^ This. Who was it who said insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results? It’s not remotely surprising that the problem is still happening, but it’s unbelievable that people are still spending real money on defective wine. There’s good white Burgundy under Diam now. Why buy anything else?
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Is there any resource for us WBers about which producers and bottlings are under Diam?
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My take on premox? It most certainly exists, but oxidation is oxidation - there is no different kinds of oxidations, because it’s just oxygen doing its thing on the chemical compounds in wine.
What differentiates premox from normal oxidation is how it appears. If a wine that is supposed to age wonderfully for 30 years, but some bottles start randomly showing signs of oxidation, that’s premox. If all the bottles show signs of oxidation, it’s not premox but something very different in that particular vintage - and it might be either something from the vineyard (ie. fruit lacking something that is normally there in other vintages), something from the winery (ie. too little SO2; too much dissolved oxygen during the vinification or bottling process) or something wrong with the bottle (ie. a run of faulty corks that have permitted too much oxygen in the wine).
What oxygen does is oxidizes compounds that give the wine its color (making it turn darker and yellow), oxidize aroma compounds (make them smell and taste different) and oxidize alcohol into acetaldehyde (making the wine smell aldehydic, which is the main characteristic what people notice when they smell oxidized wine). Oxygen also depletes free SO2 as it produces acetaldehyde, which gets bound with free SO2. However, oxygen doesn’t really do anything with acidity. Some molecules make new compounds with acids over time, but the effect of this on the wine’s acidity is negligible.
It doesn’t matter when this happens - way too early or with decades of aging - it’s still oxidation of wine. Premox is only the phenomenon when some bottles randomly get oxidized while others don’t without any obvious outside influence (ie. too warm temperature, faulty cork etc.).
But whatever happens to a wine as it oxidizes, its acidity stays constant. Certain changes might make the acidity feel differently compared to a youthful wine, but usually these changes are very minor - and if anything, I feel the perception of acidity only gets slightly accentuated as the wine loses its fruit and becomes lifeless and flat.
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Don Cornwell’s site maintains a list of low, medium, high premox producers, and I think it also has a list of who is/is not using diam. I’ve posted the link before, but don’t have it at my fingertips. After a little coffee, I’ll look around again for it.
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Chris,
There has been a thread on this in the past year or two. I didn’t do a search for it but it should be easily findable.
Cheers
That’s actually what I was specifically wondering.
It doesn’t look like his wiki website is still a going concern.
There have been some threads where people randomly give information:
They aren’t very recent, though.
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Here’s Don’s post from 2022 on the “who is using DIAM” thread:
I recently updated the DIAM producer list on the Oxidized Burgundies wiki site, start [Oxidized Burgundies] which I have reproduced below. This update includes additional information that was provided in Burghound (Allen Meadows), Inside Burgundy (Jasper Morris) and Burgundy Report (Bill Nanson).
LIST OF WHITE BURGUNDY/CHABLIS PRODUCERS USING DIAM FOR SUBSTANTIALLY ALL BOTTLINGS (and vintage of inception of complete/relatively complete use):
(Note: With rare exceptions, I have listed below only those producers who use DIAM for all (or nearly all) of their portfolio of wines. Several other [not-listed] producers utilize DIAM for their lower range wines).
Roger Belland (2009)
Bouchard Pere (2009)
Jean-Marc Brocard (2012)
Chanson (2013)
Jean Charton (2020)
Chateau de Meursault (2020)
Chateau de Puligny Montrachet (2009)
Fabien Coche (2018)
Marc Colin (2016)
Joseph Colin (2017)
Jean Collet [Chablis] (2015, but excludes US imports through Kermit Lynch)
Daniel Dampt (2014) (90% of production. Remainder under screwcap or natural cork, depending on the importer’s preference)
Sebastian Dampt (2015?)
Vincent Dampt (2015?)
de Bellene and Roche de Bellene (2011)
Droin (2011)
William Fevre (2010)
Guffens-Heynen (2011)
Antonin Guyon (2018)
Maison Harbour (2013)
Heitz-Lochardet (2015)
Jadot (2011)
Lafon (2013)
Domaine de Lambrays (2020)
Hubert Lamy (2017 for 80% of production; 2019 for 100% of production)
Domaine Leflaive (2014) [but be somewhat wary of big cut in SO2 use in 2015]
Olivier Leflaive (2012)
Benjamin Leroux (2020) [Note: only 20 ppm free SO2 with Diam 30]
Long-Depaquit (Bichot) (2018)
Christian Moreau (2017) (Excludes Clos des Hospices which continues to be closed with cork)
Louis Moreau [Chablis] (2016)
Montille (also Deux Montille and Maison Montille) (2009)
Meurgey-Croses (2019)
Hugues Pavelot (2019)
Domaine de Pavillon (Bichot) (2018)
Paul Pernot (2017)
F&L Pillot (2010)
Prieur (2013)
Rapet (2017)
Tollot-Beaut (2017)
Vocoret et Fils [Chablis] (2015)
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Did anyone believe in this?
