Burgundy 2022 en primeur: Full report plus top-scoring wines

The 2022 growing season from April to September saw near-record heat and sunshine for the Burgundy region, but well-timed rains helped to deliver grapes that exhibited few characteristics of a hot summer. The fruit was healthy and ripe, with often lower alcohol levels than in 2020 – also a year of significant heat along with drought across Burgundy – and just slightly lower acidity. In the context of what Jeremy Seysses of Domaine Dujac calls ‘the new normal’, such a result in 2022 must be called an encouraging success.

Scroll down to see tasting notes and scores for Charles Curtis MW’s Burgundy 2022 selection

Style & quality

The red wines from 2022 are deeply coloured, with a lush fruit expression, full body, well- developed but velvety tannins and abundant extract. The whites have a lush fruit character spanning ripe apple, peach and apricot and relatively soft acidity, suggesting these wines are primarily for early drinking. To achieve proper balance, some winemakers had to acidify.

In both reds and whites, it is the acid balance that holds 2022 Burgundy back from the very highest level, but the wines will be accessible and early- drinking, and the reds should age well.

Côte Chalonnaise

The climate dynamic in the Côte Chalonnaise differs from that of the Côte d’Or in that there are no cooling winds from the Hautes-Côtes streaming into the valleys that break up the slope, since the limestone outcroppings here are more irregular. The region is generally hotter and drier than the Côte d’Or further north, and this proved to be the case in 2022. Overall, the whites (Aligoté from Bouzeron and Chardonnay from Montagny) are lush and rich, with soft acidity, making them an early-drinking vintage; reds from Mercurey were concentrated and tannic, while those of Givry were often silkier and more approachable.

Mâconnais

The 2022 vintage in the Mâconnais was, if anything, even hotter and drier than the Côte d’Or. Winemaker Florent Rouve of Vins Rijckaert notes that excessively hot and dry conditions caused vines to shut down in August, which helped keep alcohol levels in check. Data from the BIVB regional wine board corroborates this, showing slightly lower sugar levels than in the Côte d’Or and marginally higher levels of malic and total acidity. Julien Desplans of Maison Verget and Domaine Guffens-Heynen ventures that ‘2022 risks being a very charming year’.

Clos des Lambrays is one of the five grand cru vineyards within the Morey-St-Denis appellation. Credit: Ian Shaw / Alamy Stock Photo

COMING SOON

The score table listing Charles’ top Burgundy 2022 wines all scoring 94 points or above

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A taste of the top Burgundy 2022 wines

Wines were tasted non-blind. Wines are listed in order of white then red, then by scores, and then alphabetically by producer. The 2022s are bottled from January 2024, hence prices, stockists and alcohols are not yet finalised. Contact specialist merchant for allocations or to enquire about en primeur tastings. The following 40 wines were Charles Curtis MW’s selection for particularly notable quality and value among the 650 wines he scored from the 2022 Burgundy vintage.