Are we "overly" paranoid about WB premox? I know I am.

Though I can’t process 17 wines, with food, in any one setting, reading of this event makes me wonder whether WB is getting a bum rap, though it deserves a bad one, for Premox— and other flaws.

I raise a serious point here that I had been thinking about before I read this thread. Are we too focused on finding premox? Or…too focused on avoiding it? (And, I’m already on record as saying I won’t try to “avoid” it by drinking wines “before their time”). But, I do think we are overanalyzing for the presence of this plague and jumping to conclusions too soon and maybe not accurate. I know I’m guilty.

Recently, in Maine, I opened two WB to serve with lobsters: a 1996 Niellon Chassagne-Montrachet 1er cru “Les Chaumees” and a 2000 Sauzet Puligny-Montrachet 1er cru “Les Combettes”(one of Burgundy’s best white wines IMO). I am a big believer in white wines’ need to aerate (less so for reds, but), so I open whites of all kinds early in the day I want to drink them. I taste them, aerate them in open decanter…and most often, leave them in bottle and follow them for a day or two thereafter, too. I am convinced that many wines we all conclude are flawed are not; they really just need lots of aeration to be sure of anything much.

With those two WB’s , I concluded that both were likely premoxed (though, at least with a 19 year old wine, is an oxidized wine really “prematurely” so? I think not, but…) Neither was oxidized ultimately, though it took me hours to figure out the Sauzet was not, and until the next day to figure out the Niellon was not. They were both aging wines, with some hints of oxidation, not surprisingly (the Niellon was fairly dark, too, another clue for paranoids). Neither was a great wine, but neither was flawed.

I’ve had too many wines that became good with aeration that I thought were flawed in various ways…“no fruit”; “premoxed”, “too old”, etc.

Reading Ken’s thread, above linked, makes me wonder two things: what was the aeration for these wines…and…would many/most of the “flaws” in the flawed wines have disappeared with sufficient aeration? (I also realize that older Remoissenet whites are not good bets and might well be really gone…)

Or…are that many of the wines Ken had really “bad”?

Or…are we looking too hard for flaws, especially “premox” and finding it more than it actually presents?

My experience convinced me I was being hyper-vigilant, if not paranoid.

And, I’m wondering if our paranoia/hyper-vigilance for WB premox is not ruining the experience more than the actual premox has ruined bottles?

When you get repeated pre-moxed wines, you are not being overly paranoid just realistic. So much so for me, that I either don’t buy them in the first place, buy Chablis that I have had a better track record with, or drink them early thus forgoing the pleasure of aging.

I’ve been convinced for a while that many whites that come out of the gate as reductive get poured down the drain as premoxed before they get a chance to show their stuff. but I wouldn’t expect Ken to make this mistake. It’s almost always clear after an hour or at most two of air. the funky reductive wines freshen up markedly, and not infrequently lighten in color. That doesn’t change the fact that premox is still rampant, and the single most disastrous phenomenon of my wine drinking lifetime. And in addition, well–just very, very sad.

I think sometimes it is overblown. Especially with some older wines. However, it is at other times blatantly obvious that a wine is premoxed. The easiest tell IMO is when 2 bottles of the same wine are opened next to one another. This, to me is the scary part of premox one can be wonderful, the other dead. It happens all too often.

George

I will agree that dead wines can come back top life with air. I never pour down the drain for that reason but wait and hope. Still, eventually, you give up and pour the wine down the drain. After doing that a lot starting with 96 vintage, and continuing for a while, I just quite buying. Its like a corked wine. It puts a damper on the evening. I know I can just open up another bottle, but its not the same. So, again, I just quite buying.

I think this phenomenon makes us way overly analytical…and assuming the worst…further ruining our enjoyment of the category.

Whenever I read that someone has opened a bottle that is supposedly oxidized…I want to know how it was prepared before believing it. “Even” I jumped to that conclusion/assumption on the two wines I opened in Maine…and neither was shot or oxidized…both…just good, rather than great wines when they opened up.

WB tells you nothing with pop and pour, IMO. That we are looking for maderization/sherry makes us more likely to find it, too.

I quit buying all wine in 2007, so this subject is not really about buying or using our consumer power…but about what we’re finding.

I’ve often held a “prematurely oxidized” bottle for a day or so to see if it mends itself, but, so far, no miraculous recoveries have occurred.

Even paranoiacs have enemies!

Well, I had two this month…

and…it took me a long time to figure out they weren’t…

I’ve had enough let downs to feel that it’s just not worth the risk. If I buy a white burg, I drink it in 1-2 years. No need to risk it when my Other Chards can age.

I"m not arguing that the risk is overblown . (I think it is because we all jump to conclusions when they’re not all oxidized and we can determine better with aeration). Or that people buy them. But, I don’t see any value in drinking a WB “in 1-2 years” if it’s young at purchase. Why bother?

