2003

Whites

2003 brought exceptionally challenging conditions for Chardonnay and the first result is simply quantitative. There is much less white Burgundy to go around than usual (typically, no more than half the crop) with certain sectors, such as Meursault, faring even worse. Many Chardonnays staged a great recovery in barrel, appearing fresher and tighter at the end of elevage than at the start, but even the most accomplished wines necessarily bear the heavy imprint of this crushingly hot vintage. After a mild early winter, then a cold snap in January, Burgundy saw above average temperatures at most stages of the year through to harvest. As well as the 40 degree C August temperatures, there were heat spikes of unaccustomed ferocity in June and July, and a record-breaking 248 sunshine hours in March, equal to a normal July. April frosts between the 8th and 11th hit the early vegetation in the Maconnais and Chablis, and especially the Cote de Beaune, and set the scene for a difficult flowering and growing season. Then came the heat, with the final heatwave from 5th - 12th August hurriedly bringing forward the bans de vendange so that most of the Cote de Beaune Chardonnay was picked by the end of August. Inevitably, 2003 must be considered, first and foremost, a Pinot Noir year, with many reds having coped magnificently with the conditions. Equally inevitably, 2003 whites will be shared out thinly and drunk fairly quickly. Curiosity impels one to hold a few good whites back to see what they become, but common sense dictates that most should be drunk well before the 2002s and exciting 2004s.

Reds

With very few exceptions, from the top to the bottom of Burgundy there was very little juice in 2003. A fateful sequence of frost, then hail, then sunburn conspired to demolish yields. Production quantities were often halved with even lower yields not uncommon, the shortfall affecting Pinot Noir and Chardonnay about equally, with the Côte de Beaune penalised even more than the Côte de Nuits. But 2003 was not a rerun of the fiercely tannic, earlier ‘heatwave’ year of 1976. 2003 dictated no single, common approach: some picked early, others waited. By and large, the vines remained green, with adequate water throughout 2003 even to the end of picking. Damage occurred above all in the unbearably hot early August period when temperatures hovered at 41 degrees C for several days straight, mainly affecting rows facing south without leaf cover or shade. Winemaking challenges in 2003 involved effective sorting and discarding of dried-up berries, cooling very hot juice, deciding when and by how much to rectify low acidities and adjusting Pinot Noir extraction to suit the year’s very concentrated materials. Few domaines took more than 5 days to pick this diminutive crop but the dates between the earliest and latest harvesters spread out over more than three weeks. The earliest, from 13th August on, sought to retain what little acidity remained; later harvesters, picking in the first week of September, argued that even mid-August was too late to keep acidity and that there was more to be gained by adhering to a more normal ripening cycle. The rule book was tossed out of the window in this year of extremes and growers backed their individual instincts as they struggled with the earliest harvest date since 1612 and acidities lower than previously recorded. The flavour components of the vintage are apparent - sugar ripeness between 12% and 13%, excellent crop health, moderate but highly extractable tannins, low acidity, lots of skins and pips but little juice - but only now, after several years in bottle, are the finesse and terroir elements to these richly-constituted wines slowly beginning to reassert themselves. The real star of 2003 was the Beaujolais, with the Gamay grape managing to turn the fierce summer conditions to its advantage, producing wines of remarkable quality.