What 2018 Red Burgundies are you Buying?

WINE TALK
61

Mostly an allocation and patronage thing for me.

I took a gigantic (for me) parcel of Dujac because I have been front of line since my local source started getting access to it and the distributor changed. That, and I have never had a Dujac I didn’t find some pleasure in.

PYCM was a similar story in white, but maybe not as gigantic.

I buy the de Villaine wines every year because of the nerd factor and they are generally delicious.

I passed on d’Angerville…prices have gone nuts. I bought 2017 (mixed case) but passed on the '18s.

Other than that, I buy based upon past experience, reputation, and general discussion of vintage character. Plus availability. I am too old to go chasing things…there’s plenty of fungibility in my tastes.

Cheers,
fred

62

History with the wines (good producers will obv make good to great wines year in year out), vintage reports from various sources that give a picture of what can be expected, tips from this forum on value-ish buys or things I really want to try and a healthy dose of your notes [cheers.gif] But I certainly don’t buy at the level or quantity of most folks who post about Burgundy here.

63

Largely avoiding. Picking up just a few lesser (read cooler) sites. I think I’m at or close to having enough red burgundy now that I no longer need to chase wines from warmer / solar ++ vintages. I did buy some Fremiets and passed on the same producers Caillerets & Champans due to profile. I’m largely getting priced out of better stuff and with climate change, I may only be topping up every few vintages from here forward via lesser vineyards or producers further down the pecking order or still making a name for themselves.

64

Still nothing. At most eventually Ramonet Clos Boudriotte and Chevillon Caille and/or Vaucrains. I.e., just my much reduced core.

65

I have two answers. When I first started collecting Burgundy over 30 years ago, before I had experience and preferences, I would buy a bottle of something that interested me from reading Coates or Tanzer, the only two reliable timely Burgundy reviewers, or from a trusted merchant, bring the bottle home, try it within a week or two and then, if I liked it, go back and buy more. Wine stayed on the shelves—Ramonet, Roumier, Raveneau, even DRC, weeks or months.

Wine-Searcher didn’t exist. Relationships were paramount.

Fast forward to the release of 2005 reds and it all changed. Huge reviews and lots of new wine money showed up. Relationships meant nothing. Wine was sold to the highest bidder. Long time allocations vaporized as many retailers turned to the new clientele waving their dollars.

Since then, the supply demand curves have been so twisted so that one has to buy without tasting, bottles and not cases, and one doesn’t have the leisure of trying and tasting.

I miss the previous times.

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66

It’s not all gloom and doom. There are still relationships that matter.

67

Clarified. [wink.gif]

68

There are but it’s much less a “taste before you buy” thing in many cases.

69

William I use your information here and on Parker, plus Jasper Morris, Bill Nanson, Neal Martin, older notes from Steve Tanzer, etc as far as professional notes. There’s quite a few here on the WB forum and two Facebook groups who have made suggestions, and haven’t been wrong! I like to put together a consensus on a wine that I haven’t tried before; style, potential, value.

As far as 2018 tasting in advance is going to be tough if not impossible for me. I might get to taste a few lower level wines in advance, but that’s about it.

I don’t have a strategy for 2018, but I bought quite a bit of 2014, 2016 (pricing), and 2017 (still picking), so because of that I’ll look for opportunities in 2018 as they come. I did take some 2018 J-M Millot and have access to some Lorenzon so I’m good for now.

I’m hoping that when the 2019 wines come we’ll lose that tariff here in the US and this pandemic will be behind us.

Cheers everyone!

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70

So a big part is for sure keeping allocations (for me DRC, Rousseau, Roumier, Trapet, Dujac, Vogue, Leflaive, Bachelet).

Above that is a layer of research, going through all the articles of the pros (your material on TWA, Neil’s on Vinous, Brughound, Winehog and Decanter are my main sources) to see if the vintage is aligned with my preferences or not, if the vintage is a good one or not. Depending on that I increase or lower my allocation requests.

