Don,
I cannot wait for your notes on the next tasting, esp if there are a few ringers involved…
In the last 3 months a bottle of '05 and '08 Pucelles and '08 Batard all oxidised from Domaine Leflaive.
Jeremy, are you noticing that the recent Leflaives have less of that matchstick/sulfur nose?
It doesn’t explain it all since I did have an oxidized 2000 Pucelles a couple of years back.
When they are good they have the matchstick going on Fred. When they are bad they have a lot of bruised apple and caramel.
I had been looking forward to this thread, which is fascinating and corresponds in its conclusions with my personal experience and anecdotal impressions.
It is a pity it is so hard to really learn much about the minutiae of élevage practices and how they have changed. A number of vignerons I’ve spoken with have eventually become pretty candid about saying they no longer admit to doing battonage, for example, because people are asking with only one thing in mind, i.e. premox.
What seems to be clear is that very few people are doing the 22-month sur lie élevage that used to be commonplace back in the day at most of the top addresses.
When it comes to pressing and debourbage it’s a bit easier to find out what people are doing.
It’s sad that this is the ~20 year anniversary of premox. Not exactly something to celebrate.
Does anyone know how common it was to do Milk/Casein fining on white Burgs in the early 90s and before…and if anyone is doing it now? I’ve heard various anecdotes regarding Casein fining in the 90’s earlier, but not sure how wide spread it was (or if the practice has changed).
Casein fining removes easily oxidizable compounds, copper and iron from wine. The premox benefits of eliminating easily oxidizable compounds is obvious…copper and iron are essential catalysts for oxidation. So comparing Casein fining then vs now seems interesting and relevant. I’m sure I’ve asked this question before, but I don’t recall a resolution.
Not that Casein fining is likely to be a silver bullet, tho I don’t think one exists for premox…but it would be interesting if Parker’s ‘no fining, no filtering’ campaign contributed to this.
According to Remington Norman, DRC Montrachet was fined with milk that Noblet would collect from a local dairy the morning of the fining. Don’t know if that’s the case today.
Good point on Jean Charles. Although it is ironic we did have a tasting with him here in Hong Kong last year with about 20 people in attendance and one of the 05’s was oxidized. I was not served from this bottle but funnily enough Jean Charles was so he immediately walked around the room and started inspecting others’ glasses. So he clearly recognizes there is a problem but at the same time he showed little interest to discuss it.
Thanks for the notes Don. Sorry I couldn’t make this one but I’m looking forward to night 2.
I’ve had very little premox with my dauvissat going back fifteen years, and I have ten to twelve cases of the stuff. That being said in a recent GC Chablis tasting the dauvissat clos was borderline advanced (2008). The Preuses was pristine. The 08 Fevre clos tasted like a very fine apple cider.
That is the way I read the notes
Interesting thought.
My WA “Boogeyman” for PremOx was Rovani’s intense reaction to and hatred of overt signs of SO2 in young wines.
Yesterday , 2 bottles of Dauvissat Clos 2005 . One was pristine , the other one too advanced and not good .
Mel:
I just got the wine list for night two set today. We will have a total of three “ringers” on night two. One in the Batard flight and two in the Chevalier flight.
Eric:
That’s a very good question, but I don’t know the answer. I do know that you used to see more reference to casein fining in things like the old Remington Norman text and books describing producers’ methods. I remember some controversy about whether Ramonet used casein fining or not. Some people alleged that was the source of the spearmint that often marked Ramonet while other people said that it indicated a different fining agent. I don’t recall any definitive resolution of that controversy. But I had not focused on the fact that casein supposedly removes metals. If it’s highly effective in doing that, it might well reduce the incidence of oxidation.
Thanks for valuable data, Herwig. Might consider to invite the usual suspects for a 2010 Dauvissat tasting.
The lady you can have cheaper. I bought her in 1988, and she has resided beside my gramophone ever since. She is on the front cover of the first Pixies lp, Surfer Rosa. A masterpiece, imo ![[cheers.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/0/0ff9bfcdb0964982cd3240b6159868fbdf215b1a.gif "cheers"){kind=small}
I opened a 2008 Fevre Chablis Valmur last night that was also advanced. Still drinkable, but not very good. Huge disappointment as the wine was very nice when it was purchased on release.
Thanks for the comments Don. I’ve read that casein fining can remove ~50% of copper and ~75% of iron…tho I admit I don’t know where these numbers come from, and how rigorous they are. I’ll look around to see if I can find something more definitive. But I’ve seen many references to casein being quite effective on iron and somewhat effective on copper.
Spearmint from fining? I believe the danger of over fining, and/or insufficient clearing, with casein is giving the wine a slight lactic or cheesy character. Isinglass is the other traditional fining agent to use with Chards, but the risk there is a slight fishy character. Spearmint sounds closer to stems from heavy pressing…and perhaps fining with casein/isinglass/etc might ‘reveal’ that more. This is just guessing tho, since most of the Ramonet experience I have is premoxed 
.
The other element related to premox that hasn’t been mentioned yet is glutathione…which is a potent antioxidant. The most potent antioxidant in whites. SO2 doesn’t prevent the initial steps of oxidation like glutathione, but SO2 does prevent more damaging reactions from occuring…in any case, glutathione and SO2 work well together.
There are two interesting/relevant things about glutathione. First, the amount of glutathione that’s in the grapes (at the time of picking) is highly dependent on the farming practices and the vintage. The second is that the yeast absorb all/most of the glutathione during fermentation, but the glutathione is rereleased back into the wine via the lees during the elevage. My point here is the amount of glutathione that ends up in the wine at bottling can be highly variable…so this seems interesting/relevant, but I haven’t seen much discussion of it in premox discussions.
Yeah, that wasn’t a good direction. Unfortunately I’ve had heavily sulfured bottles that premoxed anyways, sadly
I don’t have anything better to add, but it’s worth saying once again what a treasure Don Cornwell is to the wine enthusiast community. Thank you again, sir.