BurgundyStreet

In his negociant business, “Maison Roche de Bellene” Nicolas Potel has been applauded by the top UK wine merchants for producing top quality burgundy.  Again.  Potel and Cottin Freres Nicolas, owners of Maison Nicolas Potel, parted company last year.  However, the majority of the growers have followed Nicolas over to this new project.  

“Life hasn’t been particularly easy for Nicolas Potel,” said Johnny Goedhuis. “His business relationship with Labouré-Roi came to an end in 2008 and I was concerned that the quality of his wines might suffer.

Would he be able to maintain the critical relationships with his growers?” he asked.  “Having tasted his recent wines, my fears were completely groundless. A number of his wines are outstanding and the overall quality is better than ever.”

After initial euphoria, Burgundy producers are predicting 2009 will be a great vintage, but not a classic like 2005.  Winemakers throughout the region are delighted by 2009’s high levels of ripeness, the health of the grapes, and the promising acidity and balance.  The grapes have lower acid levels than in 2005, but high sugar and intense flavours. It will be a ‘perfumed, exotic vintage,’ one winemaker said.

The harvest: interviews with Philippe Prost of Bouchard, and Didier Seguier of William Fevre. Adam Lechmere narrates

‘It has been a vintage of false appearances,’ Christophe Chauvel, a viticulture director for Albert Bichot in Beaune said. ‘You could not rely on visual evidence to pick the grapes, and some people may have picked too early.’  Chauvel said the grapes looked so ripe on 15 August he had ‘almost wanted to harvest as the grapes looked so ripe.’  But the ripening was uneven : ‘2005 was a much easier vintage because the ripening process was more uniform.’

Others agreed. Cote d’Or producer Alex Gambal in Beaune said, ‘Deciding when to pick was the tricky part [in 2009]. Each parcel had to be picked separately; there was no uniformity.’  But as far as conditions go, there is no doubt in anyone’s mind that the weather could not have been better, giving producers the luxury of picking when they wanted to.  Gambal said that in his 18th season in Burgundy, he does not ‘remember weather that has been this good for this long.’

At William Fevre in Chablis, managing director Stephane Follin-Arbelet said the outlook for 2009 was ‘very promising.’  ‘The grapes are superb, with yields slightly lower than normal.’  At the same time they are cautioning that unlike 2005, ripeness was not uniform and that some grapes may have been picked early, with the risk of not achieving phenolic ripeness.

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September 25, 2009
Panos Kakaviatos in Beaune, and Adam Lechmere

The wines of Meursault, Montrachet and Volnay could disappear forever as increases in temperature destroy the unique terroirs of Burgundy, a new report from Greenpeace says.

Published last Friday, the report – the first time Greenpeace has focussed on the effects of climate change on wine – offers a sobering prediction.

It suggests that if climate change continues at its current rate then temperatures in France could rise by 6 degrees by the end of the century.

f temperatures do climb, the consequences for Burgundy – no stranger to the demands of a changing climate – would be critical.

Focusing on the historic wine capital of Beaune, the report documents significant changes caused by climate change.

Between 1988 and 2006, grapes harvested on average 13 days earlier than from the period 1973 to 1987.

Between the same periods, the time required for grapes to mature has reduced from 50 to 40 days.

But it’s not bad news for everyone. Formerly unlikely regions in Europe, like southern Britain, are already producing prize-winning vintages thanks to the warmer conditions.

Ultimately, however, wine lovers will be more concerned about the report’s implications for the fragile terroirs of Burgundy that are clearly under threat. Cataclysmic results are predicted; the possibility of new vine diseases, increased flooding and the greater risk of fruit rotting on the vines.

Concern amongst wine producers and other parts of the sector has been gathering momentum since August 2009, when a group of 50 winemakers, sommeliers and chefs wrote to Le Monde to voice their concerns over global warming to French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Their expectations for action at the United Nations summit in Copenhagen in December are high, as governments are urged to push for a strong global agreement on climate change.

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