It was the best of years. It was the worst of years. 2018 in the Côte d’Or was a very hot, dry, sunny year, and for most producers, it yielded large crops. Additionally, it yielded wines that qualitatively and stylistically are all over the map. Some are classic in style; some have overripe, jammy fruit. Some have normal alcohols in the 13% range, some are in excess of 15% (and I have even heard from one of my colleagues who tastes more widely than I that he has tasted wines at 16.5%!). And yet, some of the wines above 14% (even at 14.5%) do manage to be surprisingly good.
This diversity has caused me to delay writing about the vintage until I felt that I had tasted enough to understand this very complex vintage and give you an introduction that explains what to expect and why. I have now finished three weeks out of four of tasting the wines and finally feel competent to give that summary.
Weather Conditions. As I mentioned above, the summer was one of record or near record heat. And yet that was not due so much to days of extremely high temperature as occurred in 2019, but to the fact that there were a large number of nights where it did not cool off sufficiently (temperatures below 10ºC or 50ºF). One consequence of the lack of cool nights is that once again, as in other recent years, the grapes had very little malic acidity.
For the most part, other than dryness (for which the severity varied greatly by location and vegetal material) and heat, the summer was mostly uneventful. There were no major disease problems for most (some had oïdium and mildew outbreaks during the wet spring, but they were gone by summer), and the only instance of hail damage was in the southern parts of the Nuits-Saint-Georges and Côte de Nuits-Villages appellations. (Affected producers have no problem recalling the date of the hail — it was 15 July, the day that France won the International Football World Cup; a few received a second, lighter hail about ten days later, and one producer I visited even had a third, but very light, hail in August.) Although the grapes had already formed on the vines, the affected grapes mostly dried and fell off by harvest time, and several of the affected producers said that they had to do very little or no sorting of the grapes at harvest.
Another consequence of the growing season without serious complications is that yields at most estates were generous to extremely high. We’ll come back to that later.
Harvest Dates. As August came to a close, the producers had to face the critical question of when to harvest. In its simplest terms, the question seems to be one of physiological maturity occurring prior to phenolic maturity: do you pick early to assure that you don’t have very high alcohols and overripe fruit, or do you pick later to assure that you have the full spectrum of flavors and aromas in your wines?
Jean-Marie Fourrier said that the traditional 100 days from flowering still applied; earlier harvesting gave physiological maturity, but not phenolic maturity. Dominique Lafon, among others, provided a rebuttal in favor of early harvesting: with earlier flowering due to the warmer weather, the flowers and grapes received greater sunlight because they were exposed to more of the long days of summer, and so the grapes were ready to harvest earlier than the 100 days that had been set when the climate was cooler. This is a key question that will require resolution in the future as producers recognize that the climate has changed.
But the climate is just one factor determining when the grapes were ready to be harvested. Others include vegetal material in the vineyard, viticultural practices, terroir of the vineyard (e.g., types of soils, location of the vines on hillside or plain, exposition), and how much rain there was at a specific location in this very dry summer. Fourrier, for example, noted that vineyards on the slopes, which generally face east, had less exposure to the late afternoon sun than vineyards on flatter land because of the shadows cast by the slopes. Other producers said that they, too, thought that vines on the slopes were favored in this vintage.
The results to a limited extent justify the early harvesters, who often started in August. Late harvesters where I have tasted often had problems with high sugars, which were transformed into high alcohols. But as I indicated above, it’s not as simple as all that. At Domaine Jean Grivot, for example, harvesting didn’t begin until 11 September, by which time almost everyone else had finished, and yet the wines there are not high in alcohol nor overly ripe.
Diverse Ripening Patterns. The diversity of factors with the extreme conditions over the summer also meant that many producers found that the ripening in their vineyards was not in the same order as usual, and so they had to adjust the order of harvest. Those that didn’t (and even some that did) often wound up with overripe grapes from the last-harvested parcels.
Rapid Increases in Sugar Levels. Allied with the change in the order of ripening in various vineyards, producers found that by the second week of September, the sugars (and thus the potential alcohols) were increasing at a very rapid pace. Depending on the size of the estate and the picking crew, some estates were able to finish up very quickly. For those who were not, they were often stuck with very high alcohol wines. Some have sold those wines off to negociants, but others will stick with them.
