since in fact the potassium in stems reduces acidity in the wine (and acidity is what conventionally gives a sense of freshness to a wine). But the stems may bring a herbal flavour to wines of the sort that we associate with cooler vintages. Sometimes, especially in concentrated vintages, ‘stemmy’ flavours may show strongly in a wine, which not everyone likes (though these should also resolve with time). Some detractors of a whole bunch-based approach will argue that it masks terroir character, and claim destemming fruit leads to a purer expression of fruit and terroir. There’s also a danger in using stems in cooler, damper vintages where ripeness is marginal; stems ripen more slowly than grapes, and unripe stems bring bitter, unpleasant flavours to a wine. I heard reports of stems being swerved in the subsequent 2024 vintage for this reason.

Jacques Desvauges at Domaine des Lambrays has a lot to say about whole bunch. His philosophy is that stems can bring a lot to a wine – but if you can spot them as a technique in his wines, he has misjudged their use. As a rule, he only uses stems from old vines, which tend not to bring a ‘stemmy’ flavour to a wine, but still supply the exuberant aromatics that can make whole bunch so successful as a technique. In Jacques’ flagship Clos des Lambrays vineyard, the proportion of old vines is very high, and Jacques often uses 90% whole bunch here, without the technique being at all obvious. The wine, needless to say, is exquisite.

But in 2023, the ins and outs of the whole bunch debate largely went out of the window, drubbed by a more practical consideration: space. Using a whole bunch of grapes, stems and all, takes up to 30% more space in the vat than the same amount of destemmed grapes. With vats already full of grapes in the bountiful 2023 harvest, many producers had no choice but to dial back the amount of whole bunch they used. Amelie Berthaut likes using stems in her smaller cuvées, but bemoaned that she barely managed any in 2023. At Tawse, Odilon Marchand told me that they used far fewer stems than they might have, had space not been an issue. Their range usually has a distinctive touch of whole bunch to it, but not this year. Cyprien Arlaud is an exception. He has always liked to use a proportion of whole bunch (depending on the cuvée, typically around 30-40%), and maintains that it is important to be consistent year in, year out, to keep a recognisable domaine style. Even in 2023, he managed to keep that consistency.

As a side note, the extra vat space required for a whole-bunch approach is one reason why Bordeaux is unlikely ever to adopt whole bunch as a more than marginal technique (despite the success of Carmes Haut-Brion). The classed growth Bordeaux estates operate on a much bigger scale than most Burgundian domaines. The investment in extra vat space for a wholesale adoption of whole bunch would be very serious.

2024: look away now

Whenever we visit to taste one given vintage of Burgundy, the subsequent vintage is already in the cellar, and there’s always some discussion about how it has gone. But those 2024 barrel cellars were not looking full; there were even fewer barrels lined up than there had been for the very challenging 2021 vintage. Many domaines told us that in 2023 they achieved their biggest yields ever, only to go on to say that in 2024 they achieved their lowest ever. Gouges achieved yields of 45-50 hl/ha in 2023, but only 15 hl/ha in 2024. We heard the same figure of 15 hl/ha everywhere we asked about 2024. 2024 was a very damp year, and mildew made vineyard work very difficult. Many grapes just fell off the vine. That said, reports are that the quality of the wine that has been made is very good – there is just very little of it.

Coming soon…

There are already some 2023 Chablis on our website, but for the most part we won’t have prices and confirmed volumes on 2023 Burgundy until January 2025. Wishlists are always welcome, and with generous volumes for the 2023s, the sought-after labels may be more available than usual. We welcome new customers! We’ll be hosting our usual Burgundy en primeur tasting in January, and there will of course be other tastings in London. When you can, taste the wines. You will like them.