The Inflection Point: Mâconnais 2020 & 2021 

BY NEAL MARTIN | AUGUST 23, 2022

After my all too brief trip to Mâconnais last year, this year, I wanted to spend more time tasting the delights of the region. I drove down from my home to Mâcon in late May, the perfect time to visit, with wall-to-wall sunshine the entire week and, thankfully, preceding the summer heatwave. The picture-postcard panorama of rolling hills punctured by its twin outcrops, the dramatic Roc de Solutré and Roc de Vergisson, is mesmerising, especially combined with the quaint villages and mouth-watering gastronomy. There is always a sense of tranquillity here as things move at a less frenetic pace than elsewhere. The virtue that I have come to most appreciate is its simplicity. It often reminds me of the Côte d’Or 20-years ago when it was unencumbered by corporations stalking for the next land acquisition, acrimonious family fallouts and the pursuit of money that erodes its artisan spirit. Here in the Mâconnais, as banal as it reads, winemakers just make wine.

I hoped that my presence would not be a curse. Last year’s trip coincided with devastating hailstorms that decimated entire vineyards around the ambit of Fuissé. Thankfully, the atmosphere was less volatile, and the 2022 growing season was going great guns; the first flowers dusted vineyards towards the end of the week under ideal conditions, though some winemakers were wary of flowering passing too rapidly. (In the end, flowering turned out to be more strung out than expected.) Naturally, the 2022 vintage is scheduled for assessment at a later date. This trip focused on the 2020s and 2021s, two very different seasons mirroring most French wine regions.

The famous, quite mesmerising Roc de Vergisson.

This moment is a defining point in the region’s history. The 2020 vintage marks the introduction of 22 INAO-approved Premier Crus in the appellation of Pouilly-Fuissé, equivalent to 194-hectares or 24% of vineyard acreage. As I have written several times before, Frédéric Burrier, proprietor of Château de Beauregard, is the driving force that overcame the bureaucracy and competing desires of winemakers and co-operatives. I must confess feeling satisfaction in being able to enter tasting notes with Premier Cru attached to their name. It is a just reward for the progress that has been made in recent years, addressing what was a glaring omission by authorities. Its impact upon markets remains to be seen, though most winemakers are positive, especially as it puts the region on parity with the likes of the Côte Chalonnaise. Premier Cru status should be bestowed on other appellations in the future, possibly Pouilly-Vinzelles will be next in line. We will see. I hope that it does not lose impetus now that the first round of promotions has been accomplished.  

My tastings were a mixture of domaine visits plus a very useful blind tasting organized by the BIVB (Bourgogne Wine Board). There are a handful of omissions because either previous reports have brought the most recent vintages up to date, or, in one or two occasions, due to scheduling conflicts.

The 2020 Growing Season

The 2020 growing season was the third warm season in a row; however after a warm April, May was an average 16.6°C, June a cool 18.9°C and July 22.9°C. It was only in August that summer began to simmer with 22.8°C average temperatures, some 3.4°C warmer than in 2021, underlying one of the major stylistic differences between the two seasons. It also meant there was far less mildew pressure with only localised outbreaks that touched the leaves in mid-June. September was a respectable 19.0°C that ensured ripeness and ideal perfect conditions for harvest. It was a relatively dry growing season. April to August all saw less rainfall than usual, just 39mm in July, less than a third witnessed the same month a year later, with 330 sunlight hours, around 30% higher than average. Thankfully, 86mm in June warded off too much hydric stress amongst the vines. There was fewer sunlight in August, 248 sunlight hours, which meant that it avoided the tropical traits that mark the 2018, and to a lesser degree, 2019 vintages.  Rain did interrupt some of the picking with 70mm of rainfall. Most of the pickers went out around 25 August, though as Olivier Merlin reminded me, picking date was crucial as Chardonnay can gain an entire degree of additional alcohol each day in such conditions.

The 2021 Growing Season

Like much of the country, the Mâconnais had a rather turbulent, cool growing season. An unseasonably warm February was misleading as temperatures struggled in the ensuing months: 10.3°C in April, 13.1°C in May, June was normal around 20.3°C but July cooler at 19.9°C and August cooler still at 19.4°C. Meanwhile, it was decidedly wet, with 144mm, 92mm and a torrential 150mm in May, June and July. Compare that figure to Beaune that received just under 82mm that month – we are looking at almost double the amount of rain. August brought some relief as it was dry with 36mm of rain, though September saw the taps turn on again with 83mm. The hail episode that struck the region was on 21 June, if I recall correctly, around 2:30pm. It was the first time I had witnessed the destructive force of hail. The other thing that I learned was how you can be in the midst of the maelstrom, whilst just a kilometer or two away, they can be completely untouched, as was the case in Pouilly-Fuissé. Though hail wrought destruction in some localised areas, several winemakers explained that they actually lost more due to frost earlier in the season.