Hello All. I will have the rare opportunity to try a 1916 Pommard over the holidays, specifically the Hospices de Beaune bottled by Quancard. This bottle is the cellar of a colleague, who inherited it from his father (it’s his father’s birth year). Obviously a risky proposition to begin with, but I want to proceed as carefully as possible. I’ve just spoken to my friend, who says the level is roughly 7cm or perhaps a bit more below the cork; he also mentioned that the level has changed significantly in the past year or two, which is certainly worrisome. Broadbent says in “Vintage Wine” that 7cm for red Burgundy is “rarely a risk.” I should add that some other old Burgundies from his cellar with low levels have been fine, BUT not nearly this old, or quite so low.
Assuming that there is a chance that this is still drinkable, is the Audouze method advisable in this case, and if so, are there any recommendations for how I should go about it?
Francois, if you happen to see this, I would be most grateful for your personal advice.
I agree on what Michael Broadbent says about the risk with 7 cm.
I have opened this week-end two bottles having 10 cm and the two were not drinkable.
This means that the risk exists anyway with low levels.
You can use the slow oxygenation method. You let stand the bottle in your cellar for one day and 4 hours before serving the wine, you open it gently, with calm gestures and you lift the cork very quietly.
Before opening you clean well the top of the bottle when you have cut the capsule. You use a humid towel and the top of the glass must be perfectly clean.
When the cork is out, use your fingers to clean the neck of the bottle, inside. The neck should be clean too.
If the smell is bad, do not worry too much because the 4 hours will transform the smell.
Of course, a dead wine will never recover, but a wounded wine will recover.
Let the wine stand in a cool atmosphere like 16 / 17 celsius.
Do not pour a glass, do not decant.
Serve the wine when it is time with slow gestures in order to keep the sediment quiet at the bottom. And enjoy !
Here is what I have written about 1916 Clos de Tart : the color is beautiful and clear, the nose is very beautiful. The wine is fresh, clear, clear and pure. A very great wine with a final of great distinction.
The first thing I would make sure you have is a Durand corkscrew. Even with that, there is a chance the cork will fall into the bottle, or disintegrate. if it disintegrates, use wide filter even a small sieve to get rid of corky bits (not a coffee filter, as it will take up some of the aromatic matter)
It’s hard to be sure of the virtues of giving the wine air, but if this your chosen method, I will let others comment on that.
We opened a 1911 last year, and it was surprising how well it showed for half an hour. The cork was intact, level about 5 cms and at its best, the wine was quite lovely. Opened, decanted and poured immediately.
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“The Battle of Verdun (Bataille de Verdun), fought from 21 February to 18 December 1916, was one of the largest and longest battles of the First World War on the Western Front between the German and French armies… In 1980, Terraine gave c. 750,000 Franco-German casualties in 299 days of battle; Dupuy and Dupuy gave 542,000 French casualties in 1993…”
Francois, thank you very much for weighing in on this.
But, Mark also raises an excellent question, one that I had definitely been contemplating: if the wine is a “dead man walking,” then it may only last for half an hour after opening. This is a very significant bottle for my friend (being from his father’s birth year), so the objective is to get as much enjoyment out of it as possible, and that may mean drinking it promptly.
So the real question is, what are the chances that slow breathing will help it, rather than burning the window in which it might be drinkable after opening? Is there there a middle ground, a “safe” amount of slow breathing?
I should note that we have seen some almost magical transformations with air from this cellar.
Personally I would open in bottle for 30mins then start checking it out. If it’s drinking well, then enjoy…if it’s nasty, then let it air out for an hour or two or three…to see if it changes for the better. While you’re waiting, enjoy some other bottle(s).
It is because you do not touch a bottle for 4 hours that the wine improves.
A wine which is not touched goes for the better and not for the worse.
When a wine is opened immediately and served, it can collapse half an hour later.
A wine which has waited for four hours and is served will not collapse half an hour later, it will last for more than one hour in the same condition.
There is more risk in serving a wine immediately after opening than serving it four hours later because the influence of slow oxygenation is always positive.
Of course, if the wine is dead, it will not live again but would never have lived being served immediately.
After thousands and thousands of wines opened this way (4250 bottles prior to 1970) I have seen an incredibly small number of wines which should have been drunk immediately.
But it is good too that wine amateurs make their own experiences. I would not change mine, because it works.
I am not sure that I have ever really understood the logic of slow oxygenation. By just leaving the bottle open, you are exchanging oxygen at the very top of the bottle, and only a fraction of the wine will receive the fresh oxygen.
By extension if you are not going to decant the wine, the first glass will be very different to the last glass, which received no fresh oxygen.
Francois, what do you say though about extracting old corks? They do crumble - then what. Even if you’re using a Durand, they don’t always come out intact. And the Durand has the long worm, can sometimes push a bit of cork through.
I may not understand all of the slow-ox technique but I don’t doubt Francois’s sincerity. Also there is a lot about wine that I do not completely understand.
(Luckily, I know you all here will fill the gaps of my knowledge. )
Not much to add to Francois´ experienced advice … I agree 100% …
(sorry Mark, but I´ve seen many old bottles ruined by immediate serving … a friend of mine does it (too) often in our monthly tasting round - my consequence: never ever again with a bottle of mine!)
Fill level in old Burgundies: there IS a higher risk with 6/7/8+ cm below cork … but I´ve tasted great wines with even 9/10 cm … and bad ones with 4-5 cm … so there is always a chance but never a guarantee …
As I witnessed the Audouze method a number of times myself, not only in Paris but also in the south of France where the wines travelled (in advance but still) I’m a firm believer of this method.
In addition to what François has explained in detail, I have been using the wineshield (Australian product, company now defunct) with great success. The physical cover of the wine shield not only helps the slowox process (lot’s of interesting information in recent wine chemistry books) but it keeps the aroma compounds locked in so to speak. Enjoy!
When someone asks me gently to help him to use the slowox method, as Ryan did, I do not feel necessary to justify once again this method.
The people who doubt are free to doubt.
Just one comment on Mark’s remark. He says : “By just leaving the bottle open, you are exchanging oxygen at the very top of the bottle, and only a fraction of the wine will receive the fresh oxygen.”
I have heard or read this comment hundreds times. It is not the oxygen which goes down, it is the bad molecules with ugly smells which evaporate. So, even if the surface is tiny, the molecules will find their way to escape in the air.
Why does a wine which stinks loses all the bad smells after 4 hours ? It is not because air goes down, it is because bad smells evaporate.
This said I will not answer any more to justify this method, even it has my name associated, as I have made this exercise hundreds of times.
It’s confusing because Francois’s method isn’t really about oxygenation at all – that’s the wrong term. It’s about letting some unpleasant volatile scents evaporate, with as little introduction of oxygen as possible, as Francois elucidated in his later post here.
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