Burgundy 2004: A revisit of the Vintage - by The Wine Advocate

I managed to taste several hundred 2004s in the course of last year and on my most recent trip to Burgundy. This vintage is worth noting for a couple of reasons. The first is that while for reds it has attracted relatively little attention and was certainly fraught with difficulties, there are many wines that will offer significant short-term pleasure and – given that growers lowered their prices in response to relatively high yields and tepid early critical reception (a move in turn amplified by merchants’ willingness to slash margins) – some good values as well. The trick of course – as in any challenging vintage – is to locate the most successful wines. Toward that end, I regret not having had opportunity to report in detail in these pages on the 2004 vintage, but have at least made reference in the notes that follow to certain of the most successful wines I encountered. Not surprisingly, growers who regularly and rigorously control yields and who routinely over-achieve, represent sources from which one need not shrink but may be rewarded with significant red Burgundy values in 2004.

The second and profoundly important reason to reconsider 2004 is as a sign of changing weather and ripening patterns in Burgundy. Two thousand four is not your classic, long-term below-average Burgundy vintage in which chaptalization was needed to bring wines up to a decent standard of body. True, given the huge crop that vines were determined to set (in reaction to the penury of 2003), a damp midsummer, and a freakishly cool August, growers were panicked going into the stretch. But not only did a warm September rescue what might well have been a disaster, many growers were amazed to find themselves harvesting fruit of high potential alcohol, and indeed nearly half of those whom I recently canvassed bottled 2004s higher in alcohol than their 2005s. The really striking and revelatory thing about 2004 then is the extent to which it shares a problem first starkly confronted by most Burgundian growers in 2003. What freakish heat and drought in August 2003 accomplished by means of shutting down the vines’ metabolic activity, the combination of an unseasonably cool August and warm September achieved in 2004 as well: grapes high in sugar but (literally) green and under-ripe at the center. The chocolate-covered pickles familiar if not beloved from many arid New World regions were legion among 2003 red Burgundies (indeed, how widespread is only becoming evident as these wines develop) and the most familiar downside of 2004 is Pinots that are alcoholically bloated yet skinny in fruit.

Naturally, no one should push the analogy between 2003 and 2004 past a certain point. Many 2003s display jammy or raisined character (though often alongside green elements), and most are possessed of tough underlying tannins. (Some are even great wines.) Furthermore, the proportion of tartaric acid was so high that it was often hard to tell when or even whether certain 2003s underwent malolactic fermentation. In 2004 by contrast, the cool summer locked in a very crisp, fresh-fruited personality, not to mention high levels of malic (green apple) acid. Malolactic fermentations were thus tumultuous and dramatic in effect, giving many 2004s a surprisingly – and blessedly – gentle mid-palate impression despite their aromatic suggestions of tart, brisk fruit. Nor do all but a very few 2004s possess the requisite tannic structure for significant aging, even assuming the flavors are of a sort one would want to revisit years from now. As we shall see, 2006 brought Burgundy its third consecutive cool August, and yet another crop of Pinots in which excessive alcohol will present a widespread challenge. Two thousand five reminds us that slow-but-steady, luminous-but-moderate wins the race to achieve great red Burgundy. But if recent developments set the trend, vintages of this sort may be at least as rare in the future as they were back in the days when Burgundian vignerons cherished every hour of genuine heat and were happy to have reached 12% natural alcohol by October 1.


— David Schildknecht