Regarding other wines: As I’m relatively young (mid thirties) and compared to Bdx or Napa my Burgundy knowledge and drinking history is relatively thin (you can hardly buy back vintages to tast and learn the same way you can do in Bdx) I don’t have 10 other producers I know well enough to buy them regurarly. So my way to decide which wines to buy, beside the very big names, depends on the rating and comments you, Neil and the others make. Not knowing the producers that well, not having had so much Burgundy to know which critic’s palate aligns most with mine, I usually seek out the wines that a) have good ratings from more than one critic, b) a history of being good (critics, cellartracker). In 2018 I bought Angerville Clos de Ducs, Groffier CdB, Faiveley CdB, Anne Gros Richebourg, Rossignol-Trapet Chambertin. My “1er Cru/Village pruchases” are mainly replaced with buying high end Pinot from Germany (Huber, Becker, Stodden, Fürst) and Switzerland (Studach, Donatsch, Gantenbein).

71

Ordinarily, I’d probably have bought more 18s, but I tasted some of them out of barrel last year and was surprised at how ripe they were. One producer even said that the vintage reminded them a bit of 03, which isn’t a great sign. Then I had a few of the wines as soon as they landed and that impacted my decision as well. I’m usually not that eager to open wines just off the boat, but in this case I wanted to see the finished product.
I did end up buying some producers to maintain allocations/verticals, and for the most part (not all), they’re fine, but I also took smaller amounts given tariff pricing. With plenty of 17s out there, the incentives aren’t great.

I should add, I definitely take your reviews into account William for wines that are worth seeking out in tough vintages.

72

This. Including the universal need to have and take one’s allocations to even get certain wines. I’ve never been interested in that game. Which is fine because it coincided with the dramatic and continuous price increases over the last 20 years, which I can’t afford.

In the US at least, where prices get inflated by the three-tier system, this all make Burgundy even more elitist. Again that’s ok as there is plenty of great wine under $100 or even $50 a bottle. But it’s also sad as has been discussed here many times before, because it didn’t used to be that way. And newbies without significant income can’t really play directly.

73

Where I am located, there is almost zero opportunity to taste. I buy based on past experience and lean fairly heavily on your contributions to this forum to ensure that the producers I am buying have done a decent job within what the vintage allowed. That and maintaining allocations on my favourites.

74

I know a fair amount of people who have been buying Burgundy for a long time who feel this way, but I also know a fair number of people new to Burgundy who believe that older buyers have allocations at really cheap prices. I think the answer is in between and relationships very much still matter, but to a point. For example, I don’t have the right relationships for Tremblay, and those wines simply don’t appear at retail - I can’t buy them even if I wanted to. Same is true for certain other producers. Whereas I do have relationships for certain other producers, so get offered things that certain other people don’t.

What I think people who have been buying for a long time lament is the ability to peruse available wine and buy them at their leisure without price mark-ups, but that’s simply the nature of the price increase in Burgundy, not relationships ceasing to matter. They still do; just try and buy Burlotto’s 16s, for example.

75

Interesting answers, thank you!

It is clearly tricky to know how best to proceed, especially in extreme vintages that may not be to one’s taste, and the number of people who say they set some store by my reviews only encourages me to be even more stringent (and above all, really try to describe the wines the way they taste). I remember playing the allocation game before I made my passion my profession, and all the delicate negotiations—and this was in London, where access is still a lot easier than in the USA. Still remember being allocated one bottle of the 2013 Rousseau Clos de Bèze for 220 GBP: a big hit to my wine budget as a doctoral student, but it’s hard to find pricing like that only five years later…

76

The only producers I bought more than a couple bottles so far were
D’angerville
Barthod
Dujac
Fourrier
M-G
Jadot
Definitely a bunch that I skipped or just bought a couple bottles.
Happy to take anyone’s Roumier or Mugnier allocation who wants to skip the vintage! [snort.gif]

77

Lucky to have been there this year to taste (in the before times). I’m buying all my usual things and a few more out of sentimentality.

78

Adrian, I found your note useful for the Jadot CSJ (CT), The vast majority of my 2018s are keeping allocations in place

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79

Comte Armand
D’Angerville
Lafarge
Trapet
Hudelot Noellat
Roumier
Rousseau
Drouhin
Vogue

Can’t remember there may be more.

80

If anyone was an insomniac like me, Jasper Morris did a broadcast this AM (at 10 Burgundy time) in discussing the 2019’s. He made numerous references to the 2018’s that were quite helpful, including the issues of growers picking early due to fears of over-ripeness and his experiences of drinking 14.5+ wines and some thoughts on growers that may have “let things get away from them”. In particular his comments on generic Burgs vs the more famed parcels are quite interesting. Worth a listen if anyone is sitting on the fence buying the 18’s…and eventually 19’s.

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