Burgundy 2024 En Primeur

By our man in the vineyard Kenny Stewart – Brunswick Director and Fine Wine Buyer.

This year we noted, in the reports of writers and growers – even among some venerable merchants  – a penchant for summing up the 2024 vintage in music and song.  Neal Martin managed to elicit a series of tracks and tunes from most of those he visited. One of our own growers Etienne Chaix from Domaine Joseph Voillot somewhat ruefully selected The Eurythmics toe-tapper ‘Here Comes the Rain Again’ as his accompaniment to a trying growing season. As for this taster, in 20 years of visiting the region, never has a vintage – for red wines, at least – seemed quite so heterogenous.  We’ll come to the white wines later which could have the song title ‘the future’s so bright I gotta wear shades’  – but the reds are well characterised by Jancis Robinson’s Matthew Hayes when he writes ‘To sum it up in one phrase, the 2024s are absolutely all over the shop.’

Having tasted at nearly 30 domaines over 10 days we’d be inclined to agree.  If I had been asked to come up with a song title to describe the vintage I might hopelessly grasp for REM’s ‘What’s the Frequency, Kenneth?’ simply because there was no easy handle or suitable response in trying to get one’s head round it or provide an easy picture of it!

So, the wines of 2024, particularly the reds, are not easily categorised – but then again is this not the very essence of Burgundy region? It is and has always been about grower over vintage. In 2024 the success or failure of the wines is grower-dependent within the confines of nature’s ‘gifts’ – but perhaps magnified further than in the easier, solar vintages we have seen of late. However, the best reds – mainly from the higher echelons of the classification – are pure, refined and fragrant just as Pinot Noir was intended and will drink a bit younger than the 2020’s and 2022’s.

The whites though are a different story – the thrill is most definitely not gone – and they have aspects of 2007, 2014 and 2017 about them. At Michel Bouzereau, the  sheer incisiveness and verve of the whites threw me back to 2007 for the first time in years, a twinkling Jean-Baptiste heartily agreeing. The chiselled style of his Meursaults and Pulignys was actually beautifully complete and this picture was repeated on visits to Henri Boillot, Jean Chartron, Jacques Carillon and the rising young stars at Guy Bocard. Flesh and dynamism align in perfectly elegant yet concentrated harmony, the 2024 whites promise to be jewels for many a year and definitely demand your attention. We will be concentrating on these domaines in the first part of the year.

Moving way from song titles to the growing season.  Abundant, generous, easy it was not (!) The contrast of the year 2024 with its two predecessors was enough to make some of our Burgundy growers want to forget the year all together. Julie Fevre, one of our two new talented Chablis growers to come on board, reported that the trials of the growing season had so perplexed her retired grandfather that he couldn’t, for the first time in his career, actually stick around for harvest. Such was the paucity of yield here – they lost 90% of their crop  – due to horrendous hail and subsequent mildew attacks that the poor old fellow couldn’t bear to see such an empty cellar. Julie and her parents though, made good wine with what remained, even if not all of the cuvees could be bottled. Better to shrug and accept the fates and the 5 hl/ha yield on the Chablis crop and make the best of it!

Chablis was not exclusively badly hit nor universally – the great destructive swathe of hail in May seemed to target the Fevres in Fontenay more than most.  No, the main feature of 2024 growing season was not catastrophic hail nor frost but good old-fashioned rain, the likes of which we might be used to in the UK, but rarely seen in eastern France. Intermittently incessant from Spring until late in the season – which thankfully allowed a warm window for a reduced crop to reach maturity – it was the rain that brought on all those sad song title vintage reflections from the growers. The flowering period was badly affected which immediately set the scene for significantly lower crop level, however the growers could barely expect the on-off sequence of downpours that occurred over the ensuing months in these days of supposedly endless hot summers.

Several growers spoke of spray treatments being washed away only a day or two after being applied and the fight against mildew became an almighty pitched battle. Biodynamic producers like Florence Heresztyn-Mazzini in the northern Cote de Nuits had never seen a season like it and lost more than 70% of her crop while Claude de Nicolay at Chandon de Briailles sprayed (biodynamically approved, of course!) 22 times whereas in a normal vintage it might be 8 or10 times. This was much further south in Savigny-les-Beaune but all the hard work only resulted in 3 cuvees of red being produced, one of them, Corton Cuvee Trilogie Royale a somewhat tongue in cheek ‘commemoration’ of the trials of vintage.

