Vintages that make growers happy aren’t necessarily the best harvests in Burgundy. For all the talk about expressing the nuances of terroir, wine is a
business, too. Low yields, especially, low yields that are the result of frost, hail, mildew or rot, are as unwelcome here as they are in any other wine region. So it’s no surprise that after the vicissitudes of 2016 and 2017, both of which were very small crops in Chablis, producers greeted 2018 with such enthusiasm.
To put it succinctly: it’s HUGE, at least in quantity, with many vineyards producing some of their biggest ever crops. People sent wine to the distilleries,
left grapes on the vine and made use of the VCI (Volume Complémentaire Individuel), which allows them to set aside excess wine to compensate for future shortages, and they were still worried about finding enough cellar space to ferment the 2018 harvest. Substantial crops have happened before, of course, in 1959, 1982, 1990, 1999, 2004 and 2011, but this was still unique.

The scores featured in this free mini report are a record of the wines that I tasted in the region in July 2019. I’ve written a fuller and more detailed overview of the vintage on decanter.com, complete with tasting notes for what I think are the best 75 wines of the vintage. (These are indicated by a D in the A-Z and you’ll have to subscribe to the site to see what I thought of them.) But several producers and Burgundy lovers have also asked me to publish the remaining scores on my website, so here they are, available as a free download. I’ll be doing the same thing for the rest of Burgundy in early 2020 ahead of the Burgundy Week tastings in London.