Give them some charitable benefit of doubt. I say 147.
Side question:
Can one “taste around” a corked wine?
Looking at the four wines you listed, I think it applies most strongly to Petrus, especially when it comes to the huge uptick in price due to perceived rarity. Both the 1989 Petrus and 1989 Haut Brion
are very non-sucky wines, but the 89 Petrus commands a price 2-3 times that of the 89 Haut Brion. Is the 89 Petrus a “better” wine than the 89 HB? I don’t think so. But it’s more of a trophy wine for those folks who are willing to spend the extra coin to own and serve a rare, trophy wine.
It really comes down to the phenomenon that I’ve called “collectoritis.” Wines that are considered “world class” and that are considered relatively rare command a significant premium among that segment of the wine buyers who value such qualities. At some level, the price premium one pays for a wine like the DRC Montrachet is based less on what’s actually in the bottle than upon the effect that opening that bottle will have on the wine geeks you’re trying to impress. Just my perspective on the dynamic based on my decades of being a wine geek…
Bruce
Theoretically, it is possible. If the TCA level is extremely low, then the effect on the wine itself will be relatively minor. Of course, a lot depends on (a) how sensitive you are to TCA, and (b) how familiar you are with that same wine with no TCA taint.
So I’ve had some wines where the TCA taint is just barely perceptible, and the wine (especially in a younger wine that is more lively) still presents enough aroma and flavor to overcome the TCA taint. For those bottles, I think it’s possible to “taste around” the TCA taint. I would say, though, that that’s an exception to the rule. And honestly, I’ve never had a wine that I considered to be TCA-tainted that was still so incredibly wonderful that I would score in the fashion mentioned in the OP.
Bruce
I don’t agree that you can, as how can you tell exactly what the taint has done to the wine?
Kapon is just being his typical nob self, probably wanting to just show off as it was a Jero of DRC Monty, thus the reason for a note - and a score - that shouldn’t even be recorded.
Bingo!
I know the very valid reasons to scoff at both Kapon and the score. But I’d argue he’s being transparent in this instance. First, if he wanted to shill for DRC he could have not posted a TN at all for that particular wine and no one would be the wiser that he even tasted it. Second, I’ve seen many TN’s on this board, probably myself included, where it said “the wine was slightly corked and got worse but in those first few moments you could tell the underlying material was or would have been great.” Take those words and add, “in fact in the 96 point range,” and you have IMO the meaning of Kapon’s TN. One could infer that he doesn’t need to spell all that out to a sophisticated audience. I read it that way, he wasn’t trying to fool anyone (this time) and he certainly didn’t sell the wine.
Ray is correct. DRC is an outlier. They can afford to take risks and make the most extreme expression of Montrachet. I wish every producer would take their risk to be so late in the harvest. If you love wine and are privileged to taste it the assessment is undeniable. I have both rich and poor friends who overspend for the experience lured by the seduction of such great wine.
This isn’t that surprising. People vary widely in their ability to detect TCA. If you happen to be less sensitive than your fellow tasters, usually you will perceive no issue with the wine. Sometimes you may perceive the aromatics and fruit are diminished, even if you don’t detect the TCA.
I think there’s a lot of needless ego wrapped up in being able to smell TCA. As a friend of mine likes to say: “If you can’t taste the TCA, then congratulations - you win! You can drink the wine when no one else can.”
If there were a bottle I didn’t perceive as corked, but someone who is more sensitive than I am recognized TCA, then it’s possible I would write a complimentary note but remark that the wine is likely corked.
JK is far from an idiot, he knows exactly what he’s doing (and has done).
Which doesn’t change the fact that his “tasting notes” and “ratings” are a joke. Though a pretty funny one on occasion.
May be anecdotal, but I tend to notice the following at wine dinners/bachannals:
When wines are perceived to be slightly corked, there is often disagreement at dinners as to whether or not (especially for an older or even oxidative style wine) said wine is corked. As such, people in the “non corked” camp often hold their tongue in the face of the corked camp’s declaration because the perception is that an inability to pickup the nuance of a corked wine renders you an inferior taster.
Often times, the non-corked camp will post an ambivalent note like the one above that states some satisfaction with the wine but caveats that it was corked.
Dog and pony show continues.
As a generalization, in my experience “slightly corked” wines tend to fall into one of two camps: (1) a slight aroma of musty cardboard, where there may be some disagreement as to whether it’s really musty cardboard or something else, and (2) wines that have a somewhat muted nose/flavor compared to other examples of the same wine. I tend to be more confident in scenario #1 than in scenario #2.
Bruce
I’ll chip in on the only one of those wines I’ve got experience on - yes in way, but I don’t think it’s the wine geeks that are all of the problem - they’re interested in a wide spectrum of wines and are often prepared to walk away if they see comparable wines at a fraction of the price (see a recent thread on an Aussie forum about Penfolds’ pricing). Whilst there are certainly ‘ballers’ who believe only ‘the recognised best’ is good enough for their image, there are also a lot of Aussies who bought Grange because it was an Aussie ‘icon’ - the Aussie wine icon. Add in a carefully nurtured profile in China, and this is primarily now a marketed ‘icon’, with little pretense at value for money w.r.t. what’s inside the bottle.
Looking back to ~ 1990 when I first tasted it, I recall amazing myself that I could justify the £25 a bottle price. Yes much more than anything I’d ever bought, but yes a fair price for the experience. Inflation is running a little way behind the price increases for this wine…
I’ve noticed the same, and it baffles me. If you know what TCA smells like, you are very unlikely to have false-positives. Thus if a wine doesn’t smell corked to me, I will always defer to someone who does perceive it as corked. Anyone who insists a wine is not corked is on shaky ground.
Inability to pick up TCA doesn’t mean you are a worse taster. It means you are less sensitive to TCA.
I don’t believe anyone should review and rate a wine they know is flawed. I too have experienced times when I could not pick up any TCA (my friends did) but I knew something was missing/not up to par. Some call that slightly corked - I would say slightly or partially corked is corked. It’s a definitive - it is or it isn’t. You don’t say “slightly pregnant”.
I wouldn’t rate a corked wine, but on the question of whether one can “taste around” TCA, the most heavily tainted bottle I’ve ever encountered was an '86 Lafite I opened with good friends. The astounding quality and density of the wine was evident despite the powerful odor of a wet sheep dog fresh from a flooded recycling plant.
I don’t think the issue is whether the wine was corked, and Ther are several who have mentioned that, in a tasting, when the bottle is perceived as corked, there is often some confusion and ambivalence, and there is a wide variation in tasters’ sensitivity to TCA. These are all a given.
But, unless you are a complete and total jackass, douchenozzle, or a complete and total shill, there is no justification for rating a wine that you perceived as slightly corked at 96 points. A flawed wine with great underpinnings is not a great wine. Having never met Kapon,I give him the benefit of the doubt and will just call him a self-serving shill in this particular case.
No. Even at very low levels, TCA mutes aspects of a wine. I’ve seen several people taste a wine that had TCA below their recognition threshold (they didn’t pick it up at all), but then all agree that a backup bottle without the infection was better. It’s impossible to know what a non-tainted bottle will taste like by only tasting a tainted bottle.
The justification is that you can then quote that “rating” and “review” when auctioning off bottles of said wine.