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.

The tasting gives the lucky participants a unique perspective on a vintage; the ability to taste 1ers and Grands Crus from the top producers, both established and up and coming, from right across the Cote d’Or and Chablis, is a privilege not lost on the tasters – tasting 4 Montrachets or a flight of 8 Chevaliers Montrachets side by side is certainly not a responsibility taken lightly. The wines are tasted in flights grouped by village and then by single vineyard (if enough samples to form a flight will allow) or failing that are grouped by style / location of vineyard – eg high slope Chassagnes.   However, thereafter the identities of the wines and producers are not known. Tastings are in the mornings only, to avoid palate fatigue, to allow group discussion and also to give tasters time to formulate as accurate and reasoned a view, wine by wine, as possible.  

The Hameau de Barboron was the perfect setting for two Burgundy marathons. 2016 White Burgfest and 2016 Red Burgfest proved to be an unexpectedly comprehensive pair of tastings.

The White tasting held in May, the red at the beginning of this month. A total of 218 white and 259 red samples were mustered, a show of great faith and generosity from growers given the tiny yields of this frost-ravaged vintage. A group of 12 wine merchants and journalists gathered to taste blind over 4 mornings each for the red and white wine marathons.  At white Burgfest there were 38 blind flights, at red Burgfest 43 blind flights, each organised by village and, where possible, vineyard.  The rabble, herded patiently by Jasper Morris, included myself, William Kelley (for the white tasting only) Jason Haynes (Flint), Catherine Petrie (Comte Armand), Matthew Hemming (Vinum), Adam Bruntlett (BBR) Toby Morhall (The Wine Society), Christopher Moestue (Moestue grape selections), Neil Beckett (World of Fine Wine), Luis Gutierrez who made a cameo appearance in the absence of Neal Martin for white Burgfest, and a well recovered Neal Martin himself who returned for the reds this month. A full, collective report of the Burgfest tastings will be published in the World of Fine Wine towards the end of this year. In the meantime find herewith my own personal thoughts: 

Last week Burgundy-specialist merchants and journalists gathered to taste 29 White Burgundies from the 2010 vintage, an experience that was impressive and, dare I say, surprising. The element that was most encouraging being the absence of premoxed wines. 

Almost all were in good condition, except a slightly tired, bruised-fruit Pernot Belicard Puligny that may have just been a bad bottle and a Terre de Velle Puligny that was just about holding on. The regional wines, at the lowest end of the quality pyramid, were tiring a little but nothing more than you would have expected and still showed rather well considering.  Certain wines displayed  more unctuosity alcohol and exotic fruit, recalling the botrytis that affected some of the crop, these were fine and still very much alive now but did not necessarily offer excitement or suggest further ageing potential. 

The prospect of four mornings spent blind tasting some of the finest reds in the Cote d’Or would be a mouth-watering one to any Burgundy lover... 

...though the reality of tasting 244 embryonic red burgundies from one of the most tannic and deeply coloured vintages on record was a more sobering thought - the daunting idea of trying to retain an unflinching concentration to give each wine its fair chance whilst endless batteries of between four to nine wine flights come in, wave after to wave, to assault the senses. Fuelled by enough restorative baskets of bread and gallons of water, I would just about make it to the end, palate intact, I thought to myself.  And yet….  The 2015 confounded this and many other tasters in the room.  I was surprised by the openness, joy and energy I found in the wines, tasting them was a sheer pleasure from start to finish.  Make no mistake, this is a powerful and concentrated vintage, but one with a sense of balance.  Only a few wines displayed alcohols that were out of kilter. Equally some wines from some producers will always have harsh tannins, but for the most part I found the wines had nice contours  - tannins were fine-grained, even seamless in some cases.  Acidities were not obvious but you could sense the role they played in supporting the wines’ big structures. This is without doubt a vintage “de garde” but a classy one.

At the end of May the Burgfest team, an 11-strong group comprising a mix of burgundy specialist journalists and merchants, gathered at the tranquil Hameau de Barboron in the forest above Savigny-Les-Beaune to taste the great white crus of Burgundy from the 2015 vintage.  

We braved our wild boar-infested surroundings and knuckled down to taste 235 white burgundies blind over four mornings. The wines were organised in flights by village and then by vineyard or vineyard style, ranging from four to nine wines each.  The line-up was pretty mouth-watering:  tranches of Grand Cru Chablis, Meursault Perrieres, Chassagne Caillerets and Puligny Folatieres were just a few courses on a very appetising menu that was to culminate with nine Chevalier Montrachets and four Montrachets at the end of the last morning.  This was an unparalleled and unmissable opportunity to taste the great whites of Burgundy side by side, and what a thrill it ended up being.  Herewith my own personal thoughts on the wines.