If you are not too stricken with fear regarding a possible budgetary apocalypse to consider making a purchase, I’ve got an idea for you. Or perhaps I should say that I’ve got hundreds of ideas for you, inasmuch as the 2008 vintage for white wines from Burgundy is so good that you could just about pick wines blindfolded and still be assured of getting something terrific.
I am not claiming to have broken this story, as WRO’s Michael Apstein has made similar observations in several reviews of wines from this category. However, I happen to have tasted quite a few wines lately from the Côte d’Or, Chablis and Mâcon, and though I was aware in general terms of how good this vintage was supposed to be, I was nevertheless struck by how uniformly excellent it is.
This is especially important for budget-conscious wine lovers, which is to say, virtually everyone. In below-average years, relatively inexpensive white Burgundies can be angular, overly tart, and rather thin and stingy. In such vintages, many consumers would likely be happier buying fewer bottles of more exalted wines from the category–or avoiding it entirely in favor of Chardonnay-based wines from elsewhere. But in 2008, straight AOC Chablis (i.e., not Premier or Grand Cru wines), relatively ordinary Mâcon-Villages and even simple Bourgogne Blanc wines are marvelously mineral and beautifully balanced.
The fact is that $20 wines from this vintage taste like $40 wines from an ordinary year. It is also true that $40 bottles taste like $60 wines from lesser vintages, so you certainly shouldn’t overlook the opportunity involved in a greater outlay. However, the most important point is that many consumers who think that high-quality, very complex white Burgundy is an inherently expensive wine are–at least in this one vintage–mistaken.
This sort of uniform excellence is a rare occurrence, and I believe you’d need to go all the way back to 1996 to find a vintage in which quality at this level was so broadly and deeply distributed. With white Burgundies from 2009 and even 2010 now arriving, the 2008s are starting to disappear, and you’d be well advised to try a few of the wines now to learn whether the character of the vintage suits your preferences. I’d be very surprised if it does not, and as you enjoy these wonderful wines in coming years, I’m confident that you’ll congratulate yourself for having purchased them.
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