William Kelley 2020 Burgundy vintage report

An early preview on IG:

Can’t wait to read the full report. Thanks for your continued participation here, William.

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Thank you William! I didn’t realize there could be such big variances in the mix of malic vs tartaric acid from year to year. Looks like I’ll have to seek out more 2019 whites

LOL, “have a drink before you look at the prices”

Quick summary:

These are going to be good and expensive. Buy with confidence.

William wants to see our spit takes champagne.gif

William is lighting a fire under us. Too bad it’s with $100 bills.

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This says it all - “…make sure you have a glass of wine before you look at the prices this year…”

The desire on the part of producers to more closely align cellar door pricing with the market is understandable and unsurprising if unfortunate… selling dollars for ten cents must get old. Hopefully after a strong run of vintages they remember that many customers buy every year - good and challenging - and don’t simply try to reset all prices to what the marginal buyer is willing to pay at an auction.

“…make sure you have a glass of wine before you look at the prices this year…”


“This Year”?….been gettin blitzed while purchasing Burgundy for years! [drinkers.gif] :money_mouth_face:

Thanks! Yes, in 2020 you’re looking at typically less than 2g/L malic acid, whereas >4g/L was commonplace in 2021 (I know of 2008s that hit 8g/L!). It really influences the style of the wines.

The other aspect I would have liked to touch on is how the different sites express in 2020, what the French would call the “lecture des terroirs”. If rainy vintage favor sites that drain well, and marginally ripe vintages favor the sunniest sites, then 2020 really shows the difference in the soils’ water holding capacity. Hillside sites with thin soils often got quite dehydrated, so you have a sort of sweet-and-sour dynamic between concentrated acidities and concentrated fruit (a couple of wines made me think of Barbera!); sites with better hydrated soils produced fuller, more complete, 3D wines. But of course all that is patterned and complexified by farming!

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You’re tempting providence now.

I’m hearing +50% ex-domaine for several well-known domaines.

Think this pricing holds for 2022+? A new floor? or a one-off given low yields/2021 crop?
I imagine it (mostly) holds?

Heard the same thing about a month ago.
Wallet gonna hurt.

Probably the Domaines that didn’t already do +50% in 2019. I’d imagine they saw their bretheren succeed and followed suit. Not to mention costs are up huge everywhere.

Everything in the world is up at least 50% in the last two years. Have you seen the money supply around the world???

This is not a one-off anything.

Unfortunately, it will have to be a drink of something other than Burgundy.

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Wow. Hadn’t seen 50% yet so that will be a bit of a shock. I’ve seen a whole lot of 25-30% price increases in grand crus and 1er crus, with lots of 3 bottle cases rather than 6. That being said, I’m pretty sure that there is someone standing behind me waiting to take anything I don’t want at any price, and based on what I’ve tasted of 2020 there is no way I’m willing to miss it.

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SOme domaines that went up 40-50% for 2019 vintage will be higher again for 2020 according to my sources.

Anyone know when the drc package prices for 2019 come out?

Did you really see producers that were up 50% ex-Domaine from ‘18 to ‘19? I saw some bumps but nothing that high.