Speaking of negociants (those who make wine from vineyards that they don’t own), their contracts with growers vary. Sometimes the negociant has full control of farming and harvesting (e.g., Jadot with Clos de la Barre in Volnay), and sometimes when the negociant thinks the grapes should be harvested, it can send in its own team to harvest. But in other cases, the grower determines the harvest date and there is nothing that can be done to advance the harvest if the negociant feels the grapes are getting too ripe.
Decisions for Fermentation. Once harvested, further decisions had to be made. Sorting was minimal because of the general health of the grapes, and given the ripeness, there would be no chaptalization. Some producers increased use of stems because the stems were ripe and because they find that whole cluster fermentations increase the freshness of their wines.
Additional questions included whether to acidify or to add water to dilute the alcohol (I’m not sure that this practice is legal in Burgundy, but at least one producer I visited did it in 2018, and I’m sure others did, too).
Many producers lightened up on extractions in 2018, limiting punch downs and substituting pumping over or submerged caps. This in part explains the lightness and finesse of many of the reds. In spite of this, the reds often are quite deep in color and some are even opaque in appearance. These deep colors came on very rapidly, even though the skins were not thick in 2018.
Fermentation Problems for Some. The very high sugars in the grapes presented their own fermentation problems. Some producers had wines where the malo-lactic fermentations began before the alcoholic fermentations had finished, and this can lead to problems with excess volatile acidity and/or brettanomyces. Others had problems getting the wines to ferment dry.
Malo-lactic fermentations varied, some being early (beginning even before finish of alcoholic fermentations, as I have noted), while others were at normal times for that cellar. But overall, acidities generally seem correct, although the lower-than-normal remaining malic acidity makes the wines seem smoother and less taut.
Effect of High Yields. The red wines have done better with the abundant yields than one normally expects. It may be, as Fred Mugnier suggested, that with the change in climate, the past emphasis on low yields will need to be rethought. As for the whites, it’s long been understood that Chardonnay is more elastic with respect to yields than Pinot Noir. Dominique Lafon, noted that his village Meursault is from a production of 50 hl/ha and in this vintage, if the yield had been lower, the wine would have been too powerful and out of balance.
Wines Tasted So Far. The resulting red wines that I have tasted have in some cases been classic both in quality of fruit and in alcohol, others have been riper in fruit and high in alcohol but still attractive by an “objective” standard, and some are very jammy in fruit and very high in alcohol. This makes for a treacherous vintage for the consumer who is not well-informed. In my notes on individual wines, I try to apply an "objective" standard in judging the wines; there are wines that receive very good scores, yet are not in a style that I personally like. And of course, there are wines, that even applying such an "objective" standard are nevertheless not successful. Keep in mind, also, that the producers I visit are among those I consider to be the most conscientious and talented in Burgundy. When one goes down the ladder, I suspect that there will be more unattractive wines.
Surprisingly, perhaps, terroir expression comes through in the great majority of the wines I have tasted.
Surprisingly, perhaps, terroir expression comes through in the great majority of the wines I have tasted.
The whites I’ve tasted so far have been somewhat mixed, but the best of them are quite interesting. They are light and fragrant and probably best drunk within four or five years of the vintage.
Burgundy in the Future. Following this vintage, 2019 is also a very hot vintage. The producers are very bullish on the quality of 2019; quantities are low, though, with many producers comparing their 2019 yields to those of 2015.
After 2003, some producers said that they were happy to have experienced such a vintage once, but they hoped never to have to do so again; it now appears such vintages will be the new normal. As a result, producers are rethinking every aspect of what they do in the vineyard and in the cellar to confront these changed conditions.
If 2018 is representative of what we will see in the future, the wines will remain popular with the general public, perhaps even increase in popularity. But I and the lovers of what was considered a typical Burgundy vintage, such as 2001 or 2008, are likely to find fewer wines that fit that style.
Prices. 2018 was a large or at least normal size vintage for most producers, and the same holds for 2017, so there was some hope that prices would come down. But the small harvest of 2019 for most producers and continued roaring worldwide demand for Burgundy suggest that 2018s will be priced about the same as 2017s, maybe up or down just a bit.