Burgfest report: 2020 Reds

To use a technical term, the Burgfest tasting of 2020 whites was an absolute belter. I was amazed that such a hot year had turned out wines of such raciness, minerality and consistency, so I approached the reds with great anticipation.

We met for our blind tasting of red 2020s earlier this month and I left with the impression of a very good vintage but not one belonging to the top flight. The reds did not deliver the thrills I found in the 2019 vintage and did not have the consistency of the 2020 whites. Stylistically, the whites were decidedly classical and fine whilst their red wine counterparts seemed much more marked by the solar vintage. I found myself puzzling over how the same vintage had yielded such contrasting results.

There is an important caveat to my report on the 2020 red Burgundies: for various reasons, I had to leave the tasting early and only participated in three of the five days. Of the 250-ish wines in the full tasting, I only managed to taste about 150 and the days I missed included some of the most prestigious wines – the 1er- and Grand- Crus of Chambolle Musigny, Morey Saint Denis and Vosne Romanee.

Would I have come away more positive if I had tasted more of the big guns? On average, my scores were the lowest of the entire Burgfest group, but everyone else had the chance to award high marks to the likes of Comte Liger-Belair’s top crus, no doubt increasing their averages. One of my top wines of the 2019 tasting was Fourrier’s Clos St Jacques, that I awarded 99/100. I did taste the flight of 2020 Clos St Jacques, and Fourrier’s was once again my top wine, but the score was a bit lower: 96/100. Whilst my mean average rating for the five Clos St Jacques 2019s was 96/100, the 2020s came in a bit lower at 94.6.

The averages are interesting, but I cannot convince myself that the difference of 1.4 between my scores for 2019 vs 2020 Clos St Jacques is that significant, and an average of 94.6 is still a massive thumbs up for the 2020s. However, Clos St Jacques is one of the very greatest 1er Cru vineyards of the Cote d’Or, split between five top class producers, so the quality is always going to be relatively high.

This is why I think my conclusions about the 2020 reds are still valid, even if I did not complete the full tasting: elite producers, working with the finest terroirs, will always make top drawer wines; to better understand a vintage, you need to taste beyond the upper echelons.

The best reds of 2020 combine the ripe summer fruit notes of the warm year with bright aromatics and a sense of animation and energy on the palate. Amelie Berthaut’s Clos Vougeot is a very good example:

Clos Vougeot Grand Cru 2020 Domaine Berthaut-Gerbet
Scented and spicy with some whole bunch tones and the slightest reduction note of leather. Could almost be brett but the palate is too fluid, silky and sweet with fruit. Finely crafted. The tannins are impressively managed – firm, layered but not overwhelming at all. Could even mark this higher as the finish ascends and lingers, with spice and vigour. Gets better, cleaner and more expansive with air.
95/100 – Matthew Hemming MW

Where 2020 is less successful the wines bear a heavy signature of the warm vintage that leaves them, literally, a bit heavy. These wines tend to lack Pinot character, be a bit soft and shapeless, and feel somehow dull-edged. Frequently, they appear more evolved than I would want for a 2020 and often as though they were pushed harder in terms of extraction than might have been wise. My least favourite trait was the incidence of brett that I found in far too many wines.Brettanomyces is a spoilage yeast that produces off aromas and flavours in wine. At low levels, brett can bring a leathery note that is almost attractive. At higher levels it starts to dominate and can manifest itself as a sweaty, horsey character. Barnyard accelerates to something deeply unpleasant at high levels. Even a touch of brett can serve to scalp the fruit from a wine, leaving the finish dry and hard. A hard, fruitless, ferrous character of rusty nails announces a severe infection of Brettanomyces.

Often linked to winery hygiene, I had thought that brett was consigned to the past in Burgundy and that the leathery Pinots of the 1970s and ‘80s were no more (ditto in Bordeaux, where the character can be found in many of the Gruaud Larose and Talbot wines of the 1980s). Sadly, it appears that this is not the case. Brett thrives in high sugar, low acidity, high pH environments and these are precisely the conditions of the solar vintages we are increasingly experiencing in the era of climate change. Even at low levels, brett sits over the underlying character of a wine, obscuring both fruit and terroir expression. For me, it mutes everything that makes red Burgundy so magical.

