France Burgundy Beaune Vineyard

France: Burgundy 2022 - The Price of Beauty

Idyllic conditions have ensured that Burgundy 2022 has all the hallmarks of a classic year.

Burgundy never gets any simpler. In 2022 we have a vintage which is unarguably great, both for reds and whites. But's what's happening with the market? On that there are as many opinions as there are merchants.

To keep things logical, let's look at the wines first. They're a sight for sore eyes, or jaded palates: beautiful balance, freshness, typicity, precision. They demonstrate effortlessly the gulf that still exists between Burgundy and the rest: however great the Pinot Noir from elsewhere that you might want to offer as competition, the equivalent Burgundy this year will beat it.

The detail? It was a hot, dry, sunny year, spring frosts did little damage and there were no dangerous heat spikes. Spring was dry but June was colossally wet in places: on June 22 Gevrey had 100mm of rain in just ten minutes. This was an extraordinary storm: hail and rain, rushing down the Combe de Lavaux and then out across the vineyards. The power of the water did a lot of damage, with cellars flooded and vineyard walls destroyed. And then, because tractors could not get into the vineyards, there was an appellation-wide spraying with Bordeaux mixture to ward off mildew. But then the weather turned warm and dry again, with the odd sprinkling of rain to keep any water stress under control. Gevrey seems to have recovered, though yields are less than they would have been, but the quality of most wines would not suggest there had ever been a problem.

Picking began in August, with, to judge by the wines I have tasted, very few grapes picked too early or too late. One or two reds are a bit balsamic – a descriptor which suggest a warm climate – but not many. Whites have come in at about 12.5-13.5% alcohol, reds at about 13-14%, with only a few hitting that upper figure. There is acidity and there is freshness.

Volnay and Pommard are showing well, as are Santenay and Marenges; and for whites, Charles Taylor of Charles Taylor wines points to Auxey-Duresses from a Meursault grower. "In quality they're closer than ever before. Why buy Meursault when Auxey-Duresses is often nearly as good?"

"Pernand-Vergelesses," adds David Gleave MW of Liberty Wines. "And Monthélie. Monthélie is the new Saint-Aubin. And lesser villages are coming up to fill the gap left by Puligny-Montrachet and Meursault. It's impossible to find Puligny in a restaurant under GBP 200 (EUR 234) now, but other villages can do that." Indeed basic Bourgogne, red and white, from a good grower is a terrific buy in 2022 – which is just as well, given that it now costs pretty much what a good village wine cost not so long ago.

Whites generally have that lovely stony minerality that one wants in Burgundy, and Chablis quite often tastes like Chablis – which sounds odd, but in the warm years we've had lately it has often tasted more like Côte de Beaune. Some still does, but Côte de Beaune also tastes like Côte de Beaune rather than like somewhere further south.

Winemaking and viticulture are adapting to the new realities of climate. Whole-cluster fermentation is now generally a tool rather than a statement, and where it was used heavily in 2022 the wines can be very showy. Lignier-Michelot did less this year, but simply because it adds 30 percent to the volume in the vats, and he didn't have enough vat space… At Bichot they're pruning later, sometimes a whole month later. Are the vines adapting to the climate? "I think we're adapting ourselves," says Matthieu Mangenot. Less new oak is the rule pretty well everywhere: "lower acidity puts the barrel in the forefront," he says. "And we're bottling slightly earlier to catch the fruit and freshness. We've moved a lot in the last few years."

How much?

All of which means that there is nothing to avoid, and the only question is price.

And that's a big question. The 2021 vintage this time last year saw big price hikes, but this year prices seem stable, or more or less stable. "Stable" might mean about five per cent up, but you could argue that that's not a rise in real terms. After last year, it's just as well.

But the divide between those who own vineyards and those who have to buy grapes is bigger than ever. Grape prices are not stable. For 2022 they were up about 15%. Some merchants reduced their margins to keep their prices level, or nearly. And grapes were hard to come by, even at higher prices: growers who sell grapes often bottle their own wine as well, and in 2022 they had to replenish their stocks of the very short 2021 vintage.

The idea that prices are stable probably doesn't apply to the top premiers crus and grands crus, in any case, because of demand. But here we get into the question of what the market is really like, and the answer is that it depends on who you talk to. Says one merchant, "the big increases in premier crus and grands crus were fuelled by Asia, which was very enthusiastic until now, but now the top end of the market is very slow. China is not a player: that's the main reason. People are buying for everyday drinking, but they're not collecting. They already have a lot of wine, and they're starting to ask themselves if they need more. We saw that with Bordeaux 2022.
There's a big uptake in the mid-market, but collectors aren't buying in the same way. Burgundy prices at the top end went mad; but the question is, how much has been drunk and how much will return to the market? How much is sitting in private storage? Warehouses are full."

But if you ask Adam Bruntlett at Berry Bros & Rudd, he says – well, the opposite. "The market is strong, especially at the top. We expect to sell more than every before, by value." Yes, older buyers might decide they have enough already, but there are plenty of newer buyers coming along, he says, for whom these prices are not mind-blowing; they're just what it costs. Private clients want the best names, as ever, and show less interest in places like Santenay or the southern end of the Côte de Beaune; "but there's an encouraging number of restaurants and hotel groups, and private clubs, wanting to buy en primeur now because it's the only way of securing wines at a reasonable price."

Producers increasingly like selling to restaurants rather than private clients, because it means that the wines get seen and drunk, rather than disappearing into private storage, to be resold perhaps just to other private clients. One merchant wonders if top-end Burgundy might, in ten years, be something that only ever appears at auction. It's like watches, he says: "how many Patek Philippe watches do you see? Often the same people who buy wine, buy watches."

But another merchant (sorry about all this anonymity; their choice, not mine) suggests that since Burgundy growers are now financially secure they are going to be able to keep stocks back to release later – and of course to restaurants, as is increasingly the fashion. It means their wines get drunk when they are nicely mature, but it also means even smaller allocations to private clients.

Buying vineyards in Burgundy is increasingly a game restricted to multi-national corporations: we are seeing the gradual decline of family producers and the growth of something much more corporate. It was predicted years ago, and it's happening. Prices for grand cru vineyards are currently outpacing prices of top Bordeaux vineyards: one potential buyer was offered a few rows of very, very good vines at a price which, per hectare, worked out at EUR 80mn. "Even at a retail price of EUR 700-800 per bottle, it made no sense," he says. And Vincent Avenel of Chanson, which has bought 50 hectares of vineyard recently in Rully and Mercurey instead of on the Côte d'Or, says that in the top crus now there is no correlation between the price of land and the price of a bottle. At those prices for vineyards it will take several generations to make a profit. "We are long-term," he jokes, "but not that long-term."

The 2022s, to return to the wines, will be attractive young but will age too. The top red premiers crus and grands crus have proper tightness to them; they need time. The top whites have the structure for the long term as well. But the lesser wines are so delicious now that you might think, why wait? Says one winemaker, "people don't want to age wine any more. They age it in the car going home. So wines must be spectacular when they're young, and still be able to age for those who want that."

The wines seem to have everything this year. At a price.

Source: Wine-Searcher

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