2007 Burgundy and Champagne Trip

We arrived in Beaune on Monday, July 2nd.  The weather was quite cool, and rainy.  With the exception of two days, it rained everyday.  This has been the pattern since April, which was quite the opposite.  April was very hot and dry, causing the vines to accerlerate their growth and looking like the 2003 vintage.  There is hope that August and September will be dry and sunny, but many growers were preparing their cellars to accept an early harvest.

This concerns me as I was in hopes that 2007 would be a very good vintage, which would suppress the price increases we have seen in the 2003 and 2005 vintages.  If the weather improves, and the current vintage comes together to produce good wines, perhaps this will result in lower prices on the 2006 wines.  In Robert Parker's latest edition of The Wine Advocate, David Schildknecht who covers Burgundy for the publication, mentions this same concern.  We tasted a lot of wines from 2006 and I was very pleased to find the wines, generally, much better than anticipated.  While they are nearly as good as the 2005 wines, they appear, in many cellars, to be better than 2004.  We also had an opportunity to taste a lot of 2005 wines that were in bottle, and they are indeed as good or great, as you probably have heard from me and various wine critics.  What makes the vintage so desirable is the wines are excellent from bottom to the top appellations.  You will want to purchase all that you can budget, but with the exception of the lower level wines, like Bourgogne Rouge, you will have to wait to get all you can enjoy from this vintage.  This should make the 2004 and 2006 vintages desirable for use while the 2005 wines age and become drinkable.

We have some small amount of 2005 wines in the store, mainly lower level appellations, which you can purchase and get a very good idea about this fabulous vintage.  Even Joseph Drouhin's Bourgogne Laforet Rouge is worth trying for everyday Pinot Noir pleasure.  I would highly recommend you to try Jean Garaudet's Bourgogne Hautes Cotes de Beaune as this will demonstrate how much depth and potential the vintage offers.  We expect to receive most of the wines in late September and October.  I did not offer pre-arrivals on the wines we committed to purchasing as I want to make absolutely certain that we receive our allotments.  Also, I want to make certain that the pricing will be correct as the Dollar/Euro exchange is so volatile.

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