So how can whites and reds from the same year perform so differently and show such opposing characteristics? I think the simple answer is that Chardonnay ripens earlier than Pinot Noir and is picked first. Red grapes, therefore, were more exposed to the heat at the end of the 2020 growing season. In addition, because Pinot Noir is more challenging to ripen, it tends to be planted in warmer and more exposed terroirs.

One consequence of the heat, seen in several 2020 reds, is that stressed vines close the stomata in their leaves, pause photosynthesis and block ripening. Wines produced in these circumstances can show an under-ripe, green, note of pyrazines, frequently accompanied by a tannic hardness.

Thankfully, 2020 reds infected with brett or marred by pyrazine characters are in the minority, but there are enough of them to merit comment.

On day one, we tackled the Cote de Beaune reds. The best 1er Crus of Beaune can provide one of the richest hunting grounds for serious and age-worthy red Burgundy that also offers good value. Unfortunately, the two flights of 2020 did not replicate the class and pleasure we had found in these wines in 2019. I felt as though the vines on the hills above the town had been roasted in the heat. Aside from one excessively reductive bottle there were no active faults, but neither was there much in the way of excitement. Too many wines were just a little too solid and pedestrian. My highest score was 92/100 for Domaine Bitouzet-Prieur’s Cent Vignes.

Conversely, Volnay gave a more successful and convincing performance than in either of the two previous vintages. Tasting 2018 and ’19, I envisioned the sun bearing down mercilessly on the vines of Volnay, like the eye of Sauron. There were still 2020s showing the year’s heat – either in dark-toned and roasted profiles or an overtly sweet, confit style fruit, for example – but I also found more displaying the classic Volnay characters of elegance, delicacy, terroir transparency and fragrance than I have found in recent years. The Clos du Chateau des Ducs of Domaine Michel Lafarge was typically taciturn, earthy and structured. My favourite wines were from Marc-Olivier Buffet, who seems to get better by the year and whose old vines, in combination with his generous use of whole cluster fermentation, seems to be a winning recipe.

Volnay 1er Cru Les Champans 2020 Domaine Francois Buffet
Delicately and elegantly scented with a subtle stem element bringing further complexity and fragrance. Liquid, light-footed and svelte on the palate. Tannins are finely-sculpted. Chalky, crisp finish with great poise and a fine mid-palate perfume. Builds in the glass and gains volume.
94/100 – Matthew Hemming MW

Whilst climate change clearly presents a threat to the producers of Volnay, in Pommard it is an opportunity. The clay soils that once resulted in heavy, rustic tannins, help to cool the vines and hold water in periods of drought. At the same time, contemporary viticulture and winemaking practices have tamed the tannins of old and the wines have a new-found elegance and finesse.

Buffet’s triumphant Volnay Champans was followed by a delicious Pommard Rugiens (92/100), made from vines 100+ years old, and there were also superb wines from Yvon Clerget, Jean-Marc Boillot and Mark Haisma. As with last year’s tasting, my favourite Pommard wines came from Domaine Violot-Guillemard – now a serious force to be reckoned with. Joannes is a winemaker who really seems to have mastered the art of whole bunch fermentation and I gave 94/100 to both their Epenots and their Rugiens, the latter also being the group’s winning wine.

Pommard 1er Cru Rugiens 2020 Domaine Violot-Guillemard
Spice, musk and whole bunches with an attractive briary note of menthol bringing a cooling aspect. Needs a bit more time for the stems to resolve into the broader fabric of the wine but the sweetness and volume is sufficient to achieve this. Savoury on the mid-palate. Tannins have a chalky, mineral quality and bring tension rather than heft.
94/100 – Matthew Hemming MW

With three full flights of Corton Grand Cru, we finished Monday with the first and then completed the final two on the morning of day two. In many years these structured and powerful wines often form the least popular flights of the tasting. In 2020 I found Corton much easier going, more charming and attractive. It is worth noting that each of the three flights had an average score above 90/100 across the full group of tasters.

The best 2020 Cortons were uncompromising in embracing the structure, volume and mass that this Grand Cru seems to deliver so easily. Where people took Corton tannins and overlaid them with additional structure from whole clusters, and did so successfully, I was seriously impressed; Corton tannins do not exactly need additional architecture, so using stems to achieve extra textural complexity is a neat trick.

