Photo by James Lee on Unsplash
It is with great pleasure that I bring to you our 2014 Burgundy Vintage Review.
In early December, Samantha and I managed to arrange an intensive, four day sprint to the Côte de Beaune and Côte de Nuits tasting over 300 wines. Whilst the vines lay dormant in the crisp early morning frost we received a warm welcome from the winemakers. However many times you experience a Burgundian cellar tasting of the new vintage, from barrel, it never ceases to excite me. You get so much more understanding, appreciation of the winemaker's signature and of course, a little inside information from the horse's mouth, what we call “cellar talk”.
It is a beautiful vintage; one that offers stunning individuality, vibrancy and energy. We found ourselves describing the wines of having wonderful balance, freshness and purity. In many cases it is an early drinking vintage, however, the wines from the better terroir have good depth and structure that will contribute to them cellaring well and give much pleasure in years to come.
It was an unpredictable and challenging year for the winemaker. Bud break arrived early on the 5th April (20 days earlier than in 2012) and flowering started on the 5th June in the Côte de Beaune and 8th June in the Côte de Nuits. For the third year running a vicious hail storm hit on the 28th June. In 10 minutes it damaged almost 4,000 hectares of vines out of a total of 9,500 hectares planted in Burgundy. Damage varied from 5% to a devastating 95%, worst hit were the villages of Santenay, Pommard, Volnay, Meursault and Beaune. July was a mixture of showers and sun with cold nights. August was very wet.
A welcomed curtain call of an Indian summer arrived on the 8th September and lasted throughout harvest. Veraison (when the grapes change colour) was very late and started mid-August. The colder than normal summer slowed down the maturation of the grapes, bringing the 2014 vintage a lovely freshness and vibrancy. The Indian summer ensured the grapes reached optimum ripeness, as well as making sure the grapes were in excellent condition, hardly any rot was found in the vineyard.
Whilst we tasted over 300 wines, we have selected our favourites and the ones I feel will work best for you the customer. Those that fell by the wayside just didn't make the quality mark and others were, I felt, overpriced. Our offering is a good well balanced view of what I believe to be an exciting 2014 vintage.
To summarise the wines offered are from Maison Roche de Bellene, Bertrand Ambroise, Domaine Daniel Rion, Domaine Jean- Jacques Girard, Michel Magnien, Gerard Thomas et Fils, Domaine Faiveley, Yves Boyer Martenot and Rossignol Trapet.
All prices quoted are In Bond. The wines are currently lying in Burgundy and will be shipped to the UK between March and November 2016 depending on when they become available. It is helpful when placing your order, if you could let us know if you want your wines kept In Bond or delivered on arrival. Please note, duty, VAT and delivery charges are payable when releasing wines from bond. Should you wish to find out more about En Primeur and holding wines In Bond see our Buying En Primeur Guide in our Fine Wine section.
As always, I am here to discuss and help. Please do give me a call I will be happy to talk you through the vintage and wines offered.
