Olivier’s confidence has grown noticeably over the four years we have been dealing with him and his wines, and with good reason. He knows that he has filled his boots with a superlative range of wines in 2010, with his usual hallmarks of seductive rich fruit nonetheless faithful to each terroir, but now with an extra degree of refinement. As well as his own confidence – and mine – in the wines, he is happy too with the reaction of the international press, notably Allen Meadows, Steve Tanzer and Jancis Robinson.

The recipe begins with close management in the vineyards, where almost all the plots enjoy the benefit of old vines, from 40 years old for the Meursault and Puligny to 80+ for Gevrey-Chambertin Cazetiers and Mazis-Chambertin. Olivier pays according to the maximum permitted yield from a given plot, rather than the low crop level which is actually set. During vinification the wines are very lightly handled, with a good proportion of stems included to maintain a lively thread throughout, while the barrels are made to order by master cooper Stéphane Chassin, who comes to taste the new vintage before deciding what type of toasting will suit each individual wine.

It is hard to pick particular favourites, but as well as the wines mentioned above I really enjoyed the dancing elegance of the Chambolle Lavrottes, the suave and sensual Gevrey-Chambertin les Champeaux, and similarly among the grands crus the precision of Clos de la Roche and the velvet Bonnes Mares. All three whites showed a fresh dramatic tension which sets them apart from earlier vintages.

On her farmland in Germany, Maria Thun conducted many trials comparing the same product being planted on fruit or flower or leaf or root days. Were there consistent differences? Evidently so. While this sort of experiment does nothing to indicate what scientific truths there may or may not be behind the seemingly fanciful approach of biodynamic practices, it is very welcome to see proponents conducting field trials with proper rigour.

She also, latterly with her son Matthias, produced the admirable annual biodynamic gardening calendar, celebrating the 50th edition this year. This is an invaluable tool for its daily information, as well as for the various essays detailing recent trials and new thoughts about biodynamics.

We are currently revising our management of organic and biodynamic wines on our website. On the organic front, we have decided only to flag up those who are certified as organic, or in conversion towards certification (a three-year process). For biodynamic farming we take a slightly different view as we regard biodynamism as a philosophy more than a regime. We therefore plan to highlight both those who are certified biodynamic, and those who are comfortable in being described as ‘broadly biodynamic’.

More and more of our Burgundy producers are tending towards the biodynamic – and I am sure they are all aware how much they owe to Maria Thun.

Immediately after landing we met the Japanese translators of Inside Burgundy over a cheerful meal. They have already pretty much done the translating and were full of questions, having ferreted out any inconsistencies in the text with impressive attention to detail. There are also some fascinating insights into language: did you know that in Japanese there are no single words for brother or sister – you have to specify elder brother, younger brother et cetera. So now I have lots of homework checking whether Denis is older than Jean-Pierre and so on.

Food throughout the visit was always very good and often magical – particularly a great sushi meal washed down with Krug Grande Cuvée and Puligny-Montrachet Combettes 2002 from Leflaive. Now at last I have learned that the slivers of ginger are to cleanse the palate between different bites of sushi rather than to act as another condiment. Congratulations also to l’Alliance restaurant for brilliant wine and food pairings over a dinner based around lafon Meursaults and a trio of 2006 Clos de Vougeot.

Among the high spots were the ‘Long Lunch’, a sort of mini Paulée held at the Hong Kong Cricket Club, who supplied a match to watch to boot. However we spent more time concentrating on the wines than on the cricket, generous guests bringing bottles from Lafon, Blain-Gagnard, Vougeraie, Roumier, Grivot, de Montille, Rossignol-Trapet, Perrot-Minot, Cathiard, Rémy, Fourrier, Dugat-Py and more.

The key will be to encourage appreciation right across the range and this should be possible. Wines such as Sylvain Loichet’s Ladoix Bois de Gréchon have found favour already, and good quality Bourgogne Rouge is being snapped up. As we expected, the learning curve develops frighteningly quickly.

We did many more wine events this year with Cantonese food which is a stimulating development. I like the idea of having lots of bottles open on the table so you can grab a sip of whichever one might please you with whichever nibble of dim sum or peking duck catches your fancy. Dishes which I really enjoyed this week included braised pomelo skins and some baby roast pigeon. Apparently I was just too late for seasonal snake soup.

Too late now, the offer has gone to the printers and will land on doorsteps throughout the land in time for the new campaign to kick off on Wednesday 4th January. Then the fur will fly because the wines are exceptional in 2010 but there is very little volume compared to last year. Delicious reds in a classic style, with excellent balance between fruit, acidity and tannins. The whites are also mostly very impressive, generous wines with good acidity, while Chablis is superb.

Jasper Morris MW

Clearly it is not even across the board – this is definitely a year which required all due care and attention throughout the growing season – but the good guys are thoroughly pleased with the final results.  The general consensus seems to be:

• A large crop of healthy whites. Serious growers have come in a little under the official maximum yield but doubtless there are cowboys who have gone well over. Overcroppers will have had trouble ripening their grapes.
• A small crop of reds which have needed sorting to deselect rot. Happily people know how to do this these days, and otherwise the grapes were healthy with small bunches due to millerandage after flowering. There was some uneven ripeness too.
• Relatively low sugar levels compared to recent years but thick skins with good colour extraction and a ripe feel to them
• Lowish acidity yet with good pH balance. The acidity is more tartaric than malic, which means that little will be lost in the malolactic fermentation
• A small but superb vintage in the Beaujolais!

