Burgundy en primeur: Spotlight on whites

By Jo Gilbert

Published: 11 January, 2017

While there has been a consensus that Burgundy's 2015 reds have much to offer buyers in this year's en primeur market, there is less agreement about the quality of the region's whites.

In this month's print edition of Harpers, Tim Atkin MW took merchants to task for over-hyping 2015's whites.

"The reds are great but the whites are being over-hyped. Bordeaux and Burgundy are very different places, but with merchants finding it hard to make any money out of Bordeaux they are piling into Burgundy and trying make money by rating it in the same way," he said.

This is in stark contrast to the topline from Berry Bros. & Rudd, which hailed 2015's whites "far superior to what might have been", with an abundance of "fruit and flesh, yet with adequate acidity, and most have a fine, fresh feel to them".

Flint Wines' co-founder Jason Haynes's verdict is a little more reluctant, taking 2014's "exceptional" vintage as the benchmark.

"You're not going to have a 2014 every year. Whites in 2014 were the best in last 20 years, so this is difficult act to follow because 2015 was a warm year and everyone was nervous," he admits.

Despite this, he insists he has been "very pleasantly surprised" by the outcome.

"Most of our growers tend to make vibrant, racy wines and in a warm vintage, that's a godsend. If you make wines which are rich with oak, it's a bit like putting marzipan and ice cream on top of cake - too much," he said.

Speaking of the vintage's longevity, he added: "The key to the success of 2015 was that growers picked early which made sure the wines were fresh and vibrant. I think the whites will surprise people: they will age better than people expect - maybe not forever, but in three or four years' time they will be really quite good.

"The richness of the fruit means that somms will be able to put them on lists fairly early, but equally, they could age quite nicely."

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