The 2006 and 2005 Côte d’Or White Burgundy Vintages 2006

A Very Good to Sometimes Excellent Vintage but not a Great One: While the early buzz had the 2006 whites surpassing the reds in the view of many, this has not turned out to be the case, at least not in this observer’s opinion. While there are certainly any number of excellent wines, and in a few cases genuinely great ‘06s, there aren’t many and my overall vintage rating is Very Good rather than Excellent.

2006 is not in the overall class of 2005 and produced wines that will mature, in the vast majority of cases, before those of its predecessor. Not surprisingly, in very few cases did domaines make better 2006s than 2005s when viewed in the context of their entire ranges. To be sure, there are some scattered ‘06s that do manage to outshine their ’05 counterparts but not many. There is one exception to this generalization and those ‘06s were produced by a very small group of vignerons that harvested before the ban de vendange. This group was influenced by Dominique Lafon and included Henri Boillot, Arnaud Ente and Jean-Marc Roulot among others. The ban was declared on September 18th (as was explained in Issue 28, this was remarkable as for the first time ever, this was after Chablis!) and almost everyone in retrospect acknowledges that this was probably at least two days too late. It rained heavily only two days after the ban and triggered an exacerbation of the spread of rot that had already been a lingering presence in the vineyards. As a result, the problem, if you wish to call it that, is that many wines were harvest with varying degrees of botrytis and are, not surprisingly, openly exotic and in a few cases, even tropical. While there have of course been openly exotic vintages in the past, they were never viewed as typical because such aromas blur typicity and transparency.

The good news is that what the ‘06s have that most vintages which are as overtly exotic as this one do not have firm acidities and the average ’06 manages to avoid heaviness precisely because of this acidity. However, as I will explain, this was not universally the case and there are top heavy and blurry ‘06s as well. Where the two vintages separate significantly however is at the lower levels. 2006 can’t begin to match the depth and consistency of 2005 at the regional level (Bourgogne and Bourgogne-Hautes Côtes). The two main reasons are depth of material (concentration) and much better overall transparency. While there were certainly some successful ‘06s at the regional level, there are many more of them in 2005.

It would be fair to characterize the 2006 growing season as one of chaotic weather patterns and changes. From January on it was very cold with frequent frosts and, somewhat unusually, heavy snowfalls that slowed down development and the first green shoots were not observed until April 18th. Spring was damp and growers had to be vigilant against mildew. By the beginning of May though clear if not really warm weather reigned but that changed significantly beginning the 10th of June when very hot and dry weather descended and remained until the very end of July. As noted above, the heat in July was higher than that recorded in July, 2003, which set records. Grape skins thickened and yellowing foliage was noted in the vineyards. In fact, July was so hot, and the weather had essentially been so consistently excellent that there was talk of another late August harvest. Indeed some growers told me that they had predicted that they would begin picking on, or around, the 20th. But with the weather, you just never know. August was the polar opposite, no pun intended, of July as it was cool and wet the entire month with more than 100 ml (about 4 inches) falling. Rot, specifically botrytis, became an issue in some parcels, particularly in the lower level vineyards with minimal slope or poor drainage that tended to collect water. This was not the case for high elevation villages level wines but the absence of good drainage was one of the reasons that the appellation hierarchy is very much respected in 2006.

The cool and damp weather in August served as a significant brake on the rapidly advancing maturities, so much so that the harvest date talk completely flip-flopped from August to possibly having the first October start date in 30 years. September however reversed the trend and by the end of the first week, warm, sunny and dry weather returned, drying out the vineyards and the incipient rot along with it. It also reignited the maturation process and sugars, which had hardly budged in August, climbed like a rocket. Indeed in the last week before the harvest, some growers told me that they recorded increases of fully 2% potential alcohol. That’s a lot. The seemingly perennial “when to pick” debate was ever present as well.

