Burgundy 2023 en primeur: Full vintage report & top-scoring wines

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Burgundy 2023 en primeur vintage rating and overview:

Whites: 4/5

Charming wines, but hot temperatures can sometimes mean low acidity and high alcohol

Reds: 4/5

Lovely fruit, rich texture, but less potential for ageing than 2022

In the opinion of Frédéric Lafarge of Domaine Michel Lafarge, ‘2022 was a great vintage to lay down; 2023 was a vintage of great charm.’

If all’s well that ends well, the 2023 vintage in Burgundy can be considered a great success. The vintage wasn’t without its challenges, however, and thus quality is more uneven than in 2022.

The biggest trap to avoid was producing too much. ‘The key was not to fall into excess,’ says négociant Benjamin Leroux. ‘It was essential to work well in the vines in order to control the yield. The quality is lovely – the whites are great if you picked in time; for the reds, it’s a question of yield and of sorting.’

He continues: ‘There is a lot of wine, even potentially more than in 2018. It was absolutely obligatory to green harvest [remove a proportion of bunches before they begin to ripen]. In certain places, we had to drop half of the crop.’

Scroll down to see tasting notes and scores for Charles Curtis MW’s Burgundy 2023 selection

Style and quality

Overall quality was good, even very good; on rare occasions, it was truly superb. The style of the wines generally is very ripe. They should be approachable early, but often lack the structure for long ageing. Among the reasons is that the weather wasn’t homogeneous throughout Burgundy.

‘We had almost twice as much rain in the Côte de Nuits [compared to the Côte de Beaune]: in August there was 100mm in Vosne and only 60mm in Pommard,’ says Yves Confuron, who farms his family estate Confuron-Cotetidot in Vosne-Romanée and manages Domaine de Courcel in Pommard.

Local issues also created regional differences, including isolated hailstorms in Nuits-St-Georges, Meursault, Mercurey and the Mâconnais.

There are both similarities and differences between 2023 and other recent vintages. 2023 is in the line of sunny, hot vintages such as 2022, 2020, 2019 and 2018 due to the heatwave at the end of the season. Overall, 2023 was the warmest year on record.

Paradoxically, however, in Burgundy it was less sunny than usual, and cooler than the norm during July and the first half of August. Nicolas Rossignol at Domaine Rossignol-Trapet in Gevrey says: ‘2023 was not a hot year; it was a cold year that finished hot’.

There was also more rain in 2023 than there is in a typical hot year, giving the wines a lush, drinkable style. In short, 2023 seems to offer the approachability of 2017 with some of the concentration of 2022.

The race to ripeness

January was warmer than the average, with weather that was dry but not sunny. February and March were also slightly warmer than the norm, although heat at this point does not help ripen the grapes.

March and April saw clouds and rain, yet budbreak began at the beginning of April, just a few days behind schedule. Rain continued after budbreak, making it difficult for growers to work in the vineyard.

The rain slowed in late April and temperatures began to pick up in May. Flowering began from 27 May and proceeded rapidly and thoroughly, setting a large crop of grapes on the vines.

June was mostly sunny and warm, but temperatures began dropping in July, which remained overcast and cool. July and the first half of August were punctuated by periods of rain, with sporadic hail, notably in Meursault and in the Mâconnais.

During this period, the grapes ripened with difficulty. ‘In July, the grapes were green and hard, and we were wondering if we were ever going to see veraison,’ says Bertrand de Villaine of Domaine de la Romanée-Conti.

Then the sun arrived. Robin Rapet at Domaine Vincent Rapet describes scorching heat at the end of the season – 35°C in Pernand on 24 August, and similar temperatures continued throughout the harvest, dropping to a still sultry 20°C during the night.

This heat caused sugar levels to jump and acidity to drop precipitously. Grapes went abruptly from not quite ripe to the verge of overripe, with high alcohol and not enough acidity. The speed of ripening in this window meant that the harvest date was very important.

Picking and sorting

Picking began as early as the end of August for some producers, although many waited until the first or even the second week of September and the late pickers were still bringing in grapes in the last week of September.

In the end, nature delivered exactly what was required. If there had not been a heatwave, the large crop would not have ripened properly. Conversely, if there had been the same level of heat with a smaller crop, it would have been overly concentrated and overripe.

However, even with the relative balance of 2023, there were many reports of wines with over 14.5% alcohol. Estates aiming for top quality needed to sort for sunburn, shrivelled grapes and mildew.

Frédéric Weber of Bouchard Père et Fils says they lost 10%-12% of the crop on the sorting table after having done extensive green harvesting in July.

Charles Curtis’ wines of the vintage

Red: Domaine Armand Rousseau Chambertin-Clos de Bèze Grand Cru 99pts

White: Bouchard Père et Fils Montrachet Grand Cru 98pts

Decanter vintage ratings: Côte d’Or

2023: Whites 4/5 Reds 4.5/5

2022: Whites 4/5 Reds 4.5/5

2021: Whites 4/5 Reds 3.5/5

2020: Whites 4.5/5 Reds 4/5

2019: Whites 4/5 Reds 5/5

Concluding thoughts

In the final analysis, 2023 is a very good vintage. Once maturation is complete, top wines will merit a splurge. Even the most enthusiastic, however, must concede that 2023 misses top marks because of difficulties linked to high crop load and low acidity.

