The Glorious 2002 Red Burgundies

Two thousand two is a classical, beautifully balanced vintage with captivating sweet fruit, pliant texture and seductive charm. The wines are delivering on their early promise—and it’s always nice to be able to say that about a Burgundy vintage. If anything, the 2002s are evolving more slowly than I had originally predicted. Wines that I would have expected to be at their best 12 to 15 years after the vintage are in no danger of falling apart anytime soon; on the contrary, many of the better 2002s I tasted this fall were just embarking on their planes of peak drinkability and some still need to be held.

While a handful of 2002s are still dominated by surprisingly primary aromas of fresh fruits, flowers and spices, most are also beginning to reveal complex, alluring tertiary balsamic or underbrush scents. Even the most expressive wines seem more youthful on the palate, where they deliver very good flavor definition and energy and solid acid/tannin spine.

Musigny, Chambolle-Musigny

A Brief Recap of the 2002 Growing Season

Late November and December of 2001 were very cold, bringing the kind of hard frosts that are rarely seen in Burgundy these days, and certainly not during the last three winters. (A sustained very cold period in winter invigorates the vines by forcing the sap deep and helps to kill off the bugs in the soil.) The spring of 2002 was changeable but on the dry side. Warm weather in late May advanced the flowering a bit, but cool temperatures during the first third of June caused some coulure and millerandage in the early-flowering sites. Temperatures warmed up after June 10th and the majority of the flowering was quick and homogeneous, sometimes producing large, tight grapes that would benefit later on from crop-reduction techniques—and that could be prone to rot during humid periods.

I should point out that 2002 was a topsy-turvy weather year in Europe that was generally kind to Burgundy. Through much of the summer, for example, tourists in Scandinavia enjoyed unusually warm weather and sunshine, while a series of storms streamed across Spain, Southern France and Northern Italy through much of July, August and early September. Burgundy was consistently just to the north of the worst excesses of weather, with the dividing line typically running through the Mâconnais or Beaujolais.  

The summer of 2002 in Burgundy presented no extremes. Late June and July were on the cool side and changeable, with sporadic rainy spells that were generally constructive for the vines. There wasn’t much sun or heat in August but conditions were mostly dry until the end of the month, when there was substantial rainfall in the Côte de Beaune but significantly less in the northern half of the Côte de Nuits. Throughout the growing season, alternating dry and wet conditions and variable temperatures toughened the skins and made the grapes more resistant to rot and mildew. Still, where crop levels were full and the grape clusters were tight, signs of rot were visible by late August. And as the summer had not provided any sustained periods of warm, sunny weather, the ripening was still behind schedule at the end of August, and growers were mostly pessimistic. The weather in early September was also variable, and significant rain fell on September 9, although nothing like the near-biblical deluge that swamped the southern Rhône Valley.