The 2017 vintage - At last, a generous harvest – great whites and superlative reds

An introduction to our 2017 offer by our resident Senior Consultant, Anthony Hanson MW:

The 2017 Growing Season & Harvest
By a close shave, Burgundy avoided the terrible frost damage which had devastated many vineyards in April 2016. At the same period in 2017, temperatures plummeted, but growers were better prepared. Some lit candles or burners, between the rows. Many came together to organise the burning of bales of straw at the end of vineyard-rows. These actions warmed the air, produced protective smoke, and broadly saved the crop for many growers.
 
May was warm, bringing an early flowering, which went through well, in spite of some storms. June brought heat spikes at the end of the month. These months were dangerous ones, as there was pressure from mildew, against which top Domaines were able to act with frequent, preventative sprayings. Temperatures fluctuated during July, with rainy periods, which meant that pressure from mildew was always a danger, but fewer treatments proved to be necessary than in 2016. 
 
During the summer it became evident that some vines which had been badly frosted the previous year were compensating, by promising an abundant crop. Conscientious growers, therefore, thinned the harvest where it was necessary. Others, however, left the fruit on the vines, fearful of possible hail to come.  Early August was not as warm as normal, but then hot weather arrived towards the end of the month, with 20mm. of beneficial rain, just before final ripening. Pinot Noir needs sun, but not too much – so these were pretty ideal conditions for a fine harvest.
 
The vintage began in late August for certain white wines, and in early September for many reds. It was a normal-sized crop of whites, but a generous, or sometimes enormous one, for reds. The picking and sorting took longer than many growers ever remembered. Permitted yields were raised, in recognition of the fine potential quality and volume, and to compensate growers for their frost-losses the previous year. But this highlights the quality-crux of the vintage: big volumes of reds mean that some lack fruit density. Of course, we have born this carefully in mind, while making our selections.
 

The 2017 Reds
We have been utterly seduced by the bright, fresh fruity characters and elegant textures of these charming 2017 reds. However, care is needed: due to the size of the crop, not all reds were extremely ripe on picking, so we encountered some vegetal, leafy aromas, and some wines with low acidity. These wines we have avoided. The best have vibrant, purple colouring, with vivacious, plentiful aromas, and excellent fruitiness, with supple tannins, in fine balance. Many wines will make delicious drinking while youthful, while others – where growers managed yields and extractions with skill – have an excellent future ahead of them.

The 2017 Whites
This is a top vintage for whites, from Chablis down to Chassagne-Montrachet. Domaines have produced a normal sized-crop of often piercingly fruity, crisp, long flavoured wines. We are thrilled to introduce to our list for the first time a direct shipment from the outstanding Meursault estate of Michel Bouzereau. Owner Jean-Baptiste Bouzereau breathed a sigh of relief, after several vintages of frost or hail, to find generous rows of barrels in his cellar, filled with wines of such beautiful quality.

For full producer reviews and 2017 ratings, please click here.

WHY BUY EN PRIMEUR

The most obvious traditional answer was price. The basic deal was that the best price would be the en primeur or ‘futures’ price – the consumer rewarding the merchant, the merchant rewarding the negocient, the negocient rewarding the châteaux with cash up front, long before anyone would see the finished wine in bottle. This system broke (as it does every few decades or so) with the 2009 and 2010 vintages, where the price of the final delivered wine fell siginicantly below what customers paid en primeur. Price for the 2016s will be something to watch, though fortunately it doesn’t look this year (so far!) like aggressive pricing will be the order of the day.

Of course you are not buying an entire vintage, you are picking out individual wines, so over-performers who nonetheless price ‘normally’ may well prove to make financial sense.

But there are some other reasons to buy en primeur

- Provenance is assured. You will be the first to take delivery of the wine and you will have control over its handling and storage from day one, with all the assurance for preserving condition that that brings. Years down the line that will mean either drinking the wine in its optimal condition, or being able to offer it for re-sale with complete assurance to the next buyer. Everyone benefits from assured provenance.

- Access. This isn’t Burugndy, but it is true that some of these wines appear later in the secondary market in much lower quantities. This is the best chance to ensure you can own what you want.

- Sunk cost. It’s not an obvious one, but taking the pain of the expense now is something akin to savings. The wine will feel like a bonus when it comes to drinking it!

- Choice of bottle formats. If you like to own your favourite wines in a nice mix of halves, magnums and imperials, this is your best – often only – chance to have the wine bottled in formats you want. (Subject to availability and advance ordering).

- If you had a child born in 2016, or got married, this is a very nice way to mark the occasion from the outset – investing in furture anniversaries and birthdays.

SOME CAVEATS AND SOME ADVICE ABOUT CHOOSING WINES

It’s important understand that tasting and evaluating barrel samples is not as assured as tasting finished wine from bottle. The first point here is that we are not tasting finished wines. They are just a few months in to their barrel ageing and will change more in the next year in barrel than any subsequent year in bottle. Faults like aggressive tannins or greenness aren’t going to go away with bottle age, but sometimes other issues might be hidden at this stage, or a wine might improve considerably in barrel. Samples can also vary – in my experience – a great deal from day to day, and location to location. I taste a sample, I write down what I experience. For the sake of transparency, and to show just how much variance is possible, where I tasted a 2016 more than once I have given both notes here. You will see for yourself how much variance is possible.

Secondly, for some châteaux what you taste is the final blend. They have already assembled the young wine and re-distributed it back to barrel for further ageing. At other châteaux the final blend will be made many months later after they see how the components develop in barrel. In this latter case an ‘approximate blend’ is made from the components to represent the envisaged final blend. Can you see where there might be an issue here? I couldn’t possibly comment.

Finally, these are my experiences tasting a range of samples over a week in Bordeaux in April 2017. To this I would make two points: firstly, though I tasted many of the higher ranked wines (which are the ones of most relevance to Hong Kongers considered buying en primeur), there are in fact thousands of wines possible to taste. My preliminary views are therefore based on less complete observations than many others – especially the critics – who tasted for weeks and complied extrensive reports. My second point relates to the first – do not rely on any single opinion. My best advice to you is to pass on advice I received many years ago: pick two or three 2016 Bordeaux vintage reports – especially where you know how the author’s taste relates to your own – and compare the notes from each. This will give you a more reliable sense for how a particular château performed. From there, trust your own taste. There is no such thing as a ‘100-point wine’, or a ’90-point wine’. They don’t exist. What exists is a 100-point experience one person had with a wine on an occasion. Your mileage may vary.