BURGUNDY 2023

BURGUNDY 2023

A summary of the Vintage
‘A generous vintage that pleasantly surprised producers’

The 2023 vintage followed the wonderfully structured and fresh 2022 vintage for white and red burgundy wines.So in a sense it was a hard act to follow.


The Burgundy summer of 2023 began with cooler temperatures, dry but lacking a little sunshine yet it proved to be one of the warmer vintages over the past 20 years. Rain arrived when needed and from 4th September, sunshine with high temperatures bore down on those harvesting forcing most Domaines to organise their days by beginning just after daybreak and finishing around lunchtime. They also needed to act quickly by getting the picked grapes back to the cellars and into cooler conditions.


The final result has pleasantly surprised the producers as there were early fears that because of the warmth, they might lack a little freshness. Also most producers had to carry out two and more green harvests in June and July as the vines kept producing new bunches. Despite the generosity of nature producing such abundance, the 2023 wines have admirable ripe, purity of fruit, freshness, complexity, minerality, restrained elegance, subtle length and are simply a real pleasure to drink. There is rather a lot to love about this vintage.


In fact I would encourage our clients to buy and drink the 2023 vintage before the 2022 vintage which has closed a little and with its structure and needs a more time in the bottle.


Another pleasing factor is that the Burgundy producers are well aware of the current tight economic conditions worldwide and all of our producers have held their prices the same as 2022 which in turn allows us to hold our pricing at the same levels as the vintage 2022.Back to back vintages of such brilliance for white and red wines are rare and to have this in larger harvests is even rarer.


If the white chardonnay wines are seductive in the freshness and purity of fruit, the pinot noir wines are well defined and complex and both have elegance. They both have a real expression of terroir and class.


Philip Slocombe – January 2025