Berthaut-Gerbet, Henri Magnien, Arlaud, Taupenot-Merme |
‘I would be happy to make these wines every year’ |
2024 was a Burgundy vintage that truly sorted good winemakers from bad — and we're pleased to report that Uncorked's favourite producers all passed with flying colours. In Fixin, Amelie Berthaut rose to the challenge of the 2024 vintage with the benefit of experience, and the help of her smart new cuverie. Guessing it was not a vintage to push the winemaking too much, she kept extraction light and relied on the natural concentration of her old vine fruit to make a luminous set of wines.
Down the road in Gevrey-Chambertin, twelfth generation (!) winemaker Charles Magnien told us that the circumstances of the 2024 vintage demanded he spend more time in the vineyard than ever before. (He gratefully acknowledged the support and understanding of his wife). With yields too small to make some of his usual cuvées, he blended fruit from 15 Gevrey plots into an excellent (but hopefully one-off!) Gevrey XV cuvée.
In Morey-St-Denis, Romain Taupenot has spent a quarter century quietly pushing Taupenot-Merme into the top league. In an era when many Burgundy producers use an element of whole bunch fermentation, he insists he remains a philosophical follower of Henri Jayer, and destems all his grapes. Cellar work is gentle and traditionalist. 'In 2024, you could have either quality or quantity, but certainly not both,' says Romain. He chose quality. In 2024, he used no new wood at all, arguing that in such a small vintage even a little new wood can excessively mark a cuvée — and his wines are all the better for it.
No grower did more to crystallize our sense of the 2024 vintage than Cyprien Arlaud. While he suffered as much as everyone on the Côte de Nuits, losing around 70% of his crop to poor flowering and mildew, he made pure and aromatically intense wines which we found compelling to taste. He enumerated the secrets of his success in a vintage that gave his suffering team '10 ten years of experience in one season': the resilience of old vines, biodynamic farming, and the motivation and optimism of his team, whom he thanked profusely. 'Despite the yields,' he told us, 'I would be happy to make these wines every year.' /NT
Read our full vintage report here.
Offered subject to remaining unsold. Wines expected to arrive spring 2027. To place an order, click on the wines below, reply to this email, or call 020 7638 5998 |