I went down to the Maconnais on Monday to see the last grapes coming in chez Olivier Merlin. His vines were still in excellent condition with glowing golden grapes – a very happy man!

But further rain over the next few days was less welcome and the whole month of July proved cooler and wetter than usual. Having started to talk about bringing forward the harvest from the initially suggested 25th August, producers were now pushing back towards the beginning of September. Indeed veraison was by no means complete at the end of July, and the grapes are usually ripe for harvest one month after colour change.

Overall the season was less stormy than expected apart from minor hail in Corton-Charlemagne, Gevrey-Chambertin and Puligny-Montrachet, plus one really devastating storm in Rully on 12th July following a more minor attack in June.

August began clear and sunny but the July pattern of showery days returned with temperatures below or approaching the seasonal norm. There was at least some rain fall from 3rd to 8th August and again on 12th, 14th and 15th, though little sustained rain and happily avoiding any violent storms. But some local rot was now appearing in a few red wine vineyards, though the whites continued to look healthy.

I bumped into local oenologist Veronique Girard on the 16th and she reported lower malic and higher tartaric acidity compared to the equally early season of 2007, a good thing as the wines will be better balanced. Meanwhile a period of hot humid weather began on 17th with heavy overnight rain, continuing though without precipitation for the best part of a week. Then, on Wednesday 24th came a break in the weather after another hot start. The wind swung round to the northwest and brought occasional showers, with rumbles of thunder, along with a welcome drop in temperature.

One or two people began on 24th, picking plots which were ahead of schedule or in danger of major rot issues, but the weather forecast was poor for Thursday (in fact just one very heavy shower over lunch) and terrible on Friday (heavy rain for most of the day, while Saturday was grey and drizzly in the morning before perking up in the afternoon. The sun returned on Sunday but with lower temperatures and a fresher feel, allowing the ground time to dry out without advancing any rot too precipitately.

We could certainly have done without the rain at the end of last week, but nonetheless all is set fair for harvest to begin in earnest this week, with a relatively good forecast to look forward to. There is not much difference in timing between Côte de Beaune and Côte de Nuits this year, with the Mâconnais a bit further behind.

A ‘Ten Year On’ tasting held by Clive Coates and Becky Wasserman with many of the growers also participating gave me a chance to put that right, and so it has. The full details are apparent in the main article here which includes tasting notes on all the leading wines,

2001 falls short of a first class vintage but there is much to enjoy. You sense the slight lack of sunshine, especially in the bouquets which rarely leap out of the glass in seductive fashion. The whites were perhaps more ready, some beginning to tire, others still in their prime.

There were virtually no red wines which seemed to be tiring. There were no truly outstanding wines either, lacking the extra coat of velvet which a great year can give. The style of 2001 is a touch on the austere side but the fruit is there to be appreciated and the structure is balanced. Hardly a tasting note remarked on either a surplus or a deficit of acidity, and very rarely did tannins impinge.

One interesting observation was how well the wines showed where stems had been used during vinification – Domaines de la Romanée Conti, Dujac, Lambrays, de l’Arlot and from the Côte de Beaune de Courcel and Chandon de Briailles for example.

It should be noted that the wines were not tasted blind and that the samples came directly from the producers’ own cellars, hence stored under the best possible conditions. Many producers provided magnums and these have been marked (M) in the text.

Two previous vintages were in everybody’s mind: 2007 began with an equally precocious spring including an exceptionally glorious April, calmed a little bit in May and declined noticeably thereafter. 1976 was a year of severe drought and considerable heat. In both cases the vintage began in August. (Note 2003 was quite different, the season being marked by prolonged and exceptional heat spikes in late June and the first half of August).

The first flowers were seen as early as May 10th, almost exactly the same as in 2007, and properly looked after vineyards were bursting with health – those which had never been ploughed looked much stragglier. There was a long term fear for the build up of drought problems however, especially if the season was to develop along 1976 lines. However, as in 2007, May was a little cooler than April and with a few more showers, occasionally storms. The village sages were talking of a hot and stormy summer – apparently the magpies were nesting close to the houses which they do when storms are in the offing…

Useful rain followed in early June rapidly followed by a hosepipe ban which immediately brought more rain – could this be the same deteriorating pattern as 2007? Let us hope not – it does not feel that way, and rarely do vintages repeat themselves so closely. Fingers crossed for the next two months and for a successful harvest starting at the end of August.

Then we went en masse – Simon Berry as publisher, our publishing colleagues Chris Foulkes and Carrie Segrave, and our wonderful designer Lizzie Ballantyne – to the Goring Hotel for the André Simon Food & Wine Book Awards. It was a strong field this year among the wine books so we were very nervous, definitely hopeful but no more than that. Sarah-Jane Evans MW was presiding over the wine book and I got less and less hopeful as she sang the praises of all four short listed books –

GROGAN’S COMPANION TO DRINK
by Peter Grogan
Published by Virgin Books
INSIDE BURGUNDY
by Jasper Morris
Published by Berry Bros & Rudd Press

READING BETWEEN THE VINES
by Terry Theise
Published by University of California Press

WINE MYTHS AND REALITY
by Benjamin Lewin MW
Published by Vendange Press

However, as you may by now have guessed, the final magic words – “and the winner is…. Inside Burgundy!” brought joy and relief. A great result for Berry Bros & Rudd Press with their first book, and for Chris and Carrie who have now achieved 8 André Simon award winners in their publishing career.