For the 2003 vintage, I explained in considerable depth the early/late dichotomy that raged as growers largely were in two camps, e.g. pick early to save acidity or pick late to achieve phenolic ripeness. In 2006 this debate continued though when the storm hit just after the ban de vendange, almost everyone scrambled to assemble their picking teams and begin harvesting immediately. As the grower introduction sections will show, more than a few growers lamented that with the benefit of hindsight, they would have started picking a few days earlier than they did. While there was some rot, it was minor and few growers reported having to do heavy sorting work. Ripeness levels, both phenolic and sugar, were generally quite high. Sugars were strong with most growers reporting between 13 and 14.5% potential alcohol levels with the average being around 13.5%. This means that chaptalization was relatively rare and the wines are so rich that growers (correctly) reasoned that the wines did not need any additional alcohol. Burghound.com 5 July 2008

And phenolic ripeness was generally excellent as well, not only because of the unusually fine growing season but also because yields were moderate. Acidities were also good with average pHs and moderate total acidities. There were moderate levels of malic acid as well though interestingly, few growers spoke of blocking the malos. With respect to the primary and secondary fermentations, grower reports were all over the map. Some reported that both fermentations went off with nary a problem and were finished within the normal time periods. Other growers told me that they had very slow alcoholic fermentations because of the density of the fruit and the moderate to high levels of sugar. Still other growers said that the malolactic fermentations lasted until the late summer or even early fall months. This had the beneficial effect of leaving plenty of residual gas (CO2) in the wines which in turn helped to protect them. With respect to the élevage of the ‘06s, the practice of bâtonnage, or lees stirring, was much reduced (or even eliminated altogether) though growers went about achieving this in different ways. Some chose the obvious solution and simply didn’t do any, or not much. Others stirred the lees as they normally do but stopped much earlier, which in this case usually means before the end of the year. And yet others stirred as they always do though the wines didn’t really need it as they were already rich enough.

Based on my tastings, the wines where there was limited or no bâtonnage were tighter and more focused and thus better in my view. You will see that many growers who normally do not fine said that they did in 2006. I tasted quite a number of wines that had been fined against those that had not and in almost every case, the fined wines were more precise, finer and purer. Now of course judgments rendered about fining and filtration at the beginning of a wine’s life can sometimes prove to be in error but for a vintage that is, for the vast majority of wines, intended for consumption over the short and medium-term, I’m not entirely sure that it will matter nearly as much it will, for example, the 2004s and 2005s.

The Wines: As noted in the introduction, the 2006s are a rather heterogeneous group with some brilliant wines and a number of forgettable wines that resemble more new world chardonnay than classic white burgundies. They are first and foremost ripe, indeed ripe to the point of exoticism that can be so extreme, in some cases, that the aromatic profiles are tropical. On the plus side, the wines are indisputably delicious, round, rich and generous with opulent middles and just enough supporting acidity to maintain focus and balance. They are also, again for the most part, very forward and will drink well almost immediately. There is a second group that was picked early enough where the acidities are more prominent and thus the flavors and finishes are firmer and more serious. Wines in this group will need anywhere from 2 to as much at 6 years to reach their apogees and it is this kind of wine that you can generally expect from the better growers. Lastly, there is a third group of wines that are heavy, flat, blurry and unfocused and bear little resemblance to what typically comes out of the Côte d’Or and represents a full 180 degrees away from what was produced in say 2000, 2002 or 2004. And while the date of the harvest is a much bigger driver of quality than vineyard location, all things being equal it’s clear that 2006 is a vintage of the hillside vineyards, not the plains as it was in 2003. In particular, the higher up the slope the vineyard was situated also clearly revealed itself in notably cooler aromas and more evident minerality. The only exception to this was that I found fewer great examples of Chevalier than I would have expected given this “altitude matters” pattern. To be sure, there are some great Chevys but fewer than I would have guessed. As to possible vintage comparables, there were any number of vintages proposed by the growers. Some thought that it was a cross between 2005 and 2004, allying the power and weight of the former with the cut and grace of the latter. Others with long memories proposed 1986 because of the botrytis influence though few thought that 2006 would age as successfully as the 1986s have. or 1989. As I noted, while 2006 will be a relatively early drinker, the better 1ers will offer between 2 and 6 years of improvement and the better examples of the grands crus will require 4 to 8 years to really blossom. That said, there is so much richness to the wines that they will probably always provide quality drinking experiences in much the same way that the lsquo;92s did in their youth as they never did really close up. Perhaps the best thing about 2006 is that it should be an ideal vintage for restaurant wine lists or even as wine by the glass alternatives. Burghound.com