Summary of Tastings of 2017 Burgundies

I’ve spent the past four weeks tasting 2017s in Burgundy and offer this summary. Reviews of wines from individual properties will follow shortly.

The winter was dry and then the budding was early. In late April, temperatures were predicted to drop below freezing for at least one night, and in some locations more. The producers of each village combined to burn straw in the vineyards early in the morning to prevent the wines from freezing — and it worked, saving the crop (except for Chablis, where the freezing nights lasted for fifteen days, exhausting the fuel sources). Following that, there was an early, rapid flowering, a hot summer that managed to get just enough rain. There was a bit of hail in Morey-Saint-Denis on July 10 (but many of the producers I visited said that because of the abundant crop, they still came out with decent yields where the hail hit). The hot summer gave thick skins, but unlike, for example, 2015, the grapes were large and had plenty of juice.

Early pickers began with the whites in the last week of August and the reds in the first week of September (and one producer I visited, Jacques Prieur, began even earlier). Some rain fell on 9 September and in the following days, but nothing that seems to have seriously affected the wines picked after that date from what I’ve tasted. In fact, some late-pickers have said that the rain unlocked the vines that had been shutdown by excessive dryness. It seems everyone has a story on why his or her strategy was best. A side issue is that the size of the crop meant longer harvests than in 2016; some producers had to scramble to assemble full picking teams.

Some producers reported abundant yields, but others said that yields were more or less what they aim for. Similarly, some said that they had low malic acidities (but adequate total acidities), but others said malic acidities were normal or, in at least one case (Méo-Camuzet), elevated. 

The timing of malo-lactic fermentations ranged all over the place, even within the same cellar, and did not seem to depend upon the amount of malic acidity in the grapes harvested.

The whites I tasted so far have been uniformly fine — better as a group than 2015 and 2016 (and I like those vintages). If on the whole they're not up to the greatness of 2014, it's because they are a little fatter, and some have a little sucrosity of texture (but not sweetness), and perhaps they don’t have quite the race of 2014, but that’s praise through faint damnation.

Some reds seemed relaxed in structure and not showing great depth or concentration to the inexperienced taster, but that will in part be because the cellars had not yet cooled down. As the cellars cooled, the wines became more crisp and concentrated. Look for reviewers who have several years of tasting when the cellars are warm and then cool to make the adjustment that others lacking that experience can't make. (Also, be sure that you serve all your Burgundies from bottle at cellar temperature to get the correct acid and alcohol balance.)

Some of the resulting wines, both red and white, show some sucrosity — not in the sense of 2003, where the wines at this stage often tasted sweet, but where the sucrosity gives a rounder, somewhat thicker texture to the wine. There’s also a general theme of freshness in the wines, especially the reds. 

Additionally for the reds, they range so far from approachable wines that should do for early and medium-term drinking to some fabulous wines (at all levels and from a many appellations) that any Burgundy-lover would want, if possible, to have in his or her cellar. The early approachability of these wines that I expect from bottle should not in any way be viewed as a default, but rather a positive aspect that allows drinking of those wines in place of raiding stocks of earlier vintages, such as 2015 and 2016, that may have already shut down and in any case are not showing their full potential. But there is enough balance in these 2017s to permit medium-term aging.

The quality exists all along both the Côte de Nuits and the Côte de Beaune, but the vintage reaches its most magical expression in Vosne-Romanée and Chambolle-Musigny, with the wines from the Vosne slope of Nuits-Saint-Georges not far behind. 

I visit only producers that I consider to be of high quality, but I suspect that as one goes down the scale in quality of producer, the wines become more variable. From quality producers, the grands crus and premiers crus show well, but there are often village wines and some Bourgognes of surprisingly high quality.

A word about the 2018s, which are already apparently inspiring quite a bit of enthusiasm. It’s generally a very large vintage with low acidity and high alcohol. There are reports of wines above 15º in alcohol and stuck fermentations, but many of the producers I have visited have assured me that their wines do not have those defects, and those producers are most enthusiastic about their wines, primarily reds. We’ll see next year.

Together, 2017 and 2018 present many producers, especially on the Côte de Beaune, with their first full cellars since 2009. That will take some pressure off pricing, but many producers said they need a third good harvest in 2019 to rebuild the stocks that were depleted during the 2010-2016 period. Thus, overall I don’t expect any major price reductions for 2017s (especially as producers in France outside of Burgundy had small harvests in 2017 and 2018, thus adding to the already substantial world-wide demand for Burgundy), and in a few cases, producers told me that they will increase prices for selected wines.