The 2014 Red Burgundies: Delicious Terroir-Driven Midweights

BY STEPHEN TANZER | MARCH 16, 2017

During my nearly 100 cellar visits to taste red Burgundies in November and December, a number of growers opted to show me their finished 2014s before presenting their young 2015s—even though this goes against the common practice of showing barrel samples first. They were concerned that the ‘14s might appear tight or ungenerous following the plusher, sweeter ‘15s. They need not have worried: this is a lovely classic midweight vintage with real éclat—the sixth or seventh best of the past 25 years according to the Vinous vintage chart, and probably even better than that for Burgundy purists who gravitate toward wines with clear site character.

Late fall in the vineyards of the Côte de Nuits

The 2014 Growing Season

The following paragraphs are a slightly truncated version of my original summary of the 2014 growing season for Pinot Noir on the Côte d’Or:

Following an unusually warm, dry winter, the flowering in 2014 was very early and mostly successful, beginning in late May, with even the latest-flowering Pinot vines finishing by around June 12. But after the favorable start came a widely destructive hailstorm on June 28, which was most damaging on the Côte de Beaune (especially in Beaune, Pommard and Volnay) but also had an impact as far north as Vosne-Romanée and Chambolle-Musigny.

Following the hailstorm, July and most of August brought mediocre weather, including recurrent rain and significantly fewer sunshine hours than average, so that the ripening process slowed dramatically. Some growers who thinned their vines after the hail to ward off rot from the continuing showers saw their fruit affected by a sharp heat spike in mid-July. While most of the hail-affected grapes fell off the vines in the weeks after the storm, damage to the leaves delayed ripening in many parts of the Côte de Beaune.

This year many vineyards—as well as other fruit trees, particularly cherries—were affected by an outbreak of Drosophila suzukii (vinegar flies, which are associated with acid rot in the grapes). Where red grape skins were not sufficiently thick, the flies were able to penetrate the berries to lay their larvae, and acetic acid was often the result. The most conscientious growers went into their vineyards in late August or early September to eliminate damaged fruit, with most of them maintaining that problematic areas were easy to find as the afflicted vineyards smelled strongly of vinegar.

Frédéric Magnien is experimenting with earthenware jars in search of more fruit, complexity and site specificity