Producer note: Winemaker Frédéric Weber is always a wealth of detail regarding the intricacies of the growing season and regarding the 2019 vintage, he explained that "the winter was relatively mild but very dry, which is in stark contrast with the double of normal rainfall that fell in the winter of 2018. Budbreak was relatively early, indeed it was along the same time frames as 2009 and 2011. Thus there was frost risk in early April as occurred in 2016, but the air was less humid and ultimately, our vines did not suffer much damage though this isn't to say that some communes were not damaged; for example, Chassagne was very hard hit. A cool May slowed the pace of vegetative development, but it was enough to cause a poor flowering as it resulted in a notably high incidence of shot berries. It was already clear at that early juncture that yields for chardonnay were going to be weak. The cool temperatures also triggered an attack of oidium, and it was necessary to react quickly. June though turned hot and dry and this pattern would continue for most of July and August. This resulted in a lot of blocage [hydric stress], particularly for young vines or those in especially poor soil. We chose to begin picking on the 11th of September with the pinot. This is of course unusual, but we simply felt that the chardonnay was not as ripe as it needed to be. As it turned out, we finished the Côte de Beaune on the 20th of September and the Côte de Nuits on the 26th. Sugars were also high and potential alcohols came in between 13.5 and 14.5% for the reds and 14 to 14.5% for the whites. The heat had concentrated the berries and given them very thick skins so we did a very soft vinification to avoid over extraction as this would have been very easy to do. Another interesting aspect of the fruit is that in many cases the seeds were completely brown, and I have never seen that before. The fruit was exceptionally clean, and the stems were ripe, so we used between 25 and 50% whole clusters for many wines though not all. Acidities were reasonably good as the post-malo pHs ranged from 3.6 to 3.7 for the reds and 3.2 to 3.3 for the whites. In terms of style, I would compare the whites to a blend of the 2015 and 2017 vintages and the reds to the 1949s. Between the two Côtes, I would give a slight edge to the Côte de Nuits though I quite like our Côte de Beaune wines as well." As the ratings and commentaries confirm, I was seriously impressed with a number of the Bouchard 2019s. And while I would generally agree with Weber's observation of preferring the Côte de Nuits wines over those of the Côte de Beaune, there are some excellent wines from the latter, and in particular from Volnay and Beaune. (Henriot, Inc., www.henriotinc.com, NY, USA; The Rare & Fine Wine Company Limited, www.therareandfinewinecompany.com, and John E. Fells and Sons, www.fells.co.uk, both UK).