2022 Corton-Charlemagne Grand Cru

“The 2023 vintage is the largest since I started in 2005,” David Croix tells me. “The first in which I produced the volume I’m legally allowed. The average is 50 hl/ha, so I am not at a level where it is being distilled. Once in a while, that feels good. The wines have an ease to them, especially on the clayey soils or at the bottom of the hill, but they’re not just pretty wines, something that I have realized during barrel maturation. The crazy heat wave at harvest impacted the style of the wines as the sugar levels went up quickly. It was extreme, in a sense. We picked beginning on September 4 with one parcel, the main heart of the picking occurring between September 6-13. At 10 a.m., it was already 27°C. We only picked before midday, and we gained two degrees in alcohol during the week of picking. We had done some green harvesting, but I know people that did that, and the vines then compensated, so yields still ended up high. It was another year where I struggled with native yeasts and getting the sugars to start fermenting. Having higher pH makes things complicated. There were three cuvées where I could not get the fermentation going, so I am using a more scientific method of harnessing the yeasts in the vineyard, like a pied de cuve, so that the fermentation is ready to go. I think 2023 is a bit like 2017 but the heatwave imparts more concentration and extract. The wines have really been changing but, at the moment, I only see two cuvées that might need a longer barrel maturation.”

I am certain the Beaune appellation would enjoy a much higher status if more producers made wines of the level David Croix regularly achieves. Alas, they don’t, but that does not preclude legions of Burgundy lovers from purchasing Croix’s wines, which sell for far more reasonable prices than many of his peers. My visit is always a frank exchange of views, around half of it off the record! In the exchanges that I can publish, we began by discussing the 2022 season.

“I like to look at the sunshine, heat and rain from April to December,” Croix tells me. “If you look, there were a lot of insolation hours, so we got an entire month of July on top of the average. That’s a lot of extra sunshine, and this gives lots of phenols and the wines’ dark color. In terms of rain, we are a little below average. But June saw 175mm, and that made a big difference to how the vines behaved. That means you did not have as much hydric stress as in 2020. Also, the yields are larger, and that enhances their transparency and elegance. I made almost a normal crop in 2021, so I’m only 10% up in 2022. There’s never just one element.”

“For me, the 2022s tend to be a little serious. I picked from September 1 to 8 at 41hL/ha. I’m not going to pick early just to have 12.5% alcohol, and there are two wines above 14% alcohol from the first two vineyards that I picked. There was a little shriveling of grapes but not much, and I made a Rosé from the fruit that I sorted out that I gave to friends. I have more in 2023. I try to extract the potential in the fruit and the skins, so I do punch downs, etc., and I’m not so much into infusion. Punching down to me is not an insult.

Croix was one of the most impressive winemakers in the challenging 2021 season, and he repeated that success in 2022. The heart of the portfolio is his exemplary range of Beaune Premier Crus, not least outstanding in Pertuisots and Tuvilains that rank alongside his Corton Grand Crus. There are a couple of cuvées where I would have moderated the percentage of whole bunches, which Croix forced into higher levels due to the small quantities to fill the single barrel. As a winemaker who does not subscribe to the vogue for “infusion,” Croix macerates as minimally as possible, resulting in wines with ample body while retaining a sense of elegance and classicism.