“Completely classic and exceptionally transparent”
- Allen Meadows, burghound.com
Two words from the tasting books that absolutely define 2010 Burgundy? 'Crystalline' and 'empty'. 'Eureka' might have been another one as during tasting after tasting your correspondent found himself jumping up and down, waving his arms in the air and screaming 'Yes, Yes! This is it!' None of this out loud of course; he is British.
But to business. What does crystalline mean in Burgundy please? The wines taste pure, transparent, mineral and feel as though they are alive*. The 2010s encapsulate the holy trinity of the Duchy: structure, terroir and balance. That goes for both colours in this vintage. Of course we heard the dreary chorus from the wine critics last year that 2010 was a white wine vintage, but it is - triumphantly - a red wine vintage too. In fact, depending on your tastes and on how the 2005s work out, it might be the red wine vintage. You can accuse the 05s of many things, but I'm not sure being crystalline is one of them.
And how did the wines achieve crystallinity? With climate change has come a new love for the miserable summer in Burgundy. They are learning to love cool, dampish growing seasons with a burst of light and warmth and a dry wind at the end. What that gave them in spades last year was a lousy period of weather at flowering, which, combined with a very deep frost in the winter, forced not just low yields, but tiny berries packed with everything but water. Berries so small that (to the horror of the growers) they disappeared through the standard grill on a sorting table.
And the empty thing - that was the cellars. Every cellar we walked into looked like the vigneron was in the process of moving out. Most of the barrels were missing. It was awful actually as you could foresee the scramble for allocations. Thank goodness the growers haven't generally been minded to further ration by heavy price increases.
The reds
These were the revelation of the trip. We'll discuss producers village by village as we go through the next fortnight, but I've never tasted set after set of such successful wines before. You really are tasting Burgundy and the definition between villages and crus and producers is astonishingly obvious. There's no puppy fat, just focus and delineation.
The whites
'Licky' is a word that springs to mind. The wines have substance and richness cut with the subtlest, most persistent and juiciest acidity possible. Mouthfilling and fresh.
*I may just write something on pseudosynaesthesia as metaphor in the future. Or Jim might just kill me.
We're putting the spotlight on different villages in a series of daily offers for a fortnight as below. Our en primeur campaign will culminate in our 2010 Burgundy tasting on Thursday 26 January and we look forward to seeing you there. /CW
Tuesday 10 January: Gevrey-Chambertin
Wednesday 11 January: Morey-St-Denis
Thursday 12 January: Chambolle-Musigny & Vosne-Romanee
Friday 13 January: Nuits-St-Georges
Monday 16 January: Chablis
Tuesday 17 January: Pommard & Volnay
Wednesday 18 January: Puligny-Montrachet & St-Aubin
Thursday 19 January: Chassagne-Montrachet
Friday 20 January: Cote Chalonnaise
Thursday 26 January: 2010 Burgundy barrel sample tasting
12-8pm, Bishopsgate shop, walkaround
£25 per person inc VAT (redeemable against 2010 Burgundy en primeur purchases over £500)
RSVP