The vintage must be considered at least a slight step down from 2022, if only because the results are less homogeneous. Commercially, the vintage will be welcomed by growers because the bountiful yields will fill their cellars; and by consumers who might have access to the wines they desire, perhaps even at prices that will not soar anew.

Given the difficulties we will all face with the 2024 vintage, this should be welcome news indeed.

Around the appellations

Côte de Nuits

There was potential for excellent quality in the Côte de Nuits, though there were several pitfalls that growers had to avoid.

Village- and premier cru-level appellations in the Côte de Nuits produced 37.3% more than the five-year average, according to the BIVB regional wine board, while the grands crus were up 33.1%.

The quality of Pinot Noir at harvest declines rapidly with over-production, and limiting the crop was vital.

The Côte de Nuits had more rain than the rest of Burgundy. This increased the potential for rot. The vineyards also suffered sunburn and raisining during the harvest heatwave that necessitated careful sorting, with top estates generally reporting losses of 10%-15% on the sorting table.

Best producers:

• Domaine Armand Rousseau
• Domaine Dugat-Py
• Domaine Trapet
• Domaine Ponsot
• Domaine des Lambrays
• Domaine Jacques-Frédéric Mugnier
• Domaine Georges de Vogüé
• Domaine de la Romanée-Conti
• Domaine du Comte Liger-Belair
• Domaine Georges Mugneret-Gibourg

Côte de Beaune

The Côte de Beaune faced some of the same perils as the Côte de Nuits, but rainfall was lower. Chardonnay, thicker-skinned than Pinot, is less susceptible to rot and can sustain higher yields.

However, rapidly declining acidity during the harvest heatwave was a constant concern, and choosing the right day to begin harvesting was paramount.

Growers on the hill of Corton tended to pick earlier than their colleagues in the Côte de Nuits, reflecting the difference in rainfall here.

Claude de Nicolay of Corton’s Domaine Chandon de Briailles notes that the last of the Pinot to be brought in suffered a bit of shrivelling from the sun, and that the acidity ‘was not enormous’. Because of the relatively low acidity, the level of volatile acidity began to rise, so the wines were sulfured earlier.

Nearly all of the négociant houses in Beaune began to pick their 2023 crop during the first week of September.

Frédéric Weber of Bouchard Père et Fils in Beaune says: ‘It proved very difficult to get the right rhythm for picking. It was necessary to sort rigorously, but it was also important to pick quickly. We had a team of 200, but we had to be everywhere at the same time’

Best producers:

• Domaine des Comtes Lafon
• Domaine Michel Lafarge
• Domaine de Courcel
• Domaine Niellon
• Domaine Lamy-Caillat
• Domaine Pierre-Yves Colin-Morey
• Domaine Paul Pillot
• Domaine Jean-Claude Bachelet
• Domaine Michel Mallard
• Domaine Bouchard Père et Fils

Côte Chalonnaise

The Côte Chalonnaise was generally drier than the Côte d’Or. After a dry winter and an ideal flowering, however, the rain set in for the Côte Chalonnaise in July.

The storms in July produced 110mm of rain throughout the month and, as elsewhere in Burgundy, there was pressure from mildew.

The ripening was drawn out. Picking began on 7 September and continued with the Pinot in Givry and Montagny, wrapping up at the end of the month in Mercurey.

The effects of the rain were more pronounced in the south than in the north and differences in rainfall meant varying levels of ripeness, yet there was an average of 13.5-14% potential alcohol without chaptalisation.

Best producers:

• Clos de Cellier aux Moines
• Domaine du Meix Foulot
• Domaine Belleville
• Maison Chanzy
• Domaine Génot-Boulanger

Mâconnais

Yields in the Mâconnais were more moderate than elsewhere. BIVB statistics show that the white wine villages of the Mâconnais produced 19.1% more than the five-year average; for the Côte de Beaune the figure was 26.3%.

The swings in weather conditions, however, were often more extreme here. After a mild, dry early season, the Mâconnais had much more rain in June than elsewhere. July continued to storm, and three days of hailstorms (9, 11, and 15 July) ended with some tornados.

Damage was highly localised, but the French website Vitisphere noted 20-40% crop losses in the northern Mâconnais.

In the Mâcon-Villages region in the north, the harvest heatwave was also more pronounced than elsewhere, with temperatures that locally exceeded 40°C, causing the vines to shut down and blocking maturation.

Best producers:

• Maison Verget & Domaine Guffens-Heynen
• Domaine de la Soufrandière & Bret Bros
• Domaine du Roc des Boutires
• Clos des Vignes du Maynes
• Domaine Frantz Chagnoleau

COMING SOON

Score table listing Charles Curtis MW’s top Burgundy 2023 wines all scoring 94 points or above

Further analysis and top-scoring wines of the following areas:

Morey-St-Denis | Meursault | Chambolle-Musigny | Gevrey-Chambertin | Pommard and Volnay | Vosne-Romanée & Nuits-St-Georges | Chassagne & Puligny-Montrachet | Best value

A taste of the top Burgundy 2023 wines

Wines were tasted non-blind. Wines are listed in order of white then red, then by scores, and then alphabetically by producer. The 2023s are bottled from January 2025, 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 2023 Burgundy vintage.

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