My highest score of the tasting so far went to the Clos du Roi from Olivier Leflaive. His whites have been coming up the inside track for several years but this is the first time I remember one of the reds doing so well. I should be honest and say that I was the only taster to rate this so highly. In retrospect, I should have recognised the winemaking style for the distinctive and heavy oaking. Maybe I was seduced, but I thought the barrel work was very successful and cleverly done.

Corton Clos du Roi Grand Cru 2020 Olivier Leflaive Freres
Immediately distinctive aromas of stems, florals and reduction. Sweet, creamy and complex. There’s a cool quality on the mid-palate and a very insistent, fine, seam of acidity giving a mineral spine. Fine-boned in a way that so few Cortons manage to be.
95/100 – Matthew Hemming MW

Working northwards, we moved on to Nuits Saint Georges, with 24 wines split across four flights. I see a parallel between Pommard, in the Cote de Beaune, and Nuits Saint Georges, in the Cote de Nuits, both being slightly unfashionable villages that are benefiting from climate change and seeing a quiet renaissance in quality. The 2020 Burgfest tasting did not support this theory, and I found the Nuits wines inconsistent and frequently disappointing.

Unusually for me, I did not give top honours to either Mugneret-Gibourg or Comte Liger-Belair. The latter’s Clos des Grandes Vignes had a great sense of animation, complexity and lift, but this was precisely what I missed in his Aux Cras from the northerly sector of Nuits Saint George. These northerly vineyards, bordering Vosne, often show a more flattering and elegant side of Nuits but I felt the 2020s bore a heavy stamp of the vintage and all lacked a bit of energy.

Thibault Liger-Belair’s 1er Cru Les St Georges was my top wine. This was controversial as some of my colleagues felt it had brett. I am normally quite sensitive to brett, and my note discusses whether it was present in the wine. My take is that the fruit density was such that there was no scalping and that the ferrous notes were a terroir character from Les St Georges and not a flaw.

Nuits Saint Georges 1er Cru Les St Georges 2020
Domaine Thibault Liger-Belair
Classically ferrous and bloody. Could almost be brett other than for the intensity and concentration of sweet berry fruit, against a firmly savoury background, on the palate. Feels like a re-boot of a very old school style. Uncompromising and will need lots of time. Actually it DESERVES lots of time. Masses of structure but the tannins are ripe and complex, bringing a mineral frame.
95/100 – Matthew Hemming MW

In the more Vosne-esque style of Nuits Saint Georges – albeit one from a vineyard south of the village rather than against the border with Vosne – I would highlight the Roncieres from Grivot (94/100). I preferred this to the Comte Liger-Belair Grandes Vignes and, tasting blind, actually questioned whether the Grivot could be a CLB wine such was its complex and musky perfume.Day two finished with two flights of Clos Vougeot. This seems to be something of a sweet spot in 2020 with some seriously good wines. Of 15 wines, I only scored four below 90/100 and one of those may have had low level cork taint so other bottles could well show much better. The ferocious Clos Vougeot tannins of yore rarely came into play and, as with Corton, some wines were fully de-stemmed so as not to amplify the vineyard’s natural structure, whilst other growers played very successfully with a portion of whole bunch fermentation. Given the relatively modest prices for Clos Vougeot – a certain Louis-Michel aside – this Grand Cru could well be worth investigating in 2020.

I rated both Domaines Berthault-Gerbet and d’Eugenie 95/100. Eugenie really seems to have shifted up several gears since about 2017 and is now producing some hugely impressive wines. My favourite Clos Vougeot, however, was from Charles Van Canneyt at Domaine Hudelot-Noellat:

Clos Vougeot Grand Cru 2020 Domaine Hudelot-Noellat
Lovely oak, spice and reduction. Exotic but without taking anything to excess. Sweet fruit with whole bunch accents. Something at the core remains cool and mineral. Lavish texture. Gets better and better in the glass. Creamy and effortlessly sexy.
96/100 – Matthew Hemming MW

Jasper Morris did me a huge favour in putting Gevrey Chambertin on day three so I was able to taste these. I had to leave for the airport before the final flights, so I missed the top Grand Crus, such as Clos de Beze and Chambertin, but I was able to taste the Clos St Jacques bracket which is always a personal highlight of Burgfest.

