and to the extent that folks think this is over, a bottle of 2014 Bitouzet-Prieur Bourgogne Blanc was horribly oxidized this week. just released, from rosenthal.
I never read comments from the winemakers. Leflaive, Lafon etc. What did they say to this dilemma? Any statements from their side? An apology or explanation to the customers? Something like that?
From what I can tell from countless discussions on here about the subject, the winemakers don’t mostly acknowledge it, act concerned about it, or have any plan to diagnose and to solve the problem.
I can just tell from sticker prices - their wines are selling well. They aren’t feeling any pain. They don’t have a problem to be solved.
If the cause is what I suspect it is (riper, less acidic, more gently pressed, earlier drinking wines have less consistent resistance to oxidation - that is just my personal view and not necessarily a widespread one), they may well be worse off solving it, since probably the vast majority of their customers don’t age their wines and I’m guessing the earlier-drinking and more crowd-pleasing style is popular with them.
Now a 2014 being premoxed is a different thing, but I think for the most part, it’s wines in the 7+ years from vintage that seem to hit the problem badly. In fairness to the vignerons, that makes it a hard thing to experiment with - you won’t know for almost a decade if something you tried doing differently actually worked. And they’re mostly small operations, I’m not sure how much incentive any one of them has to research and to try to solve the problem (which, again, doesn’t actually seem to be a problem on their side of the equation).
Of course, they could probably wipe out premox in one easy swoop by switching to screwcaps, but those aren’t romantic and traditional and all that baloney.
surprise surprise oxidized/advanced Lafon. In our annual white burg tasting, when we get to the charmes/perrieres flight and we get something advanced/oxidized, it’s almost always lafon. There hasn’t been a year to my memory where a Lafon wasn’t advanced/oxidized.
I think Chris is right: I’ve only seen useful comments from a couple of winemakers; if others address the problem at all it’s to deny that their wines are involved.
[I think I’d feel like hanging myself if I’d bought an expensive bottle like Lafon’s Perrières and it was oxidized!]
Chris, Lafon absolutely admit that there is a problem and from 2013 onwards seal everything right up to Montrachet with Diam. They use screwcap for Village Macon for the Australian market. They also pick a bit earlier as also mentioned.
90 Lafon Perrieres premoxed in late 90s–before premox was well known. Gorgeous wine young, it just died–and I had 3 cases of it. I haven’t been a Lafon fan since. A 93 Ampeau Perrieres rocks tonight. Amazing that Lafon still commands high prices.