A couple of years ago, I bought long on the '02 Camille Saves Grand Cru based upon its value and vitality. This week, I opened up a bottle and it seemed overly mature; not over-the-hill, but certainly ‘mature’ with nougat flavors and tinges of sherry. Bad bottle?
Barry,
Bad bottle. This is still very fruit filled and young in my book. It has a nice life ahead of it.
I opened a bottle of this over the holidays and was very similar to Barry’s experience…mature/nougat flavors and missing the youthful/freshness that I’d expect from an 02. Sounds like some bottles are better than others out there…unfortunately similar to the state of white burgs .
Eric,
I bought mine from Beltramo’s. What about you?
A guy on Cellartracker reported having had 3 bottles of '02 Saves Grand Cru that were oxidative!
I had a bottle of this last weekend that I picked up from Rare Wine Co. and it was absolutely delicious. Had it after a Krug MV and Bouchard Haute de L’Amblee (both of which were delicious) and the Saves held its ground beautifully and is half the price. No notes of oxidation at all outside of what might be expected from a 9 year old champagne.
How did Camille save the Grand Cru?
I had one this Christmas that was pretty oxidized. I drink a lot of this wine and it clearly stood out from my experience. I think they number their bottles(??) so I should have thought to save the number.
Bottom line is …yes,I believe bad bottle.
Bummer, I have 3 bottles and was so looking forward to it.
(Got mine from Crush, but with oxidation, why should it matter where?)
Don’t panic; I’ve probably drunk 20 bottles of this wine and only remember one that was noticeably oxidized.
I’ve had the wine from four sources including Crush and have had no problems with any. I wouldn’t worry. In general, Champagne is frequently mishandled and one of the most commonly damaged wine types (the sad part is that the damage is almost always easily preventable).
Hi Barry, I had the three bad bottles, and one very good one. Pretty crappy ratio eh? I think I bought two cases, I hope that doesn’t equate to only six good bottles. These are the only bad bottles for Saves for me out of about 5 dozen or so lifetime, go figure.
How do your first two sentences line up with your third one? Lots of reports of bad bottles, but have no fear???
David,
The “I wouldn’t worry comment” is in reference to possible problems with the wine itself. I always worry about storage/provenance/handling/etc… especially with Champagne.
I don’t think I would characterize the 2002 Saves as a case where there are lots of reports of bad bottles. We have this thread where a total of six bottles that are “bad/flawed” have been pointed out. It looks like CellarTracker! has two reports of bad bottles (both of them from Charlie as he has noted in this thread). To be honest, I can’t recall running across anyone who has mentioned bad bottles to me before and I know/have talked to a lot of people who have consumed numerous bottles of this wine.
My feeling on these bad bottles is bad luck (flawed bottles will exist) and/or improper handling at some point in the wine’s life.
Sorry to hear about bad luck with these … I’ve killed off 9 of these from a number of sources (including Crush) and all have delivered what I was expecting. A recent 99 was similarly very good as well. It’s a wine that is usually a very good performer (though I can’t say I ever remember true greatness just very goodness) - I have never seen it crush heavy-weight competition head on …
I consider these to be amongst the best of the ~$50 category.
Charlie,
Just out of interest, where did you purchase yours?
I will pull out another one from storage this week and report back…
6 months later…
Fearfully, I opened it up…frigging OXIDATIVE!
6 months later…
Fearfully, I opened it up…frigging OXIDATIVE!
Swear I opened one today and it was the same as Barry’s.