Burgundy 2023 en primeurs: cautious optimism

There appears to be cautious optimism about the upcoming Burgundy 2023 en primeurs due to the strength (and size) of the vintage and producers’ desire to sell.   

Speaking to the drinks business about the 2023 vintage, Domaine Chanson’s export director Vincent Wallays remains optimistic about the upcoming en primeur campaign following a strong year in 2022, which saw 96% of the estate’s production sold en primeur.

The team has adapted the prices from the 2023 vintage, holding steady on the white and lowering the price of the reds by 10%.

It was, he says, a “very good year” for the estate, with yields of around 38hl/ha, a marked improvement on the domaine’s ten year average of around 22hl/ha, although this is “not considered massive” in comparison to some estate that saw yields of  60hl per hectare. (2024, he noted, is likely to prove “a different species”, with yields more like those in 2016 and 2021).

And while good yields were important economically “what is also really important is to have density, structure, depth and complexity in the wine,” he added. “This is, for us, the sweet spot”.

An encouraging sign for the upcoming campaign, he noted, lay in partner client’s depletion rates.

“Do they have wine in stock?” he said. “For some markets like Japan and the US,  the wine arrived in the market in late September or early October, so they are just starting to deplete the wine. In less than 45 days, the US has already depleted 40%, which is good, as you know you won’t have anything blocking the pipeline.”

He pointed out that “our partners’ success is our success”, and it was therefore important to take this into account. If “you increase the price by 70% from one vintage to another, you create an earthquake and [that will] affect your distribution,” he said.

According to Corney & Barrow, there is cause to be optimistic, as “for now, growers have cashflow on their minds”, as Guy Seddon, head of fine wine buying said in a recent blog.

According to Seddon, release prices in the merchant’s forthcoming campaign are the result of “much scrutiny”, with most estates maintaining their 2022 release prices in 2023. A minority had “been astute enough to reduce them”, a move that “should be applauded and seen as a sign of strength rather than an indication of an inferior vintage (which 2023 is not),” he said. “The quality peaks of 2023 are excitingly high.”

If not for the “tiny 2024” vintage witing in the wings, “I suspect that more would have come down”, he added for there is “a genuine desire among most producers that their wines are opened and enjoyed, rather than collected and traded.”

However, the “inexorable pressure from the rising value of vineyard land, punitive inheritance taxes and bulk/négociant grape prices” was having an effect.

“It is now generally more expensive to produce a négociant bottling (from bought-in grapes) than one from domaine-owned vines, meaning that prices of the latter are raised to readdress the imbalance.”

However Wallays points to the recent Hospices de Beaune sale, which was was the fourth best results it has seen, as a source of optimism. And according to the BIVB, Burgundy shipments have grown by by 3-4% (although he notes that Domaine Chanson has seen exports rise 9% over the same period)

“We’re seeing good depletions in both distributors and importers, and also seeing sales growing,” he added.

However, the 2025 campaign remains “very difficult to predict”, especially with the more muted current state of the US and Chinese markets, as well as the ongoing war in Europe.

“So many things can go wrong, but if it stays within the parameters, it’s not going to not a surprise,” he says.

 

 

 

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