Over the past year, The World of Fine Wine has published hundreds of our writers’ notes and scores on the wines of Burgundy. Here we pick out some of the most notable and admired bottles that appeared in print and online in 2024.
Clos des Lambrays 1923–2023: Lengths and breadths of time and all-time highs
An awe-inspiring, century-spanning tasting at the domaine made a compelling case for Clos des Lambrays as one of the five top grands crus of the Côte d’Or, said Neil Beckett.
“Burgundy is history. No French wine region is more steeped in it. But even there—in the dukedom that, for much of the later Middle Ages, was well in advance of the kingdom of France, as the land of Bernard of Clairvaux and Cîteaux, of Philip the Bold and Philip the Good, Claus Sluter and Rogier van der Weyden, the Hospices de Beaune and de Nuits—perhaps no domaine, no vineyard has a longer and stronger historical thread running through it, for more than seven and a half centuries, than Clos des Lambrays. The thread may occasionally have worn thin, and for long periods disappeared entirely into the fading Burgundian tapestry, which has itself changed, often dramatically, over that time. But all those changes merely serve to highlight the constancy of the essential features of this very special climat as expressed through its wines: its clear identity, its complete integrity, its extraordinary longevity, and its exhilarating quality.
“At a Century of Clos des Lambrays dinner held on November 16, 2023, at the domaine, its current custodian and translator, régisseur Jacques Devauges, expressed, with characteristic humility and sincerity, his conviction that Clos des Lambrays is one of the five or six most outstanding grands crus in the Côte d’Or. (The others, north to south, are Chambertin-Clos de Bèze, Musigny, La Romanée, Romanée-Conti, and La Tâche.) The wines he shared (13, including a barrel sample of the 2023), from five decades within a 100-year span, from 1923 to 2022/23, made his claim completely convincing to me and, I imagine, to many or most of the other ten guests (one private collector, as well as members of the press and trade, including representatives of US and UK agents Vineyard Brands and Flint Wines).”
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1934 Clos des Lambrays Grand Cru
Rodier era (régisseur Etienne Amiot). Considered an excellent vintage. Sunny and dry summer. Very hot, nearly at heatwave levels. Some rainfall in early September. Harvest: September 22. Abundant crop.
Astonishing clarity and intensity to the mid-ruby hue. Jacques admitted to finding this a little reticent on first sniff, but it continued to get fresher and fresher the longer it had in the glass. A fabulously ripe, sweet bouquet, with an almost vanilla-like richness and the cherry character that Thierry Brouin identified as a fruity hallmark, but here the cherries are in a clafoutis. Yet while that might give the impression of sumptuous weight, this is the most aérien, the most ethereal of all the perfumes so far. Similarly Musigny-like elegance, finesse, grace, and refinement but also Romanée-like richness and scale on the palate, with even greater harmony and formal perfection than the 1937, at once the finest, freshest, and grandest of the ’30s trio. As fellow guest Paolo Pong marveled, this vintage could be drunk with equal enjoyment at the 100-year mark in 2034. Spellbinding wine. | 99
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1926 Clos des Lambrays Grand Cru
Rodier era (régisseur Etienne Amiot). Considered an acceptable vintage. A cold June, which hindered flowering and resulted in coulure, followed by a hot, dry growing season. Harvest: September 29. Low yields.
Still a beautifully clear mid-ruby, deeper in hue than the 1938, with an even gradation. A sublime old-rose scent, the antiquity applying far more to the breed of rose than the perfume rising from this, which is still so fine, focused, and fragrant, with sweet-herb freshness and mint-toffee sweetness, but also a carnal, sensual undertow; the “bed of crimson joy” in William Blake’s “The Sick Rose,” before it was found out by the worm. Fine-spun density and close-knit harmony on the palate, the integrity and intricacy intact, with astonishing freshness on the gracefully spiraling finish, without any shrillness. A little less richness and weight than the ’37 or the ’34, perhaps, but equally mesmerizing in its elegance and finesse. Collector Joe Tsai said he found the wine as exciting as La Tâche from the same period—not a comparison I am able to make, but I find it hard to imagine a wine from any period being more exciting than this. | 99
2020 burgundy: The rewards of a challenging season
In WFW86, Jasper Morris MW introduced a comprehensive blind tasting, shared with Neil Beckett, Matthew Hemming MW, and Linden Wilkie, among others, of the third in the 2018–2020 trio of dry, hot vintages, which produced wines that are, at best, both concentrated and fresh. But the performance of individual producers and villages was variable, making the panel’s insights all the more valuable.
“Everybody remarked on how the color came out within just a few hours of the grapes going into the fermenting vats, and that a very light approach to extraction made sense. Few peopledid much punching down, if any at all. The biggest question was what to doon the whole-bunch front—to include more stems in the vats or fewer? Of course, there are many who do not change their protocol, be it entirely destemming or 100% whole-bunch. Many others make their decision according to the vintage. Stems were fairly, if not completely, ripe in 2020,and the pips were completely brownor even black (according to Stéphane Follin-Arbelet). On the whole, the trend toward including the stems developed further in 2020.
