High alcohol wines and aging

We opened a Clos st Jean CDP 2016 yesterday and it was the most alcoholic wine I may have ever tasted. Kind of bummed we have 3 more of these.

My CT Review:
In the mountains of Colorado, they have a party rig called a shot-ski (pronounces “shotsky”) where they have a ski with holes in it that they place shot glasses. This wine would be a good choice for said shot glasses given the amount of alcohol it has.
16% ABV and you feel it as it goes down. Maybe things will get better as it ages or maybe it’s for people who enjoy rubbing alcohol smells on the nose and punch to the throat on the pallet.

The above is largely hyperbole. TL;DR The wine is too alcoholic at this point. Not for me.

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My questions are:

  1. is this a style that I just don’t appreciate but others do?
  2. what happens to the burn as the wine ages? The nose? Right now it’s dominated by the alcohol.
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Well, Shay…my experience has been that as they age, those high-alcohol wines invariably become more hot & fumey and the overripe/raisened/pruney
character comes to the forefront. Not always, but usually.
Tom

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Shay, 2016 CdP’s aren’t going to give a lot of pleasure right now whether they’re higher in ABV or more to the traditional/elegant side. It’s a very structured vintage with bigger wines, so they are likely going to be backwards young. A backwards young wine with a high ABV is going to show more alcohol than anything else.

I’d hold these for a number of years, or at the very least give them a long slow ox. I’m not acclimated to CSJ, but hopefully with the quality of the vintage yours have the structure and fruit balance to shed some of the alcohol burn and find more balance as they age. Wines with high alcohol can age well, especially ones that with later ripening varietals like those found in the Southern Rhone. However it’s possible that it’s just not your style and you’ll always be sensitive to the alcohol.

Outside of that, I’d look for producers of CdP that are typically leaner and more elegant in style. Also, in my experience some of the ‘lesser’ Southern Rhone vintages show better young and are more elegant in style.

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My clos st jean aging experience has been a dumpster fire of undrinkable wines. 2005, 2006, 2007 is the cohort I experimented with.

Port and sherry are high alcohol and they seem to do quite well with a bit of time. I don’t think alcohol has much to do with whether or not a wine will age. I never thought CdP was a great thing for aging anyway, because so many are OK to drink young, although many disagree. But if C St. Jean is the most alcoholic wine you’ve ever had, that just means you need to try more wine. There are many worse out there.

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As Greg said: alc. content is no indication of not aging well, just the opposite - Port and other fortified wines are the proof.
The problem is that wines like that are lacking in structure - late harvest, low acidity and often fermented with destemmed grapes …
and the result will turn out appropriately …

I never thought CdP was a great thing for aging anyway,<

I disagree, just having had a fine 1964 … you need to try more aged wines … neener

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I’m interested where this wine ends up as well. I bought 6 of these off LastBottle on impulse and they just showed up this week. I did a double take when I noticed 16% abv listed on the label.

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Well, “ending up” means you´ll have to wait until 2040+ … no good to open a bottle in 4 years - and maybe deciding “not going anywhere …”

I´ve had too many bottles pre-1990 with low expectations - and they turned out outstanding. I´m sure a lot of bottles (e.g.) vintages 2003/07
that are now damned for being too massive and too alcoholic will find kind of a balance with age (good storage provided). They may never become textbook examples of highly elegant lightweight drinks - but an old Bonneau Celestins isn´t either …

…and I expect that’s exactly where this '16 will go. I think it’s more about overripe fruit character (as Tom mentioned) than high alcohol, although the two typically (not always) go hand in hand when the wine isn’t fortified.

I’m with Scott, this wine no bueno. Was funny reading his thread again, especially Jay’s Cambie reference. [wow.gif]

I cannot imagine you ever liking this wine given your distaste now. Gift it.

Based on lots of empirical data the conducted on my own - i.e., drinking lots of his dreg - and sadly blowing lots of money, I have a very simple formula. If Cambie is involved, I avoid it like the plague. I feel that way about some other consultants as well. This is not to say that once in a while - like a stopped clocking being right twice per day - perhaps they make something almost palatable, but the reality is, I am substantially more likely to be disappointed, and thus not worth wasting my money.

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If you don’t like it now then I don’t see any point in aging it. If you have tons of cellar space and want to experiment then give it 40 years and see what happens. Nobody can predict that and it’s possible that it could be incredible or go horribly wrong. A mere 10-15 years isn’t going to morph it into a totally different wine.

To answer your direct questions.

  1. it’s a popular wine, so yes it’s a style many people (Of the wide world) enjoy.
  2. I’ve found that nothing happens to the “burn” with short term aging. Either bail now or stay for the very long haul.

As with vintages like 03, if you don’t like them young, they won’t age into something you like. If you do like them young, you may like them at 10-15 years old. I do not think these wines will make old bones for reasons Gerhard specifies: the vineyard practices it takes to produce a wine like Clos St. Jean just does not lead to wines that either age well or make one want to age them for what they will turn into. One caveat: the oldest Clos St. Jean under the new regime is 03. Maybe the wines will surprise us at age 25. Given my few experiences of the wines in 04, 05 and 06, I will never find out, though.

Thanks for the insights. This thread has been super insightful — though the content discouraging.

Tonight is night 3 of the bottle and night 2 was the same as night 1. (We actually opened up a beautiful 2011 faiveley mercurey my glands last night as an alternative).

Small sample size, but I had a bottle of the 2010 a few months ago. Also 16% I believe. I tend to associate 15+ abv with a negative experience, but I actually enjoyed the bottle. My note doesn’t mention it being hot; I did call out what I described as something “spicy” on the palate which probably referenced the relatively high alcohol.

I’ve had some good results with 2005 and 2010. There’s a lot more structure in those years as opposed to say 07/09. Not sure about more recent years as I quit buying cdp In 2010.

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The real dumpster fire is all the high-WA-score, high-ABV Australian export ooze-monsters sitting forlorn in many cellars. The bottles often fetch a fraction of their original purchase prices. They are the timeshares of the wine hobby.

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Alto Moncayo is probably the only 16+ ABV wine I tried recently that worked. Everything else in that high bracket have not worked as well.



Sweet fortified wines are not a good comparison. First, you’re expecting the alcohol and, second, the sweetness can compensate for fruit that has oxidized away.

It’s high alcohol dry wines that I think are often (though not always) risky to age. I agree with you, Gerhard, that other structural elements are important. I think that’s why high alcohol CdP often doesn’t age well, because grenache isn’t naturally high in tannin or acid and the grape is prone to oxidation. Whether grenache, or pinot noir, or zinfandel or even New World cabernet, where the alcohol is elevated, it often becomes more conspicuous as the fruit fades.

I find just the opposite: Big young wines with lots of fruit, and perhaps tannins, mask their alcohol pretty well in many cases.

I don’t think any good Southern Rhône fails to show its charm when young. “Needs time” strikes me as an excuse for a wine that either isn’t very good or someone simply doesn’t like.