Mildew was at its worst in the lower lying pockets – and this contributed to the impression that the great Burgundy classification came back into its own in 2024 where the higher situated 1er and Grand Crus were clearly more successful than regional and village wines. However, the overall picture was variable with only total vigilance giving producers a fighting chance in the battle. Grower, grower, grower as we always say although even then different approaches and techniques add to the complicated picture of the vintage. In a cooler damper year many cut the proportion of whole bunch in the ferments – yet someone as prestigious as Nicolas Groffier increased them to 100% across the range while cutting new oak elevage a little. As we say – it was extremely difficult to get a hard and fast picture of a unique growing season.

In the Cote de Beaune we felt that Volnay and Pommard 1er Crus from Voillot retained focus and precision over the village wines, an impression that was replicated in the Gevreys at Heresztyn-Mazzini.  We also felt that Morey and Chambolle fared a little better as Stephane Magnien, Groffier and Hubert Lignier showed their customary exceptional quality.  But then again, they are superb growers and Groffier only has 1er and Grand Crus to offer! In the end a fortnight plus of warm, dry weather in the first part of September allowed the by now very small crop to ripen adequately. Nonetheless, a philosophical nature, an efficient sorting table and half a degree of extra alcohol by judicious chaptalisation helped the best growers produce the fragrant, refined Pinots that almost recall a bygone era. Perhaps on reflection those growers – with good quantities of 2022 and 2023 and an easier season to face in 2025 might select ‘Don’t Look Back in Anger’ as their anthem for the season!

Further south, in the white heartlands of the Cote de Beaune, the picture was much brighter, helped by Chardonnay’s earlier flowering.  Avoiding the early season rains, potential quantities compared favourably to those of the Cote de Nuits neighbours – a turnaround from previous difficult vintages where the combined talents of Meursault, Chassagne, Puligny and St Aubin have often suffered unduly with the elements. 2024 was not exactly an easy ride but Chardonnay flowered well in comparison to Pinot, it makes excellent wines at moderate crop levels and it is not so close to the precipice in ripening as Pinot Noir. So, white winemakers in Meursault, Puligny and Chassagne were in a better position when it came to harnessing and controlling nature than elsewhere in Burgundy.

Still, we couldn’t quite believe just HOW GOOD the whites were as we tasted them. We are fortunate to have growers of tremendous calibre – Bocard, Boilllot, Bouzereau, Carillon, Chagnoleau and Chartron just to name a few stars at the beginning of the alphabet! We could mention Michelot and Morey too – all just superb in 2024. Precision, focus, brightness, depth and resonance – you are surely going to love the wines. For us the wines veer towards 2007, 2014, 2017 in style. Jasper Morris goes further back and name-checks the wonderful 1992 white vintage. They are not to be confused with the run of recent ‘solar’ vintages and they have more middle to them than the finest 2021’s. Several growers left their wines broadly untouched but for extra time on fine lees to give greater dimension. It clearly worked! All in all, the energy and fine balance – signalling great potential development – of the 2024 whites make them a very exciting category indeed and one that may offer the best buying opportunities.  For whatever reason, most people view the annual Burgundy en-primeur ‘season’ as an opportunity to follow and collect red wines.  Not quite sure why.  But 2024 is absolutely the year to turn that ‘illogic’ on its head. Grab the unequivocally best wines of the vintage while the chin-strokers ponder what to select and how much to spend on reds!

The reds do show more variability both due to the vicissitudes of the season, tiny yields and the fact that everybody does things differently but the best of them have a fragrant, head-turning presence, a silky allure with fine tannins delivered with all the cool panache of a Hitchcock leading lady. Those wines absolutely deserve to be collectibles. Hard to compare to most recent vintages of the 21st century, with 2021 perhaps the most obvious candidate. The more immediate aspects and softer balance to the vintage render it slightly comparable to 1992 although higher acidities in places remind one of 2008 on occasion. However, like 2008 and even 2001 from yesteryear they may well be misunderstood and overlooked to begin with. But in hindsight we all wish we’d bought lots more of those years!

However, in the immediate market, given world events – yes, more of those, alas – creating an uncertain backdrop and with release prices remaining static rather than dropping with 2 successive short harvests not helping – the immediate advice is: be bright and go white.  Or to go back to the song titles again – think of 2024 as less ‘A Whiter Shade of Pale’ – rather it is more akin to the The Clash’s rollicking ‘White Riot’!!

We will be offering the 2024 wines beginning this week, initially concentrating more on white than red but please let us know your interest and if you have any questions or require further advice do not hesitate to ask us.

Please contact us if you have any questions or want to discuss any of the growers and their wines in the coming few weeks.

Kenny Stewart, Director and Fine Wine Buyer

+44 (0)1273 054690

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