2004 Louis Jadot Corton-Charlemagne Domaine des Héritiers Louis Jadot- France, Burgundy, Côte de Beaune, Corton-Charlemagne Grand Cru (6/23/2017)
I had high expectations. This bottle was perfectly kept after purchasing at retail in a wine fridge. Color was light straw when poured but when I approached this wine the nose gave up that cidery premox aroma. What a horrible shame. This was just a huge waste of money and storage. 04 should be drinking perfectly at this point. Just horrible premox. First experience of Jadot premox on a Grand Cru level. I have had some Pernand over the hill but the first CC. I empathise with others that have wasted great sums and have this flaw. I am on a much smaller scale with my spending but it hurts as much. NR (flawed)
Jadot might be working furiously (and quietly) to solve this problem with their white wines, but if that’s the case they’re being very, very quiet about it because nothing I’ve read indicates that they even acknowledge the problem ("Premature oxidation? What premature oxidation??)
Many of my premoxed Fevre’s were like that (light color). Not all of them were tho. These were all 02, 04 & 05s btw. Interestingly, none of my 01s had issues. And my problem bottles where disproportionately from one source (not PC). I still have a couple 05s (from a lot that all ended up being premoxed )…I’m aging them for a not-yet-decided amt of time to see if the ‘rhone whites’ theory is correct (rhone whites typically go through an apparent oxidative phase in their middle years, only to come out of it fresh as a daisy (a fresh daisy with some age)…some have proposed this is what’s happening to premoxed white burgs). I’m a skeptic but, at this point, it’s a cheap experiment to do (sadly, an experiment without any conclusive results, except a nice bottle of wine hopefully).
Jadot has started using Diam corks starting with the 2011 vintage.
It appears (to me) that Fevre has either solved or made major progress on their premox probem (starting 2007 for their 1er crus, and 2010 for grand crus). Their move to Diam seems to be a part of that, tho Fevre put effort in several other areas, and they were fairly up front (compared to others) about their problem and what they were doing. Maybe Jadot is making similar moves, but I’d be cautious about buying to hold without hearing more.
Yes the straw color surprised me a bit. I had Lamy Chassagne from 01 and 99 that was dark and obviously oxidized as an example. The Jadot looked light and I had high hopes.
I have some Latour and Boillot CC from the same vintage which I will curious to try.
The part that bothers me is that I have gone to vertical tastings with Lardiere where the wines presented were impeccable. I had high hope that my bottles would escape the premox curse. But, such is life.
Can anyone convince me that this is not a faulty description of premox? My guess is that Rhone whites were just premoxing and people fit their experience into that theory. I’m saying that because people used to say this about white Beaucastel, but my experience with that wine is indistinguishable from premox in white Burgundy.
For a given bottle this theory is untestable. You open one and it’s oxidized. Then you open another two years later and it’s not. Do you really believe the second bottle was like the first two years before? I don’t.
The only difference I see is that Marsanne and Roussane may have some aromas that overlap a bit with oxidation, so it’s conceivable that it’s more likely to see a bottle that is not oxidized but seems like it might be.
I agree…I don’t see a way to prove that the ‘rhone whites syndrome’ isn’t just premox, otoh I don’t see prove the reverse as well (that premox isn’t the rhone white syndrome). Ultimately, we don’t understand the ‘real’ cause of premox (or rhone white syndrome) so it’s hard to prove anything.
Before you think I’m just being obtuse here…last month I opened a bottle of 2003 Dauvissat Les Clos. Upon opening, it was nice but a tiny bit tired. It got increasingly tired as we made and ate dinner (we were working on other wines as well). It was still quite enjoyable, and it wasn’t surprising given 2003. Except at the end of dinner, ~2.5 hours after the bottle was opened, it sprang into an incredibly youthful vibrant minerally form. At that point, I wished we had the entire bottle back again. We did have a couple of small glasses left to enjoy, which I was quite thankful for.
In a similar vein, quite a number of years ago I was at a Francoise Audouze dinner in SF. To join the dinner, you had to bring a Calif wine older than 1980. Someone brought a 1979 Kistler Chardonnay. Wow, I had no idea Kistler went that far back. Unfortunately the wine was completely dead when opened. Until ~an hour later when it sprang to life, similar to the 03 Dauvissat…not to the same degree, but Kistler isn’t Chablis. My point is wine is far more strange than we give it credit for
I agree it’s untestable (that’s what I intended when I said ‘sadly, an experiment without any conclusive results’, but I could have been clearer on that).
That’s been the traditional argument for the ‘rhone white syndrome’, which would make it hard to apply to white burgs premoxing. Except that some, Fevres esp, premoxed in an odd way. Clear rather than brown, off/fatal aromas/tastes (that don’t recover with any amt of air) but not in a typical sherry/premox kind of way, and not in any sort of reductive way that I’m familiar with.
Having quite a good experience with white Rhones in all stages of developement I can asure you that the “closed stage” of white Rhones is totally different from premox …
It´s got nothing to do with “apple must” … which is typical of premox …
Rhones are typically very closed and almost neutral aromatically, boring and often with sharp acidity - and when they are darker than usual it´s more nutty/almond-like …
Sorry to tell, but premox is not only a “closed Rhone stage” …
But I also cannot exclude that some thought their white Burg (or anything) premoxed … and it was only a closed stage (e.g. the Chablis Les Clos) … maybe some people are crying “premox” far too early when there is a tiny hint of golden colour … and some developed aromas in a 10 y old Burg … which is normal for some styles …
THESE wines will benefit from more air (and I wonder why they didn´t slow-ox it initially) …
)…I’m aging them for a not-yet-decided amt of time to see if the ‘rhone whites’ theory is correct (rhone whites typically go through an apparent oxidative phase in their middle years, only to come out of it fresh as a daisy (a fresh daisy with some age)…some have proposed this is what’s happening to premoxed white burgs). I’m a skeptic but, at this point, it’s a cheap experiment to do (sadly, an experiment without any conclusive results, except a nice bottle of wine hopefully).