Not that these bottles were premoxed. this has all been discussed somewhere before, but I think these bottles that initially appeared premoxed were actually just really reductive. The bottles would be closed, very little on the nose, nutty, musty (in a non-TCA way), and darker than normal, but had no sherry/baked or cooked apple true oxidized notes. I would often have to stop people from pouring them down the drain. I learned to check very carefully for true oxidative notes, and if not there, be very patient. If set aside for 1-3 hours they would wake up, turn a lighter color, and improve drastically. I most often encountered this with Dauvissat, but that was probably because I had quit buying other white burgs and didn’t have much else. I haven’t had a bottle like this for several years even though I continue to drink my Dauvissat. Now, if a bottle of Dauvissat is off, it’s always actually promoxed.
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I am infamiliar with this. I remember reading Jasper Morris’ article with total disbelief. He did state he had experienced something much profound than what you are describing, bottles that were darkly coloured seen from the outside of the bottle, that had looked like those bottled that early on had been premoxed, that later in their life turn light green and fresh. I never read anyone else experiencing this. Nor have I ever noticed what you descibe in the sense of wines changing colour markedly with air. Oh, those disappointing Dauvissats! These day things are better. I am not surprised about Henri Boillot, though. I stopped buying these with the 2014 vintage. My experience is that one in three - 2010, 2013, 2014 - have been more or less premoxed. These being Clos des Mouchères.
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My rate with Dauvissat is still one out of every 3 or 4 premoxed, and I haven’t seen things getting any better, but I also haven’t tried anything younger than 2014.
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What is Boillot’s reputation re premox? I have a couple 2020 Mouchère which I had planned to cellar a bit
I’ve not had anything as dramatic or consistent as Jasper Morris described, but I have had examples of marvelous resurrections. Interestingly, one of those was with a '96 Ramonet 1er (Ruchottes?) so will be fun to see WK report back.
As for the OP and the “different” taste and acidity of oxidised vs prematurely oxidised wine: that makes me guess the problem is something else (e.g. heat damage).
Opened a '13 Boillot Moucheres and Pucelles the other day, and the cork problem was TCA on the Mouchere, grrr, rather than any oxidation. But I definitely have had quite a few oxidised and advanced Boillots (mostly the Corton Charlemagne).
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I remember visiting Ramoney early in the century. Having tasted from cask, Jean-Claude let me taste the opened magnum 96 Montrachet that had been opened for someone the day before: still premoxed!
Odds in your favor 
Hi Andrew,
if that is the case, how come it is not happening with wines that are sealed with alternative closure? It is not just a Burgundy problem btw. I’d be interested if anyone has experienced an oxidised wine that is 7 years or younger, that was sealed under Diam or screwcap?
Peoples definition of premox certainly varies, but what we are dealing with is oxidation, it is what is deemed as premature that is what is up for debate. The proper aging curve of any wine dictates that there is long and slow oxidation over a period of time and those characters of brulee, honey, mushroom etc add desirable complexity. Some people draw the line at 7 years or 10 years and are happy to accept that anything older that has too much oxidation is too old. My take is, that if a bottle can show well at 25 or 30+ years and the same wine from the same case has that much variation that it is too oxidised to drink, is this not oxidising prematurely? We know the wine can and will age for 30+ years but we are in the lap of the gods so far as the perfect piece of bark is concerned.
regards
Jeremy
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Good points. I don’t really purport to have any answers. But for example a 1993 Ramonet Monty earlier this year was tired and oxidized, but it had very different components than what I taste in a classically premoxed wine like the two yesterday. Maybe has it been premoxed for the last 25 years? Could be. Could also be that older wines that are oxidized just have other aging characteristics that make them taste different from younger, oxidized wines. I suppose that could explain the taste and smell differences I’ve noticed.
Regarding the “rebirth” phenomenon mentioned in a few posts, I haven’t seen the Jasper article many are referring to, but this sounds a lot like the technique Dave Ramey uses for chardonnay and has described (I think I’ve heard it on IDTT and/or the Bedrock podcasts). With him, the “death” and “rebirth” both happen before bottling, so maybe it’s not the same thing but the descriptions in this thread sure sound similar to what he describes in the podcast interview(s) I’ve heard.
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Also, the end of a white wine’s aging journey is not necessarily oxidation, right? A properly sealed white should just fade into a whisper, not become oxidized.
I realize we don’t live in a perfect world, and I wouldn’t call a 30 year old village White Burg “premoxed” if it were oxidized. But I just wanted to clarify that the end of the road doesn’t have to be oxidized.
The rebirth article was published in WFW. Maybe somewhere else as well. It could be interesting to revisit it and see if I remember the details correctly.