The 2015 Red Burgundies: You Are So Going To Want Them

BY STEPHEN TANZER | JANUARY 26, 2017

In spite of early reports about skyrocketing grape sugars owing to the hot, dry summer and small grapes of 2015, my extensive tastings of this vintage from barrel and tank during late autumn made it clear that this will be one of the half-dozen top vintages for red Burgundy of the past generation. The vintage’s standout wines—and there are a lot of them in 2015—offer a rare combination of succulent deep fruit, mouthfilling density of texture, ripe fine-grained tannins, and enough energy to ensure at least mid-term ageability. In terms of their consistent quality and broad appeal, 2015 will be a difficult vintage to top.

I spent more time tasting the new crop of red Burgundies this time around than ever before: two weeks in November and two considerably colder weeks in December. As the purpose of my visits was to sample the excellent 2014s from bottle in addition to the ‘15s, my four weeks in the region were pretty close to paradise for a long-time Burgundy lover.

What a difference a day makes, a view of Clos de la Roche and Monts-Luisants on December 6...

The Growing Season and Harvest of 2015

Two thousand fifteen was a dry and very warm growing season, close enough to ideal that numerous growers told me they would happily sign up for the same low-stress conditions every year. (Hard-core weather fans may wish to refer to my earlier report on the 2015 white Burgundies for a more detailed look at the climatic conditions of 2015.) Following a fairly mild winter, the months of March through August were warmer than average, with all of those months except August seeing more sunshine hours and less rainfall than usual. June and especially July were the most atypically warm, and there was an extended and extreme heat spike during the last few days of June and the first week of July, with peak afternoon temperatures in the vineyards on some of those days approaching 100 degrees F. Precipitation totals were well below average in March, May and June and next to nothing in July.

Some vineyards, especially those on shallow, quick-draining soils or planted to young vines, suffered to varying degrees from hydric stress and a blockage of maturity in late June and July, but well-timed rain events in August restarted the physiological ripening process.

Although budbreak occurred at the normal time during the first half of April, the warm conditions in April and May led to an early, quick and regular flowering that began at the end of May and mostly finished during the first week of June. But the heat during the flowering resulted in millerandage (shatter) and even some coulure (shot berries), which reduced the ultimate size of the crop. A heavy rainstorm in mid-June provided crucial water reserves to the soil. Although neither rot nor insect pests were problems in this dry year, oidium (powdery mildew) attacked many areas from late May into early July, and well-timed spraying with sulfur- or copper-based fungicides was critical. These treatments often had the effect of toughening the grape skins, and of course the hot sunshine and drought conditions of July further exacerbated this tendency. The thick grape skins go a long way toward explaining why there were no serious rot pressures following the rains of August and even during at least the first several days of rain in mid-September.

Grape sugars continued to rise while acidity levels remained healthy. A short but sharp heat wave during the last days of August had the effect of bumping up potential alcohol levels in the grapes (and, according to a few growers, increasing acidity too) via evaporation of water. The heat broke on the night of August 31/September 1, fortunately with only moderate rainfall (in contrast to conditions in Chablis, which was struck by a severe hailstorm), and sugar accretion and acid loss slowed down. The Pinot Noir harvest took place almost entirely under moderate temperatures during the first three weeks of September, although picking conditions were far better during the first 11 days of September than they were thereafter. The earliest harvesters began on the 2nd or 3rd while others, particularly in the northern Côte de Nuits, started a week or more later—a small number of estate not beginning until a day or two after heavy rainfall on Saturday and Sunday, September 12 and 13. The 14th and 15th witnessed light precipitation but the 16th and especially the 17th brought additional heavy rainfall. At this point, most growers rushed to bring in any remaining fruit.