2008 and 2007 Red Burgundies

Two thousand eight, like 2007 before it, produced a crop of red wines that utterly resist generalization. Neither vintage can be described as better than very good overall, but both produced a host of outstanding wines. There’s a purity of pinot fruit and a fleshy succulence to the best 2007s that are mesmerizing. And the most successful 2008s are sharply delineated, classic Burgundies with the complex fruit, mineral, floral and soil perfume and the inner-palate energy that other pinot-producing regions can only dream about–if the wines were made with intelligence from sufficiently ripe and clean raw materials. Clearly, both vintages must be bought carefully, especially at today’s prices, which are often out of whack with the reality of worldwide deflation. On the other hand, many of these wines will end up being dumped in the marketplace at steep discounts in the months ahead, so there will be ample buying opportunities for Burgundy lovers who can still afford to buy the expensive stuff.

It is critical to note that my comments on both 2008 and 2007 are based on the producers I routinely visit and taste. It’s probably safe to say that virtually every member of this group ranks within the top 25% of Burgundy’s quality hierarchy, and most number among the top 10%. If you buy Burgundy from lesser growers, or from mediocre négociants, your odds of getting your money’s worth from either 2007 or 2008 will plummet. But then that’s why you’re reading this publication.

The 2008 growing season. Yet again, the north wind of September saved the 2008 harvest, as it had done in previous years like 2007, 2004, 2002 and 2001. But 2008 may have been the biggest miracle of all, as the vintage looked like a disaster as late as September 13.

A more or less normal winter was followed by a wet and fairly miserable April. The weather then turned very warm in early May, and the flowering began early, in the middle of the month, but was extended by a return to cooler, overcast weather. Widespread millerandage (uneven berry size and development within the same cluster) set the stage for a reduced crop, although some growers noted that the further north you went, the less stretched out and irregular the flowering was.

The summer was then a mostly glum affair for the grapes, with little in the way of sustained warm, dry weather and a lot of rain, especially in August. Outbreaks of oidium and mildew required vigilance on the part of growers. The ripening proceeded at a glacial pace and although the veraison began in mid-August, in some vineyards the pinot noir grapes were still green at the beginning of September, with sugar levels often a pitiful 8% or 9%. Rot pressures were building.

The rainy spells continued with heavy downpours on September 12 and 13. But after that the weather changed dramatically, and the drying north wind blew pretty much constantly for the next three weeks. The weather remained cool and there was little rain until the first week of October. I was lucky enough to have arrived in Alsace on Monday morning, the 15th, and I enjoyed spectacular weather through my ten days of tasting there (two years earlier, the identical period had been humid, rainy and fairly miserable).

Grape sugars began to climb after the 13th, and many growers reported that, in any event, phenolic ripeness was ahead of sugar ripeness in ’08. Many admitted that their ultimately sound levels of potential alcohol were more an effect of dehydration of the grapes (loss of water due to the drying wind) than a function of true ripening, as the period of clement weather leading up to the harvest was generally just two or three weeks. But well-placed vines carrying low crop levels could ripen well.