Burgundy en primeur: wonderful wines, but allocations severely impacted

With Burgundy set to release the 2024 vintage in the coming days, what are the UK’s fine wine merchants saying about the new vintage and the upcoming en primeur campaign? 

The most obvious thing about this upcoming Burgundy campaign is the size of the yields – or rather the lack of it. The 2024 growing season was one of Burgundy’s toughest, beset by challenging weather of all descriptions. This included rainfall well above normal – up to 50% more than average – which saw poor fruit set in April and severe mildew pressure later on (Chanson Père et Fils told db last month that this pressure had seen it increase mildew treatments from the six or seven treatments used in a normal year, to more than 20), as well as localized but severe frost and hail. Luckily however, the “clement late summer weather and rigorous sorting” helped stave off the worst ravages of 2024’s “battle of attrition against mildew”, as Corney  Barrow’s fine wine buyer Guy Seddon noted, and allowed the grapes to ripen.

And the results are almost uniformly promising for the wines themselves. As Jeroboam’s fine wine buyer Martin Tickle continued, there is a “genuine pleasure in the calibre and the style of the wines” of 2024 and “what might have been a vintage of exhaustion has instead yielded wines of tenderness and precision.”

“2024 is proudly a vintage of the vigneron, of those who toiled in the vineyard, picked at the optimal moment and made the right decisions in the cellar,” he wrote, with the 2024 vintage joining “the ranks of vintages that excite winemakers, the vintages they most love to drink themselves, 2021, 2017 and 2014 amongst them.”

As David Roberts MW at Goedhuis Waddesdon points out in his vintage report, “if you like Burgundy, this is the time to buy.”

There are, he notes “wonderful wines” that represent the style of a previous era “lower alcohol, graceful delicate reds, vivacious whites, all with drive, vigour and energy”.

However, the fact remains that yields have been so low in some areas that some domaines are not producing some of their cuvees. Jeroboams for example noted in its vintage report that Domaine Georges Roumier will not be producing Bourgogne Rouge or Musigny Grand Cru in 2024; Domaine Hudelot-Baille picked only four crates of Chambolle-Musigny Premier Cru Les Borniques, which have been put into the Chambolle-Musigny Vieilles Vignes. Likewise, Domaine Simon Bize et Fils have produced a single Premier Cru from its Premier Crus Les Marconnets, Les Talmettes and Les Forneaux.

So where does this leave pricing?

As ever, the temptation would be for lower yields to result in higher pricing but customers would find this hard to swallow, and as Tickle notes, there is “a clear sentiment that stability would be a virtue”.

With yields are so reduced – some domaines in the Côte de Nuits lost as much as 70–80% of their crop, with the Côte de Beaune faring better with losses of only 30–40% – reductions are unlikely. Last month, Chanson Père et Fils’ new CEO Thierry Berger told db it was important to keep pricing of the reds stable as the economic situation of markets around the globe continued to be tricky .

And merchants are remarkably aware of this. Tickle agreed that “steady pricing would signal a welcome return to equilibrium, an affirmation that Burgundy still belongs at the table”. At Goedhuis Waddesdon “prices have not moved for the majority of our growers this year” and despite the weaker sterling, the team too “have respected their [growers] efforts and endeavoured to keep prices the same as the 2023 vintage” even though allocations will be “seriously impacted”.

Similarly, Corney & Barrow say there are “the right prices” for as Seddon warns, while drinkers still love Burgundy, they “will not buy it at any price”. He points to the “cautionary tale 500km to the southwest” where “Bordeaux has seen its customer base dwindle over the past decade, through an approach to en primeur pricing that has largely removed the incentive to buy upfront.”

Fortunately, it seems Burgundy’s producers have learnt from the mistakes Bordeaux previously made.

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