I hang onto every premoxed bottle for a couple days to see if I get the magic turnaround, but no luck so far.

To answer the question, when something bad happens often, it’s natural for that to ruin more than just the times it happens.

Do you find the nutty flavors go away? or just more fruit appears? Cause when I have a premox’d bottle, sometimes the next day it opens up and there’s more fruit, but all those premox flavors are still there. It drinks better than the previous day, but it’s definitely still way advanced. I’ve never had one where the premox flavors just disappear. I also think each person’s tolerance of “advanced” is different as well.

There are wines that show well in their youth…and I still enjoy them despite the fact that they’re young. However, sometimes…just sometimes…they show as if they were already advanced. I can catch them in that magical stage where they taste “almost-aged”…even though they’re not.

i think a lot of people assume the fault has to be premox when dealing with white burgundy. obviously if you are in the cellar of a producer and they have to open 6 bottles of youngish grand cru to get 1 drinkable bottle there is a problem. however when you read of people complaining about dead bottles of village wine from a mediocre vintage and producer after the 10 year mark, what do you expect? also to me a truly premoxed bottle is undrinkable at best. when people say a wine is advanced but drinkable (especially if it is older than 10 years), how is it not just bottle variation?

Quite honestly, when I read here about white Burgundy, I’m sometimes scratching my head. I sometimes think that more white Burgundy bottles in the US may be affected than in Europe (maybe due to the wines crossing the ocean?) as I’m sometimes having prem-oxed bottles, but my rate and the prem-ox rate of white burgundies I drink in restaurants or at friends is around 5% (which is still way too much, but bearable). The problem I see is that the first thought seems to be “premox yes or no?”, which I think can destroy the fun of drinking wine. Here in Germany and also in France, people don’t see the problem as much as in the US. So the reactions to the occasional prem-oxed bottle I see are “oh well, bad luck” or “tastes strange”, but it’s more limited to individual bottles and not so much generalizing. That being said, I quit buying certain producers as well (e.g. Matrot, Fontaine-Gagnard) as I noticed a higher rate of prem-ox with their wines. But my thought is: either quit buying altogether or live with the fact that some bottles here and there are prematurely oxidized.

Steven,
There may be more premox here in the US, but I am not aware of statistics demonstrating that. Sources such the wiki and wine boards will likely display negative bias in my opinion. It is a possibility suggested by Clive Coates (“The incidence of ‘prem-ox’ bottles was and continues to be distinctly higher in the USA than in France and Great Britain.”), and since Coates regularly participates in fairly large-scale tastings in the US as well as in Europe, including vintage retrospectives, I give his observation good weight. If winemaking in the recent past has resulted in wines more susceptible to rapid oxidation, and there has been a change in the quality of cork as well as how it is treated that creates more susceptibility to oxidation, it is not unreasonable to think that additional step in passing through the chain of distribution, through different facilities via different transport with shocks of handling, vibration, and temperature changes along the way, might increase the incidence.

There’s always been a certain amount of premature oxidation because, among other things, corks aren’t 100% perfect seals. And some lower level wines no doubt do have a short useful life, and I think everyone here understands that.

But the issue of “premature oxidation” that concerns us is the markedly higher percentage of formerly reliable agers going over the hill at relatively young ages, starting with vintages 1995 and 1996. Premier and Grand Crus that historically had given decades of pleasure (assuming good storage, etc.) were now susceptible to turning toes up at six, seven years after vintage. That’s new. A good overview of the scope of the problem is provided at: http://oxidised-burgs.wikispaces.com

I did have some problems with the 1995 and 1996 vintages, where I experienced considerable premature oxidation in white Burgundies. While that gave pause to perhaps reconsider buying these wines, I found myself plunging ahead anyway as I do enjoy white Burgundies.

I don’t look for premature oxidation in any bottle that I open from later vintages; instead look forward to the pleasures forthcoming. While I have cut down the time that I cellar these wines, my recent experience with 10 to 15 years old Premier Cru’s has been remarkably good. Producers that I have found to be reliable are Guy Amiot & Fils, Boyer Martenot and Remoissenet. Good experience also with Chablis from Domaine Barat, although I have been drinking Barat’s Premier Cru’s at 5 or 6 years of age ( a regular go-to House white ).

Hank

Didn’t need to look hard to spot it in a recent 2007 Henri Boillot Puligny-Montrachet Clos de la Mouchere. Paranoid? Nope. Aggravated.

Yet, not so much anymore. It’s my own damn fault for buying the stuff. It’s a known risk…so you simply move forward to the next wine. Baby-killed a 2013 Fevre Les Clos, and it was lovely.

RT

Not paranoid, just wary. But last night my guard was down, as previous 6 bottles of 02 Remi Jobard Meursault Charmes have been fine. #7 wasn’t fully oxidized, but darker and with clear notes of oxidation. Tasted like 30 years old rather than a teenager.