There have been a couple of references in various threads to premoxed white Burgs coming back to life - at least becoming enjoyable, if not becoming what they should have been - after an hour or two in a decanter.
Given my buying history, most of the time bombs sitting in my cellar seem to be Fevre Chablis (at this point, just '09s and '10s).
The Fevres I’ve opened the last couple of years have all been shot, but I didn’t try the “corpse reviver” to see if they came back. Has anyone tried this specifically with Fevre, and has it worked, or not?
No. Every one that seemed premoxed was, sadly. (?perhaps because Fevre doesn’t so much use that reductive style that Dauvissat does).
One point of semantics that always bothers me a bit–truly premoxed wines don’t wake up with air–they just get worse, just as truly corked wines never improve with air, so discussions talking about premoxed wines coming around are mis-using the term and tend to lead to a misunderstanding that premoxed wines can come around. The proper way to think about them and refer to them would be ‘wines that seem like they might be premoxed’, just as you might say that a wine seemed initially that it might be slightly corked, but then turned out not to be.
It certainly wasn’t my intention to simplify a complex beverage like wine, but adding oxygen to an oxidation reaction never produces less oxidation. Regardless of the substrate.
Wine isn’t a simple beverage…including oxidation. There are many compounds in wine whose smell/taste goes away (appears to anyways) when it’s oxidized.
Boring detail behind the last statement (feel free to skip to the next paragraph): There are many compounds in wine whose ‘perception threshold’ (PT) changes when the compound’s oxidation state changes (i.e. when compound becomes oxidized, or more oxidized, or less oxidized). PT = the minimum amt of the compound necessary to smell/taste it. For many of these compounds, the PT increases when it becomes oxidized. Increasing the PT means more is needed to smell/taste it…hence if the wine has less than the PT, then you won’t be able to smell/taste it. Note: I’m not claiming that this is a good/appropriate/etc explanation for premox & air issue. I’m just saying that wine is extremely complex & at times non-obvious…I wouldn’t be surprised if you’d need to go down to the super string level to understand why wine is the way it is
Also, Chardonnay, ageable Chard at least, has a much greater capacity to do interesting things with air time than most people give it credit for. Decant white burgs and don’t decant red burgs is a good rule to live by!
Along these lines, ~5-10 years ago, I was at a large wine dinner. Someone brought a 1979 Kistler Chardonnay (I was surprised that Kistler made wines in 79…it was their first year). Unfortunately it was dead oxidized and promptly ignored by everyone. An hour later I gave it another try and it transformed into a good & interesting wine. Disclaimer 2: maybe this appeared to be but wasn’t actually oxidized when first opened…seems plausible, that argument works elsewhere too.
Also, Fevre started using Diam10 corks with their grand crus starting with the 2010 vintage (1er cru starting with 2007 vintage)…their premox rate went way way down with that change…so don’t give up on those 2010s.
I’ve largely stopped buying Fevre unless I’m planning on opening within the first 1-2 years…and even then, if I’m buying Chablis to enjoy immediately from a producer who’s notorious for premox, Droin is better for that than Fevre anyway.
As for the question at hand, as everyone else has mentioned, a premox wine will only get worse with air…best to drink right away if it has anything going for it, will only become more & more undrinkable.
In cellartracker, search for ‘2007 william fevre chablis grand cru’ tasting notes. In your browser search for ‘ox’ (i.e. hit control-f to search in your browser window). You’ll need to step through each tasting note with ‘ox’ in it to count the actual premoxed ones.
Then do the same thing with ‘2007 william fevre chablis 1er cru’. The 07 grand crus are under cork and have lots of premox reports. The 07 1er crus are under Diam5 and have no premox reports. 2008 shows similar results.
Thanks for the update/reminder on the closure issue. My '09s are grand crus, my '10s are both 1er and grands, and I have one mag of '11 Le Clos. Sounds like the '09s are probably shot, but the others may be solid.
Yup, have done so and hadn’t appreciated any premox reports under DIAM. I believe 2010 was the first year Fevre used DIAM for their Grand Crus. Would be very interested to learn if any of those and forward showing early oxidation.
Apparently, some producers now use Transylvanian oak which does allow life after premature oxidization, the only drawback being increased sensitivity to sunlight.
Such an interesting conversation - and I’m truly sorry for those of you who have suffered through pre-mox wines . . .
As others have pointed out, there certainly are differences between ‘pre-moxed’ wines and wines that have had ‘other issues’. If a wine is prematurely oxidized, adding more oxygen simply will not bring it back to life - at least it should not. Will it? Well . . .
Regardless of what ‘science’ says, I think we’ve all experienced wines that ‘did not act as they should’ - so why might this be different?
Keep posting away and let us know - it would be fascinating to see if any of these do reboot to a better result.
I tasted Fevre’s '04s early and they were terrific, but I just had an oxidized Les Clos a couple of weeks ago (bought on release, stored well, etc.); it got worse, not better, over a three tasting period.
I have had, however, a few terrific, still very young '09s from them within the past year (Bougros, Vaudesir, Montée de Tonnerre): Pale brass color, a bit reticent at first but opened up wonderfully. I opened them probably earlier than I would have because Don Cornwell posted some discouraging notes about that vintage from Fevre.
