Vintage chart

White Burgundy Vintage Chart: 2000 to 2024

White Burgundy vintage chart with a rating, a drink or hold verdict, and a drinking window for all 25 vintages, including the premox years. Free, no sign-up.

Grapes

Chardonnay

Typical window

3 to 10 years from vintage for village wines, 5 to 18 for premier and grand cru

Ready now

14 of 25 vintages

Still holding

1 vintages

White Burgundy vintage chart

Sommo drinking-window engine · updated July 2026
VintageRatingVerdictDrinking windowWhat happened
2024★★☆☆☆hold2027 to 2032Frost, hail, and persistent mildew through a wet season left a small, difficult crop of lean, sharply acidic whites that need a couple of years to soften.
2023★★★☆☆drink2026 to 2032A very large crop and a warm, humid run into harvest made yield control decisive, and the wines are pleasant and mid-weight but variable in concentration.
2022★★★★☆drink2025 to 2036A hot, dry summer with a healthy, generous crop produced ripe, open, richly fruited whites that kept enough freshness to hold for a decade.
2021★★★☆☆drink2025 to 2032Frost and mildew reduced the crop to a fraction of normal, and the wines that emerged are lean, high-acid, and bracing in a distinctly cool-year style.
2020★★★★☆drink2024 to 2034A very early harvest ahead of the worst summer heat captured ripe fruit with unexpectedly good acidity, giving pure, firmly built whites.
2019★★★★★drink2023 to 2036Frost and heat spikes cut yields while the dry finish preserved acidity, and the wines are concentrated and powerful yet vividly fresh.
2018★★★☆☆drink2021 to 2028A hot, dry summer and a big crop gave ripe, rounded, tropical-leaning whites with soft acidity that should be enjoyed sooner rather than later.
2017★★★★☆drink2021 to 2032A healthy, generous crop ripened evenly in a warm, dry season, producing balanced, aromatic whites with both flesh and cut.
2016★★★★☆drink2020 to 2032The April frost cut yields severely but a warm, dry late summer ripened the remainder into fresh, chiseled, tightly wound whites.
2015★★★☆☆drink2018 to 2027Heat and drought pushed sugars high and acidity low, giving rich, broad, honeyed whites that are best drunk before they turn heavy.
2014★★★★★drink2018 to 2034A cool, dry September after an unpromising summer delivered whites with textbook tension between ripe fruit and firm acidity, and they are still climbing.
2013★★★☆☆drink2017 to 2027A late, cold season with damaging hail produced a small crop of fresh, high-acid, citrus-toned wines that are drinking well right now.
2012★★★★☆drink2016 to 2028Frost, hail, and poor flowering slashed the crop, but the concentrated survivors are dense, savory whites with plenty of grip.
2011★★☆☆☆past2014 to 2022An early, warm spring and a showery summer forced an early harvest, and the soft, low-acid wines were built for immediate drinking.
2010★★★★★drink2014 to 2032Small yields and a cool, clean season gave whites of unusual purity and balance, with the concentration and acidity to keep going well past twenty years.
2009★★★☆☆past2012 to 2024A warm, sunny year produced rich, ripe, low-acid whites that were delicious in their youth and are past their best now.
2008★★★★☆drink2012 to 2028A dry, cold wind before harvest left concentrated fruit with searing acidity, and these tense, stony wines are among the most durable of their era.
2007★★★★☆past2010 to 2023A cool, early season suited Chardonnay better than Pinot Noir, giving taut, citrus-driven whites that aged well for a decade before thinning out.
2006★★★☆☆past2009 to 2020A hot July and a wet August produced ripe, broad, generously fruited whites that drank well early and have largely faded.
2005★★★☆☆past2008 to 2020The dry, warm season that made great reds gave whites more richness than tension, and few now show the freshness they need.
2004★★★☆☆past2007 to 2018A cool, wet year gave lean, high-acid, sometimes green wines that promised longevity but were badly hit by oxidation problems.
2003★☆☆☆☆past2005 to 2012The heatwave stripped out acidity entirely and the resulting broad, low-acid, tropical wines aged into flatness within a few years.
2002★★★★☆past2005 to 2020A dry, breezy autumn concentrated the fruit into the best whites of the early decade, balanced and long, though a great many bottles have since browned prematurely.
2001★★☆☆☆past2004 to 2014Rain around picking diluted an already modest crop, producing slight wines that were never meant for a long stay in the cellar.
2000★★★☆☆past2003 to 2014A damp season gave soft, forward wines with modest concentration, and premature oxidation has taken a heavy toll on what survived.

Ratings are Sommo's own reading of the vintage, on a five-point scale. Verdicts come from the same drinking-window engine the app runs on a bottle you scan, so a chart here and a bottle in your cellar are judged the same way. 10 of these vintages are past their best by our reckoning, which is the column most charts quietly leave out.

White Burgundy has a problem no other vintage chart has to account for: premature oxidation. From the late 1990s onward, a significant number of bottles browned and flattened years before they should have, for reasons that were never fully pinned down and were probably several things at once. The result is that a good vintage from that era is not a reliable promise about the bottle in front of you.

That is why the past column here is longer than you might expect. It is not a judgment on how the wines were made, it is a judgment on what is likely to be in a bottle you open in 2026.

Common questions

What is premature oxidation in white Burgundy?

A pattern, most visible in wines from the late 1990s through the 2000s, of bottles turning deep gold and tasting of bruised apple and sherry long before their expected peak. Suspected causes include changes in cork production, reduced sulfur at bottling, and riper picking. Producers have largely addressed it, but affected vintages remain unreliable.

How long should white Burgundy age now?

Village wines are best between two and six years, premier crus between four and twelve, and the top grand crus for fifteen or more. Wines made since the mid-2010s have been noticeably more dependable than those from the premox era, so recent vintages can be cellared with more confidence.

Does this chart cover Chablis?

Only loosely. Chablis is further north, on Kimmeridgian soil, more frost-prone, and generally unoaked, so its vintage pattern diverges from the Côte de Beaune. Frost years hit Chablis harder than anywhere else in Burgundy.

Is a browning white Burgundy always faulty?

No. Some color development is normal with age, particularly in oaked wines. The tell is the smell: nutty, honeyed complexity is development, while bruised apple, sherry, and a flat finish where the fruit used to be is oxidation. If the wine tastes shorter than it smells, it has gone.

Where do these ratings come from?

They are Sommo's own reading of each vintage, on a five-point scale, and the verdicts come from the same drinking-window logic the app applies to a bottle you scan. They are not aggregated critic scores.

Your cellar, not a chart

A chart guesses. Your bottle knows.

Scan a bottle and Sommo reads the vintage, the region, and the style, then tells you whether to open it tonight or leave it alone for three more years.