Vintage Reviews

Freshly returned from the first of our two annual tours around Piedmont to assess the 2019 Barolo and Barbaresco vintages, we decided to make a concerted effort to also taste an array of 2013s at ten years old.

Unlike the Donald Fagen song, I found myself on very much the same wavelength as these 19s. This was the best Southwold tasting I’ve been involved with, even trumping the outstanding 2009s and 2016s.

A September check-in on the 2018 red Burgundies proved a fascinating, and at times, thrilling five days of tasting. I had not tasted the vintage so extensively since the Autumn of 2019 and so I was delighted to find as many good wines as I did then, from barrel; if anything I came away even more enthused than my initial impressions allowed me.

The burgfest team convened earlier in the summer to assess the 2018 White Burgundy vintage in bottle. Burgfest is a crack team of 10 Burgundy specialists, a mixture of wine merchant buyers and journalists, gathered in the peaceful setting of the wonderful Hameau de Barboron just outside of Savigny Les Beaune.

All in the name of progress – Calon Segur vertical. A providentially timed email resulted in an invitation we couldn’t refuse – a vertical tasting with Vincent Millet, followed by lunch in the recently refurbished chateau.

The 2022 Rieslings have surprised everybody. Animated and open, acidity levels sit between 2019 and 2020 – these are not flabby wines, nor are they diluted.