2021 Beaune Village

David Croix is so relaxed that he could be horizontal when I meet up at his Beaune-based winery because a) he was far less affected by the devastating frost compared to others, and b) he produced some gems in 2021. “I have higher yields in 2021 than in 2020,” he tells me, to my surprise. “In Beaune, we suffered from drought in 2020, so yields were low, and then in 2021, a bit of luck and work in the vineyards allowed us to escape the frost. It’s almost a normal crop. We pruned late, which we have been doing since 2016, but we’ve never pruned very early anyway. For example, the Corton-Charlemagne was pruned 30 March. It’s not the solution to the frost, but it worked in 2021. The rest of the season was rainy and especially cold in April to September, 3° Celsius below normal, though insolation was actually not too bad, and even the rain was not way above average. There was more downy mildew pressure like in 2016, yet I made five times more in 2021 than that year.”

“We started picking on 22 September and finished on 29 September with a different profile of wine, back to something fresher with more red fruit. Sometimes the wines are pretty, but they can lack depth, so I did a longer maceration and worked the wines a little harder, a bit more punching down. I wasn’t crazy about the wines for the first ten months of ageing. They seemed a bit austere. But now that I’m tasting after the summer, I like them better in terms of balance and aromatics; they’re cohering. We still used stems between 20-30% for the cuvées. There is no Beaune Teurons this year as it was not the right level, so this was blended into the Beaune Village.”

If readers want to know why the Beaune appellation is so underrated and represents some of the best values in Burgundy, they should check out one of its best exponents. These are delicious and soulful wines that you should seek out and savour.