
2017 Burgundy Vintage: A Follow-Up
Jeff did this great, early review of the vintage, which now seems prescient. Today and tomorrow only, the New York store is having an online sale on 2017 Burgundies, here.

Jeff did this great, early review of the vintage, which now seems prescient. Today and tomorrow only, the New York store is having an online sale on 2017 Burgundies, here.
It’s really good! Open it and right away it’s absolutely and obviously delicious, with lots of fruit (even a vague hint of something verging on tropical), a touch of florality, crystal clear Chablis minerality, and bright acidity. All the elements of spot-on Chablis.
I was recently looking for some guidance on what Burgundy producers to collect and I came across a Top Ten list online. It had some names I had heard of, like Leroy, DRC, Rousseau, Leflaive, Liger-Belair and the like. Great, I thought, I’ll just start filling my cellar with those wines!
Just kidding. Maybe one in a thousand of you out there have enough time and money to put together an all-star Burg collection like that. But the lesson for me is that we need a real top ten list.
At this point, most commentators are saying that they like the vintage very much. We’ll break that down for you in further detail below. It’s also a very abundant vintage. After nearly a decade of below-average yielding vintages, the Burgundians will actually have some wine to sell — the most since 2009.
I had to great fortune to be invited back to Becky and Russell’s house in Bouilland for another gala luncheon and a vertical tasting of Grivot Richebourg. Thanks to a generous Burgundy collector we able to taste every single vintage of Richebourg that Etienne Grivot has made. We had 20+ vintages on the table that day.
I got up, made coffee, bought a croissant at the bakery across the street and I walked across Beaune. A gray morning, the clouds were low in the sky. Going to taste with the super talented Benjamin Leroux and two representatives of his NY importer. Ben was the winemaker at the great Pommard producer Comte Armand. Pascal Marchand was the regisseur, Ben was his assistant and then took over at the domaine. For several years Benjamin worked at Comte Armand in addition to running his micro-negociant. Last year he resigned from Comte Armand to work full time at his own business. He rents a fairly large winemaking facility not far from Bichot, Champy, Camille Giroud, Domaine des Croix, all in the center of Beaune.