Further Inroads Into Burgundy 2020

BY NEAL MARTIN | MAY 26, 2022

“You’re attending Les Grands Jours?” a friend told me back in February, barely able to disguise his incredulity. “That’s a super-spreader event if ever there was one.”

As it turned out, he was spot on. It seemed that everyone who attended the biannual event contracted COVID. Fortunately, despite the often-crowded confined spaces I found myself in, I escaped unscathed, and those who fell ill soon recovered. It was a risk worth taking since Les Grands Jours is a perfect opportunity to meet new producers. As prices spiral to irrational heights, it is important to keep the radar switched on and discover winemakers on the foothills of their career, where the next generation is rejuvenating a name. The investment market takes a myopic view of Burgundy, focused on a small cluster of names, betraying the reality that year-on-year, more producers are dedicated towards higher quality wines. Naturally, you must kiss a few frogs before you find princesses, but standards continue to rise across Burgundy and under-performers are fewer in number than a decade ago.

I could not attend every day at Les Grands Jours and omitted Chablis and Mâconnais because this year I plan to visit those regions separately. I spent a profitable day tasting numerous wines from the Côte Chalonnais that will form another report, though abandoned the tasting at Clos de Vougeot because the reorganized format precluded any chance of conversing with winemakers. But other events were well-organized and offered a chance to expand my coverage of 2020s and add a host of new names to the Vinous database. Initially, this report focused only on under-the-radar producers; however, I added notes from individual visits to better-known names that were omitted in the December’s report such as Denis Bachelet and J-F Mugnier. I would not want readers to assume that Frédéric Mugnier is an up-and-coming producer!

I took this before the hordes arrived at the Vosne-Romanée tasting in Clos de Vougeot.

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