2019 Echézeaux Grand Cru

I have followed the progress of Australian and former Yarra Yering winemaker Mark Haisma since the early days of his Burgundy adventure. As an outsider, it has not been an easy ride, but certainly since he has nested in his newly built winery next to the fromagerie in Gilly, there is a sense of a permanency that was much needed. Like other who rely on varying degrees on contracted fruit, there is a bit of shuffling of the pack in terms of cuvées offered, to the frustration of Haisma himself. “For me the most significant one is the security of sourcing fruit,” he wrote in a recent message to subscribers. “For Gevrey Chambertin I do not need to rely on the whims of the grower, which can change from one day to the next.” Haisma also purchased a parcel en friche in north Mâconnais and now that he has cleared the boulders and planted vines, I look forward to tasting that in three or four year’s time.

Back to the 2019s and during a joint antipodean tasting with Jane Eyre, Haisma told me: “Everything is aged in around 10-20% new oak as I need new barrels to have good old wood. I started picking on 25 August with Fremiet and finished the second week of September. All my wines are around 13.5° in alcohol. One change is that I am moving from stainless steel into wood fermenters.” Asking his opinion on the vintage he did not beat about the bush. “The 2019 [vintage] leaves 2018 for dust. There is much more precision, focus and energy. The 2018 does not have as good acidity as 2019 on the reds.”

There is a lot of discussion about some Burgundy winemakers wanting to break away from the system of distributing their wines through agents and importers to sell directly to consumers. Part of the reason is that some middlemen are making a tidy profit by flipping their allocations, most often to the Far East, instead of selling those wines to the markets where they are intended to go. Well, Burgundy winemakers should study Mark Haisma since that is his business model. Perhaps they will understand the work involved, the importance of communication, the need to get out of your winery and promote your wines to consumers, face-to-face if possible. Haisma has been successful because over the long-term he has built a loyal fan base that buy his wines year-on-year and also, most important of all, the wines are bloody good. In fact, his 2019s are perhaps the best that I have encountered, the case of a very talented and dedicated winemaker eking the maximum potential from vineyards that in other hands might be ordinary.