2000 Burgundy Vintage

The winter was mild, and much warmer weather in May and early June led to an early flowering. The flowering took place in such fine weather that a relatively large crop was set. Then the weather turned. July was exceptionally cool and wet, and in the Maconnais it was the wettest and coldest July for half a century. August and early September were slightly warmer and sunnier than average. Jancis Robinson pointed to 12 September as the turning point, when after some humid days very heavy rains fell south of Beaune; Jim Budd's Decanter report dated the Burgundy storms to 13 and 14 September and found September otherwise sunny. Harvesting began early: on 6 September in the Maconnais, four days later in the Cote de Beaune, and not until 23 September in Chablis. Pinot Noir was picked on the Cote de Beaune from 10 September and on the Cote de Nuits a couple of days later, and the harvest was finished by the end of September. It was a large crop, and much depended on yields.

• On the Cote de Beaune the thin-skinned Pinot Noir was already quite ripe, so many growers hurried to pick reds before rot set in and kept Chardonnay on the vine for another week or so
• Chardonnay seemed to resist rot better than much Pinot Noir, as many vines were picked before the September rains
• The Cote de Nuits was left almost unscathed by the rains, while the Cote Chalonnaise apparently took the brunt of the September storms
• Chardonnay ripened later than Pinot Noir in 2000, and where producers had controlled vine vigour the grapes ripened evenly

Jim Budd's Decanter report found the reds more uneven than the whites, with much depending on yields. Jancis Robinson, who tasted nearly 600 wines from the vintage, found some very charming and occasionally truly thrilling reds in the Cote de Nuits. In her view Cote de Beaune reds were not all write-offs: many had been made from very carefully sorted grapes, though they were rarely better than their 1999 counterparts, and some showed a telltale metallic lack of freshness. She judged the reds not especially concentrated, but the best would give easy pleasure in the short to medium term.

• Robinson found enormous variation even between neighbouring vineyards of the same producer, particularly among reds whose less than fully ripe tannins needed a considerable weight of fruit
• Clive Coates MW advised: "If you intend to buy 2000 reds, stick to the Cote de Nuits and the Cote Chalonnaise."
• For Robinson, as ever in Burgundy, the producer is even more important than the appellation

Chablis was spared some of the worst excesses of the weather, and Decanter's guide judged its wines excellent and typical. Clive Coates MW called 2000 a fine Chablis vintage, describing the wines of the stellar domaines as "rich, steely and profound, requiring several years of bottle age." Jancis Robinson called it by all accounts the best Chablis vintage since 1996, though she still found disappointments there. In the Maconnais the miserable July left acidity higher than further north, and growers who waited made very well-structured wines; Robinson was struck by the consistent quality and value of the Maconnais whites she tasted. In the Cote de Beaune, Decanter saw signs that Puligny-Montrachet may be less successful than Chassagne-Montrachet or Meursault.

• Coates found that most growers marginally preferred their 1999s, except those in Corton-Charlemagne, where Jean-Charles Le Bault de la Moriniere of Domaine Bonneau du Martray called 2000 "My best wine since the 1995"
• Decanter's Meursault picks included Coche-Dury, Lafon, Pierre Morey and Guy Roulot; its Chassagne-Montrachet list included Ramonet and Jean-Noel Gagnard
• Robinson found very bright lights in lesser communes such as Pernand-Vergelesses, St Aubin, St Romain and Savigny, and some fine whites even in the Cote Chalonnaise
• Coates called 2000 a fine vintage in the Cote Chalonnaise, where the whites come mainly from Rully and Montagny

Jancis Robinson noted the conventional wisdom that 2000 is a white wine vintage and a neat successor to 1999, then added that it is by no means as simple as that. The acid balance differed: 2000 had a relatively high tartaric acid content, which shows in the best wines as an attractive zip, while in 1999 the proportion of malic acid was relatively high, and malolactic fermentation turned it into softer wines. Robinson found the best 2000 whites more immediately attractive than the 1999s. Acidity is at roughly the same level as 1999. Decanter's guide suggested some wines may be less long-lived and may turn out better than 1997 and 1998, with the lower-acid wines drinking well young and the best ageing well.

• Coates described the whites as fullish, ripe, balanced and attractive, with more to them than the 1997s and 1998s
• Robinson judged 2001 Chablis not nearly as good as 2000
• Prices for the vintage were stable