“The 2020 vintage was incrediblywell received in a boisterous bull market, even though many critics had urged caution in choosing which red wines to buy, as apparent great successes were counter-balanced by those who had not managed the conditions successfully. Burgfest 2020 gave us the opportunity to assess, in a blind tasting, who had made the right calls all the way through.”
Domaine Leflaive Chevalier-Montrachet 2020
Linden Wilkie | Bright green-gold. Fine oak and a little fruit poking through a reduction mask on the nose; ripe, unctuous, well-framed by minerality and oak, with a lemon-oil note mid-palate. Rather grand and backward. With air, there’s a sense of elegant layering in this, which is in a higher class than the other five Chevaliers in this flight: seamless, detailed, complex. It also has the freshness, lightness on its feet, and verve to age superbly well. Sublime and exciting wine. | 98
La Romanée Comte Liger-Belair 2020
LW | Full, clear ruby. A dripping, simply beautiful fragrance of fine, sweet fruit and flowers, nothing over the top, achingly pure and fine. This is so well-balanced and super-fine, but concentrated, the gentle, supple, coating, melting tannins giving it shape; super length, with waves of fragrance. Exceptional quality. Really very well-judged. | 99
2021 Domaine de la Romanée-Conti: Paucity, moderation, beauty
Low in production and discreet in proportion, Michael Schuster found Domaine de la Romanée-Conti’s 2021 releases to be classic, fine, and very beautiful.
“The year’s proportions are moderate, but the fruit was fully ripe—without the richer, super-ripe characteristics of most years since 2015. The wines remind me of the less fulsome vintages of the ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s. The grapes were thin-skinned, with a high proportion of liquid to solids, making for wines that are relatively pale in color. The flavor profile is of ripe red fruit, rather than black; the youthful aromas are “cool” to smell, alongside the herbal characters of 100 percent whole-bunch fermentation, and the wines are toothsomely carried and defined by fresh to lively acidities. What they lack in power and opulence, they make up for with finesse, delicacy, subtlety, and a deliciously lip-smacking vitality and core sweetness. The thin skins and very restrained extraction mean their tannin profile is discreet, superfine, almost imperceptible. But if their proportions are modest, and their relish is that of a quieter delivery, they lack for nothing in intensity of scent-as-savor. And a gorgeous fruit-fragrant persistence in the throat seems to be a feature of the year’s style. Many characteristics also of 2008—classic, fine, very beautiful DRC, that is.”
Domaine de la Romanée-Conti 2021 Romanée-Conti Grand Cru (20hl/ha [29hl/ha in 2020]; 403 dozen[500 in 2020]; average 2010–17: 432; highest since 2009: 657 in 2014; 13% ABV)
As so often, the palest wine in the lineup; and as always, glass-fillingly yet wonderfully subtle and delicate to smell, with the year’s cool, herbal complex, and the characteristic abundance in the glass. Fresh, very finely tannic, a beautifully reserved, restrained constitution, all poise and grace and transparency, so fragrant, so long, so delicate, and with, as in the 2008s, a distinct sweetness to the fruit. Enveloping in scent-as-taste, exciting in its quiet raciness, and supremely persistent. An extraordinary combination of extravagance and quietly disposed, serene inner energy—musically, the equivalent of an emphasis on absolute quality of sound as distinct from its volume. The almost weightless, infinite subtlety and sweetness that is the similarly constituted 1980 Romanée-Conti today, at 40 years and more, is testimony to just how seductively this will likely age, too. 2035–60+. | 97
2022 Burgundy: Harmony born of an easy season
After the challenging conditions of 2021, the hot, dry 2022 Burgundy growing season delivered red and white wines that, for all their ripeness of fruit and ample texture, are nonetheless balanced by a surprising freshness and energy more in keeping with cooler years, said Sarah Marsh MW as she introduced The World of Fine Wine’s extensive en primeur coverage.
“A hot and dry summer produced sunny, supple whites and silky, red-fruit Pinot. An early harvest made the vintage. More accurately, it saved the vintage, for the style is fresher and lighter than might be expected of the season. The old adage, ‘September makes the vintage,’ is rarely the case these days. In 2022, some producers were done and dusted before the end of August.
“The reds and the whites both have a summer sunshine glow. Super-charming and forthcoming, they were born of an easy season, with no hardship in the vineyard and nothing discordant in the wine.”
Domaine Perrot-Minot Chambertin Clos de Bèze Grand Cru 2022
This is much more Perrot-Minot style than the Chambertin. It floats on the palate. Ethereal and yet so intense. Floral fineness and delicacy. Mineral, detailed, and refined, it lingers with a haunting finish. Sublime. 2028–35+. | 99–100
Domaine Comte Georges de Vogüé Musigny Grand Cru 2022
Powerful yet sophisticated. A wine of great dimension and presence and superb persistence. 2030–40. | 99–100
