10 Year Old Chardonnay Under Screwcap

WINE TALK
1
  • 2005 Leeuwin Estate Chardonnay Art Series - Australia, Western Australia, South West Australia, Margaret River (9/5/2015)
    Drinking beautifully at 10 years of age under screwcap. On the nose there’s toast, fig and peach notes. It is full and rich in the mouth with dense orchard fruit flavours. It is voluminous and possesses outstanding length of flavor.

Posted from CellarTracker

2

How was the color? Any thoughts against how non-screwcapped high end chards have done by comparison at age 10?

3

Great to hear and I too would love to see a picture.

Do you know if it was bottled with a Sara-nex or Sara-tin liner?

One day there’ll be more ‘believers’ here, but probably not anytime soon. Not sure what it’ll take . . .

Cheers!

4

Roy, It was served blind and I picked it as a 2006 Australian Chardonnay. It had a slight golden colour but looked fresh. It showed appropriate toasty development for its age with no oxidative notes and obviously no tca. Most producers have switched to screwcap here 10-12 years ago so I haven’t too many Aussie Chards under cork from the past decade but we did have a lot of oxidation problems previously under cork at around the 4-6 year mark.

I did purchase a case each of 2000 Moss Wood Cabernet and 2002 Petaluma Riesling under both cork and screwcap. When I have served the two wines together the screwcap version has always been my preference.

Not sure of the liner Larry. I will make a prediction. One day in the future someone like Burghound will come out and support screwcap as a legitimate closure to eliminate oxidation. Only then will the masses stand up and believe. Until then I guess we’ll just sprout off our preference for a closure that doesn’t ruin the precious wine it is supposed to protect.

Best Regards
Jeremy

5

Jeremy,

Thanks for the additional info. I just posted a link to a story about a 10 year vertical tasting of Oregon pinots under screw cap. No, it’s not a ‘study’ and it didn’t compare the screw cap versus the same wine in cork . . . but it’s still compelling to me.

Cheers!

6

Did Leeuwin also bottle some wine from this vintage under cap? Would be great to compare/contrast.

I think the wine community owes a large debt of gratitude to Australia for their commitment to work with alternate closures. I remember a small group tasting with one of the winemakers from Yalumba somewhere around 2000-01 and discussing their results with Rieslings under caps since the late 90s. It takes a big leap of faith to devote that much of your resource to an unproven closure in the interest of the greater good.

7

Jeremy, thanks for the note. To prove it’s not a one-off here’s my note from a recent blind tasting:

  • 2005 Leeuwin Estate Chardonnay Art Series - Australia, Western Australia, South West Australia, Margaret River (4/21/2015)
    ‘Nothing but Chardonnay’ dinner with Peter Rosback: Under screwcap. Decanted 5-6 hours before tasting. Beating the 2001 Giaconda for my Australian WoTN. A big, powerful, sweetish nose of white peaches, apricots, grapefruits, musk and nutmeg, with a generous slug of vanillin oak. On palate, this is a deeply concentrated, big boned wine. It has Grand Cru Burgundy fruit weight and all of the tasters were picking it as Old World. It has the scale but with sufficient refinement, subtlety and detail of flavours, to retain your interest. Lactic and lower acid with a flavour profile matching the bouquet. Still fairly primary, this wine should still be improving over the next 5-10 years. 1=/3. (94 pts.)

Posted from CellarTracker

The 1995 we had at the same tasting was under cork and undrinkable due to TCA. Several of the top Burgundies and other wines under cork showed faults while all of wines under screwcap showed absolutely appropriate evolution.

Visiting Burgundy again this year with one of NZ’s importers we asked each winemaker about screwcap closures. Apart from the very bottom of their ranges they said they would not do it because (some variation of) they could not sell quality wines in Europe under screwcap. Often I heard that Old World consumers couldn’t imagine drinking top end wines without the romance of pulling a cork.

All we can do, I think, is keep making the case for screwcaps and gradually, eventually, one day, all consumers will demand it?

Cheers, Howard

8

I really need to find some of these… Thanks for the note Jeremy!

9

Leeuwin is one of my favorite Chards period. I would love to see more Cali producers go to screw cap.

10

FWIW, I had an undrinkably reduced middle-aged chard under screwcap the other day - 2006 Kumeu River Hunting Hill. Untouchable till day 3 and never quite sound. So there’s a point in the other bin, because I suspect this would’ve been sound if bottled under cork.

11

David,

Here’s the thing - we’ll never know. I know that many jump to the conclusion that if they find any reductive characteristics in a wine under screwcap that it must be the closure . . . but perhaps it’s the wine?

I remember that during the AWRI closure study, the Semillon that they were using became a bit reductive, and this was noted in the tasting of the wines under screwcap . . . but ALSO in the other wines in the study.

Something to consider . . .

Cheers!

12

So now that screwcaps have variable settings for ingress, do you think that would solve the reduction problem? (although I with the thought that it could easily just have been the winemaking that caused the reduction).

13

Absolutely. The problem here was that I’ve never had a bottle this old that was this chokingly reductive. The oxygen ingress from even the best cork must be higher than whatever this screwcap permitted, b/c even notoriously reductive wines like Leroy whites or Prum, when under cork, have started to relax at age 9.

I have no doubt that winemaking caused the initial reduction problem (to wit, a goodly portion of the CT notes on this bottling mention reduction).

14

Hi David,

It sort of depends on what type of reduction (sulfide specifically). Some actually increase and get worse with oxygen. My guess is that you experienced a noticeable level of Disulfide especially if it resembled more of the onion/garlic/burnt rubber characteristics vs. match stick reduction (which is more common in Leroy whites etc.). In the Disulfide case, screw cap or cork wouldn’t help the wine and you could argue that cork may actually increase the Disulfide levels…

15

Not disulfide here. H2S (which can be oxidized reasonably well). I suspect there was low-level other reductive stuff that forms in the reducing environment and isn’t so easily oxidized, which is why the bottle was pristine, but there was still a dramatic improvement by day 4.

16

Interesting… Thanks David. H2S unaddressed often evolves into other stuff.

17

H2S unaddressed normally leads to mercaptans, which are MUCH more difficult to deal with . . .

18

I meant WASNT pristine. Definitely an H2S situation but I think there was also very low level mercaptan. But the H2S smell is so distinct, especially if you’ve spent any time near an hydrocarbon well…

19

2005 Leeuwin is one of our favourite house wines with all the characteristics described - anyone who has followed this great line from the 80s does not need convincing about the utility of Stelvin - no bad bottles from any of our yearly cases yet still a discernible aging curve. I would buy any of my favourite white Burgs from Montrachet down in Stelvin over cork in a flash ! Just one Grand Cru down the drain at 10 years clinches the argument yet we have put up with many more than that. An Australian landmark wine bottled in a way that resepects its buyers !

20

Great point. I see reduction under screwcap as a winemaking issue, not a closure issue.