Gevrey was not 100% consistent but there were some very special wines. Once again, the cooler terroirs of this northerly commune, doubtless helped by the calibre of producers in such a prestigious village, proved a winning combination for a number of producers. At Burgfest we concentrate on tasting 1er- and Grand- Cru wines, yet Duroche’s village level Jeaune Rois snuck in and proved itself a beautifully stylish and classy example. I rated it 92/100, ahead of some much grander 1er Crus.

The wines of Denis Mortet also did particularly well. I had been eagerly anticipating the flight of Lavaux St Jacques, as I feel this cooler site does very well in more solar vintages. In the end, I was slightly disappointed by the wines, including the Rousseau version, but the Mortet wine was exquisitely precise, chiselled and fine – exactly what I had been looking for – 94/100.

The penultimate flight I was able to taste was the five Clos St Jacques. It is always a thrill to taste these, and always a challenge to focus on the quality and not try to work out which wine is which. As it happens, my two favourite wines were those I was able to pick our blind as Esmonin and Fourrier respectively.

Gevrey Chambertin 1er Cru Clos St Jacques 2020
Domaine Sylvie Esmonin
Markdly deep colour and an aroma of dark-toned fruit and spice. If this is Sylvie Esmonin it’s a very updated and more expressive style. Undoubtedly there’s a lot of oak but there’s also masses of mineral-accented wine, driven by fresh acidity, pure dark berry fruit and some gently creamy tannin. Feels like the drama is reined in but the intensity and volume have been maintained. Juicy fruit on the very end so it finishes cleansing and bright. Gets better and better in the glass. Has a crescendo of volume and mineral drive.
96/100 – Matthew Hemming MWGevrey Chambertin 1er Cru Clos St Jacques 2020

Domaine Fourrier
Pure, sweet and scented red fruit builds layer upon layer across the palate. Well defined strawberry and raspberry tones and they unfurl delicately and intricately. The finesse and fine-spun tannins of pure silk could well be Fourrier. Just drops away a little on the very end. Has a sense of weightlessness.
96/100 – Matthew Hemming MW

To complete my Burgfest, I tasted the flight of Charmes Chambertin Grand Cru. This is a large, and varied, vineyard that was a bit of a step down from the heights of Clos St Jacques. Big names, such as Rousseau and Perrot-Minot, were on show but my favourites were from Thibault Liger-Belair and Jerome Castagnier. The group favourite was the Taupenot-Merme, although I found this wine a little too open knit and easy. Thibault’s Charmes Chambertin had lots of very glamourous oak, but with plenty of fruit and depth beneath. The Castagnier wine was similarly luxurious, with a fabulous texture.

Charmes Chambertin Grand Cru 2020 Domaine Castagnier
Has a really engaging combination of sweetness, fruit and Grand Cru volume. It’s deluxe, rich and creamy through the core. Lots of generosity and a lovely quality of tannin. Pure and succulent dark berry fruit. Silky texture.
95/100 – Matthew Hemming MW

I am much more excited by 2020 white Burgundy than I am the reds, but neither am I dashing out to sell all my reds. There are some delicious wines from this vintage, that will age well, and are likely to supply excellent drinking whilst we wait for the high points of 2019 to mature. I bought quite a bit of 2020, to mark my son’s birth year, so am predisposed to like the wines. I left Burgfest slightly disappointed, but I have not lost confidence in 2020 reds. Ideally, we would all be able to taste the wines before we buy – to avoid the brett, the pyrazines and the wines lacking energy – but this simply is not possible for many people.

My key advice for those holding, or considering buying, 2020s is to pick up the phone or shoot us a message. It is a cliché that Burgundy is a mine field and it is another cliché that modern winemaking has made it less so. Frustratingly, it feels as though climate change has rolled the dice yet again and made the mine field that little bit more perilous once again.

Luckily, people who love Burgundy also seem to love discussing the region’s complexities and vagaries. So, pick up the phone and have a chat with one of the team – maybe even arrange to meet over a bottle – and we will happily help you navigate to the best red wines of 2020.