In brief:

The 2024 Burgundy vintage has issued a challenge to the marketing departments of many merchants who enjoy strong allocations of red Burgundy. Their saving grace may well be the dramatically low yield; not much was made! Fortunately, whites fared far better benefiting from two notable windows of opportunity in 2024, crucially one of those was at harvest. The quality of Chardonnay can really surprise this vintage (just take a look at the comments on the ever-dependable Latour-Giraud in Meursault, and the increasingly impressive Morey-Coffinet in Chassagne-Montrachet). Pinot Noir, in general, aside from some successes in outlying appellations like the Hautes Côtes de Nuits, has the potential to disappoint – and indeed does. When crafted by quality-conscious, meticulous growers such as those featured here, elegant, harmonious, early-drinking reds result.

In detail:

Early in his report on the 2024 growing season, Jasper Morris writes: “on 16th October [2023], the rain started, and it barely let up until the start of the 2024 harvest.”  

This is widely recognised as the story of the 2024 vintage, with winehog.com’s Steen Ohman summarising: “Some vignerons will say that they like the result … in the end, and this can be fair and reflect what is in the glass. But for many, this is a vintage best forgotten! This has been a nightmare for many vignerons … The 2024s are, however, a miracle … and 30 years ago no reds would have been made … this is how serious the humidity and the mildew attack was in 2024.”

No one I met or spoke with on my trip to Burgundy in November 2025 said otherwise. This is not a vintage that can be sugar-coated. It was difficult.

The winter was not cold and then both February and March 2024 were wetter than usual, March 70% more than the average. April was less wet, and it was colder – though frost was largely not a problem. May was cool and wet. June followed suit. Ludivine Grivot recounts in her excellent report for the Hospices de Beaune auction that flowering for Chardonnay took place in good weather from 6th to 8th June while the damp conditions had returned for the flowering of Pinot Noir from 10th to 14th June. A tiny window of good fortune for white wine producers?

Mildew was rampant across all of Burgundy. The combination of wet and warm conditions providing the perfect conditions for it to flourish. What spraying was possible to counter the mildew was rendered ineffective almost immediately as the next day’s rain washed away the protection. So wet was it, the rain so incessant, that working in the vineyards became impossible in the bog-like conditions that prevailed in many. And while it was warm, benefitting mildew, it was constantly overcast, and sunshine hours were 10 to 30% below the norm in all months from February to June. If winemaking is all about critical moments in the growing season, then Chardonnay certainly had at least some share of luck in the 2024 vintage. As Thibault Morey told me with some sense of relief, “there were 2 weeks of sunshine in 2024: one for flowering of Chardonnay, one for harvest!”

Indeed, on the 10th of September, the weather finally improved, with a north wind bringing cool dry weather. It remained dry until further rain on 22nd September and then again from 26th. It was between the 10th and 20th September that much of the Chardonnay harvest took place. Morey Coffinet started on 14th September. Jean-Pierre Latour at Domaine Latour-Giraud began his harvest on 13th September.

Meursault 1er Cru, Les Genevrières

Jasper Morris is of our view, writing of the Morey-Coffinet 2024s: “He has made a great range of wines in 2024, understated yet with fine backbones.” He comments of Domaine Latour-Giraud: “Regular readers will know that these are among my favourite Meursaults, especially the Genevrières.” Jean-Pierre has produced a sublime set of wines that are tightly focussed and concentrated with a long, fine acidity running though, promising a long life. He described 2024 as a vintage for collectors, while reflecting back to a 2023 vintage that he thinks should be enjoyed much sooner. Thibault Morey’s wines, by contrast, have more evident fruit at this stage but no lack of energy and mineral spine. 

For both these domaines, with which we work direct, to pick up on Steen Ohman’s point above: the vignerons like the result and this does indeed reflect what is in the glass. While Jean-Pierre did feel it was a nightmare vintage, Thibault Morey was reasonably happy with how his own viticulture methods, including significant grass cover for water competition in the vine rows, seemed to diminish the impact of the wet conditions.

As mentioned already, the season was far more challenging for Pinot Noir, particularly in the Côte de Nuits. Sebastien Cathiard, a meticulous and quality-obsessive grower, took brave decisions and has come through the vintage in better form than might have been expected, having crafted lighter, elegantly styled wines, notably in his Hautes Côtes de Nuits trio, which show freshness, balance and vineyard differentiation. Where quality dictated, he opted to blend and made a single “Nuits-St Georges Premier Cru”, it being a blend of roughly equal proportions of wine from Thorey and Murgers. Domaine Ponsot made just one and a half barrels of Chapelle-Chambertin compared to a more normal seven barrels, a result which was exacerbated by their draconian approach to fruit selection. Domaine Lecheaneaut’s average loss across the estate was a whopping 80% and they produced neither their newer premier cru Aux Argillas, nor their old vine Aux Chouillet in this vintage. With such growers as these, the hard decisions were taken throughout the full length of this very difficult growing season, then into the harvest and during the fermentation period in order that wines of pure fruit and fine balance could be realised. The results reveal plenty of hard work and, while I am not going to talk up the complexity and intensity of the wines, it is clear that they will provide elegant, short to mid-term drinking, and may permit, in the case of Ponsot and Cathiard, a few new clients to gain access to a future allocation.

Alexandre Abel with almost the entirety of Domaine Ponsot's 2024s

The reds I tasted on my visits in November were wines more of grace and elegance than of power and concentration. The fruit showed purity and poise and the tannins were very fine. This last point was also picked up on by Jasper Morris, who wrote: "One of the characteristics of the 2024 vintage for red Burgundy is the quality of the tannins, which are unusually refined. I attribute this character in part to gentle extraction, but also to the fact that for the first time in several years, the vines and their grapes could enjoy the classical 100-day ripening cycle."

The gradual shortening of this ripening cycle as a consequence of climate change is something we have written about frequently over recent years. The return of these 100 days in 2024 has had a significant impact on the style of the fruit and the quality of the tannins. It also allows for the possibility, even probability, that well-balanced examples with sufficient fruit might evolve over a longer period than the generally lighter style of the vintage might initially suggest. Stylistically, this vintage breaks with the pattern of recent riper, warmer vintages with their bolder fruit.

What 2024 Burgundy we are offering makes for a comparatively small set of wines, partly due to production levels, partly due to our own choice. But they are wines that we believe have been notably successful in the vintage. The whites of both Jean-Pierre Latour and Thibault Morey continue to excel and are really worth a look. Sebastien Cathiard’s thoughtfulness and attention to minutiae remain exemplary and clearly add up in a vintage like this. The Lecheneauts are as meticulous as ever in their vineyard work while Domaine Ponsot are never afraid to take the important decisions and actions to prioritise quality. So, there you have our Burgundy offer, smaller than the norm, but featuring a select group of growers who have met the challenge of a very tricky vintage.