White Burgundy 15 years on.

It took me approximately 15 years to figure out how to navigate white burgundy since the advent of premox.
I can finally live with the disappointment of a bottle of Meursault Genevrieres or Perrieres but not Chevalier, Bienvenue, or Batard. As for Montrachet, it’s too painful to even make it part of the conversation.

Otherwise I’ll continue to console myself with “Burgundian”, mature Blanc de Blancs, “the other white burgundy.”

DIAM is your friend.

Have their been studies of DIAM and premox? I thought most believe it is multi-factor, with cork playing at most just a part of the blame?

I don’t know of a comprehensive study, but see

http://www.gdeschamps.net/wiki/doku.php?id=start#a_significant_share_of_white_burgundy_in_2014_is_now_being_bottled_under_diam_closuressome_producers_are_increasing_cork_diameter_and_using_longer_corks

I don’t buy white burgundy to cellar anymore as I was burned too many times and don’t really feel like taking the risk when there are other good options out there (thanks, Nahe and Rheinhessen GGs). But I do get to taste a fair amount of young white burgundy. My take is that in many ways, the premox “solution” at this point is almost as bad as the problem. Setting aside the closure debate, the wines are made in an early-drinking style where everyone seeks the Coche Dury matchstick and a wine that is generally delicate, refined and a wine that I would think of subtle and elegant. Those may not seem like bad things, and they aren’t. But they aren’t the way I would describe the Leflaive’s of the early 90s, or the other white burgs that made my mind explore in the early aughts, with tropical flavors, flowers, mushroom, earth, a wine that would hold its own with the reds and that was every bit as brawny and intense as a wine could be. When I open white burgundy young today, I just don’t see it developing into the same thing that I drank before premox, and that I was so sad to loose. I hope I’m wrong, and I have no dog in this fight as I’ve liquidated in one way or another all but about 20 bottles of white burgundy from a collection that once had a few more zeros on that number, but when I pop one today I don’t feel like I’m missing much by not buying them.
Alex

All I can say is that Fevre was a train wreck before DIAM, and I have had zero issues since they switched. Zero.

OOOHHH…but when you HIT one that’s ON… Keeps you chasing…

It’s clearly multi-factor, but that doesn’t preclude one of those factors from being an essential factor, and it would appear that one of those essential factors is cork.

Reports of premox under Diam or screwcap are close to negligible. I’ve had more premoxed bottles from producers praised for being free of premox than I have had from alternative closures (latter number for me remains zero).

I really wish retailers selling white Burgundy would note the closure type in their offers. It’s hard to keep track of. Leaving it out costs them sales.

This is the challenge. Had a ‘10 Jadot Chevalier Les Demoiselles last week that was utterly phenomenal and now I’m questioning whether I’ve been wrong to avoid cellaring white burgs. It was my white wine of the year.

Jadot is using Diam now so you’re probably safe if that goes as high as the Chevalier. But otherwise, how many multiples of the price of that Chevalier would you have been willing to pay to have one good bottle? That’s the gamble people are taking on the producers who still use cork.

Thank you all for replies to my question. I’ve been skipping white burg threads for years due to premox.

I bought a few Jadot whites over the past couple of years for the first time in a long time because they are using DIAM. Of course, it did not hurt that Envoyer had some of these at really good prices.

I share your concerns, chet. I’m running out of pre-95 white burgs but the wiki has helped me negotiate the mine field, though my Ramonet love still is too often affected. And a migration to champagne certainly has helped though my stash of bubbly is so much younger than my white burgs. It’s sad to pour down the drain a Chablis but it’s downright tragic to do so with a Chevy or Batard.

I feel the same way. Speaking broadly, I tend to like racier, more acidic wines. But the trend has gone so far toward Arnaud Ente-style lasers that White Burgs have lost some of the opulence and grandeur that has made top tier white Burgs among the world’s grandest wines.

I’ve had great bottles under DIAM from Jadot and others especially from Chablis but none at 20 years and for me that will be the true test whether the wines evolve like pre-95 white burgs with indelible flavors that in my burg and wine drinking experience are singular, the finest and by far the most pleasurable beverages ever produced.
I’m beginning to feel guilty opening bottles of my old treasures but “this is not a dress rehearsal.”
As Alan knows, I was ahead of the curve in acquiring/cellaring Blanc de Blancs Champagne with many entering into and or already in to the zone of peak drinkability.
That’s today’s reality, however.

As an aside, Recently I shared at an after party of Le Fete du Champagne and a Rodolphe Peters dinner in NYC, a bottle of 85 Batard made by Richard Fontaine under the Blain Gagnard/ Delegrange-Bachelet label with Rodolphe, Alex Chartogne, and other Champenois’ that was mind bogglingly profound. We were all pretty speechless in uniformly and silently acknowledging that the heights that this bottle hit, would be something else for the Champenois’ to aim for.

Cheers-

Stay safe to you all

Assuming for a moment that premox had never existed, who is now making Chevalier and Batard worthy of the label?

I drank an '83 Bâtard from Delegrange-Bachelet in November that was similarly magical! Didn’t realize it was made by Richard Blain.

I don’t have broad enough experience to offer anything comprehensive, but for my palate Leflaive is back in a big way, across the range. I’ve quite liked the sips I’ve had of Sauzet Batard in recent vintages.

And I’m sure that PYCM and Ramonet are doing great things at the GC level, based on my experience with their lowlier wines.

It’s an interesting question about what the wines are generally like today versus before premox started. My amateur perception is that the wines are more open, less intensely acidic, and need less age than they once did.

But I was pretty new to wine back then and my perception may just be the startling (in a good way) contrast I discovered relative to mainstream new world chardonnay at the time.

Whatever the answer to that, I have mostly been buying White Burgundy to drink within 6 years or so of the vintage, both to avoid premox (though a few have been super early) and because they seem to drink very well young these days.

Now that some producers may be dependable to age due to DIAM, I’m less sure which wines I should be trying to age and for how long. This is going to be an interesting new learning curve.

Jadot is also light years better now with the enclosure switch. Obviously we aren’t 15 years past the 11 vintage, but so far it looks pretty successful