2021 wasn’t a year for the faint of heart in Burgundy. Christy Canterbury MW tells us how to navigate this vexing vintage.

Welcome to 2021 in Burgundy! A tough, tricky, bad weather year that still managed to produce some terrific wines–if you know where to look. We’ve also covered the white wines of the 2021 Burgundy vintage, but for now, let’s talk red with NWR Senior Editor and Master of Wine Christy Canterbury.

The headlines

• 2021 was a terrible weather year—very little sunshine, not especially warm, some poorly-timed frost, and wet, wet, wet. It certainly bucked the trend of hot, dry, long growing seasons. What all this turned into were a lot of pretty wines—they’re lighter, more ethereal and more classically Burgundian than 2018, 2019 and 2020.
  
• You’re not going to find a lot of 2021 out there. Yields were terrible. Producers who usually get 40 hl per hectare maybe–maybe–got 10 or 15 hl per hectare in 2021. Some vineyards were entirely wiped out. 
  
• This was a highly producer-dependent vintage. You can’t just throw darts and figure you’ll end up with a great wine like you can with 2020, 2016 or 2015.  
  
• There are fewer good wines coming out of 2021 than in previous years—even from the good producers.
  
• 2021 reds can be split into two groups: producers who understood the vintage and really went for it, and producers who made more conservative decisions. Most people were conservative and ended up with pretty, easy drinking wines that will drink well in the next few years. But the few producers who took some risks were generally rewarded with excellent, ageworthy results.

Classic, throwback wines

• Particularly if you’re an old-school Burgundy lover, this is a terrific vintage for you. This is Burgundy like it used to be. But if you like your Burgundy more like Russian River Pinot, skip it!
• If you’ve only been drinking the last few vintages, 2021 might seem unusual for its lightness. The wines from this vintage resemble more traditional, lighter, higher acid Burgundies—but they benefit from more sophisticated winemaking. That means they'll be ready to drink earlier on, even immediately. 
• The best producers did well, of course, but even at the high end, there’s real variability. The consistently great producers—Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, Rousseau, Leroy, Perrot-Minot, Dugat-Py, Jacques-Frédéric Mugnier, Georges Roumier—all made very lovely wines. But they may not be 20-30 year wines at the Premier Cru level. Even some of the Grand Crus may not have all that much longevity.

A year of headaches and hard calls for winemakers

• The producers who got this vintage really right were those who picked and sorted extremely carefully, navigated the harvest-time rain with care, and ended up with very dense, complex wines.
• Among the producers who handled this vintage with great skill: Mortet, Perrot-Minot, Thibault Liger-Belair, Louis Michel Liger-Belair, Mugneret-Gibourg, de Montille, Arlaud.
• It was harder to make good reds than good whites in this vintage. With the whites, you don’t have that much time with the skins, but with reds, that juice spends a lot of time with the skins, which weren’t great. You’d see a producer have a new set of grapes come in, and they would say, “Finally! Some great, clean grapes.” Then they’d turn them over or open up a tight cluster and they’d be rotten, moldy, diseased. So people who didn’t sort carefully had a tough time and their wines aren’t going to age particularly well.  
• People used far fewer whole clusters this year due in part to the rot. Christophe Perrot-Minot, for example, said he used maybe 10% whole clusters compared with 50% in most years. At Hubert-Lignier, this was the first time in eight years they’d completely de-stemmed their grapes. 
• The extraction decision was a big one for producers. Those who really went for it and knew their grapes were good, in spite of what the local chatter might have suggested, made tremendous wines. Cyrielle Rousseau at Domaine Armand Rousseau, David Croix at Domaine des Croix, Brian Sieve at Domaine de Montille—they went for it, and it paid off. 
• Clos de Vougeout was one of the stellar vineyards of the vintage. They avoided much of the frost, and their yields were unusually generous relative to other Grands Crus. But also the wines were just good; almost like Corton in 2020.
• One rare, notable exception to the low yields is Clos de Tart. Two years prior, the winemaker, Alessandro Noli, bought tons of candles in the summer when no one was thinking about frost (“bougie” or “candles” are essentially smudge pots–large pails filled with wax or oil that can burn safely and, usually, keep vines warm during cold streaks). When the frost came this year, Alessandro protected his vines rabidly using his candles. It paid off massively—he actually had a higher yield in 2021 than the previous year, one of the very few winemakers who can say that. 

How to navigate the 2021 vintage for red Burgundy lovers 

• Don’t skip the 2021s! There’s a lot of pleasure here. Lots of pretty wines. It’s just going to cost you.
• This vintage serves a good purpose: you can drink it now. With 2018, 2019, and 2020, the real, underlying potential is way, way down the road. So enjoy the 2021s while you wait.  
• As mentioned, 2021 is a hard one for buyers because quality varies so significantly from one producer to the next. There’s no area (other than Clos de Vougeot) that was miraculously better than others. So you’re better off staying away from producers you’re unfamiliar with in 2021—particularly if you’re buying at a bigger, less well-curated site or store. This isn’t the vintage to buy wines blindly.

• The secondary regional appellations and villages struggled in the tough conditions. Auxey-Duresses, Saint-Romain, Hautes-Côtes de Beaune, Haute-Côtes de Nuits. Some of these grapes had a hard time ripening, so they’re going to be lean wines. But because there isn’t much volume, these won’t be deals, either.
• There’s no obvious value to be found in 2021. The prices have to be higher to compensate for the lack of quantity. If you want value, go find what’s on sale in the last five or six vintages. 
• The color of many of these red wines won’t age well due to the condition of the grapes. Plus, lots of people didn't extract much, so expect the wines to turn a bricky red early on.

What they’re saying in Burgundy

• The last vintage with similar conditions to this was 2017, which everyone in Burgundy is now totally in love with. Those wines are drinking great right now. It’s a fun, accessible vintage, particularly early on. 2021 will be a bit like that.
• Good news is on the way: there’s going to be so much more in 2022—some producers have 20-30 times(!) more wine in barrels for 2022 than they did for 2021. The weather reverted back to its new hot/dry pattern. So we’ll see big, rich, succulent wines from 2022. 
• Everywhere you go in Burgundy, people are talking about higher prices. Producer inputs—glass, foil, shipping cartons—are all shooting up in price. And this vintage is particularly problematic because supply is so low. At the same time, a lot of retailers are starting to wonder if we’re approaching the limits of consumer tolerance for these rising prices. Hopefully 2022 provides a bit of relief for everyone.