White burg, other than ‘house wine’ basic bourgogne, now represents about 1.5% of my wine collection. For comparison, red Burg is more like 60%. If no PremOx issues, I’d probably own 10-20x more white Burg. My goal is under 1%.
I haven’t for a long time, but just decided that I wanted to take a little risk again. So I bought a case of 2016 Louis Jadot Chassagne-Montrachet 1er Cru. Will be checking in on them starting at around 2022-2024. Fingers crossed. If they are OK, I’ll keep them over the next 2 decades.
Yes but not too much longer than 10 yrs. I have a fair bit of Chablis and a few Beaune 1ers, and Corton Charlies. I find I like them when they hit 7-9 years and will leave a few bottles to go longer. Am drinking most from 6-12 years.
My program is to buy young white Burgs mostly in the $40-70 range, usually when I can find a better deal, and to drink them in the next few years.
The wines in that category these days seem to drink well at that age and not to especially need age, so the risk-benefit calculus heavily favors drinking up. At the same time as premox has made aging highly dangerous, the evolving style of White Burg has made aging decreasingly necessary. (I strongly suspect those two things are related.)
Using Don’s wiki, you could probably do well enough aging, but that’s mostly very expensive wines I think, not in my usual zone.
The only domaine I still buy to age is Louis Michel from Chablis. I’ve had good luck with older bottles, and the tariff is still quite reasonable even if you factor in some risk. I have one bottle left of the 1996 Montee de Tonnerre. While I’m planning on drinking it soon, I’m in no rush.
How have white burg release price changes over the last 15 years or so compared to red? Talking about higher end 1er/grand cru. That seems like a relevant fact for this discussion. Have whites gotten more or less.expensive adjusted for premox?
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IMO, premox hasn’t slowed the rapid acceleration in white burg pricing. Many wines, esp grand cru, have tripled in price in last few years. Look at Ramonet and Raveneau. There are, however, many good values. As always, one has to know where to look.
I am still although doing it cautiously. When they’re on, they’re just so fantastic. I’ve certainly avoided buying certain producers that I have been burned by or that Don has highlighted in his very useful wiki.
From my perspective, price increases (without the US 3 tier system and associated price gouging) has been generally modest. Much much less than red burgs
For example, in the last 10 years the price I have paid for of Raveneau (allocated the MdT and Valmur) has gone up 15%.
Brodie
the fact that you are allocated likely helps. I am not. And MdT costs me more than $200/b now if I buy. Used to be under $100. And I paid about $30 for the 96 but that was eons ago. Grand crus are over $400, way up.
Brodie - most of the wines I guess you’re getting have been a bit insulated from the increases. But even five years ago, $1k got you a “serious” Montrachet such as Ramonet or Lafon. Now they are more than double AND pretty much unobtainable. Meanwhile, the “also ran” Montrachets are all $1k plus. That’s also dragged up Chevalier and the other GCs. Roulot, even allocated, is twice what it was for me four years ago. Corton Charlemagne used to be a bargain until recently, but routinely over $3 or $400 now. I had great fun buying a favourite producer’s 1er Pulignys for <$100 until a couple of years ago, now $150+. Chablis is still pretty sane, but overall WB has massively shot up. Perhaps it’s not a grievous as RB but still pretty steep!
Although I have referred to Don’s Wiki and very much enjoy reading his annual vintage assessment dinner notes, and certainly appreciate the great service these have provided, I have not found them as useful as a practical buying guide for current vintages. Having in general experienced greater premox rates over the years than the vintage dinners have generally revealed, and since the premox plague is so hit or miss from bottle to bottle, I have not been able to take the results of the dinners and used them to comfortably fork over hundreds of dollars for a bottle of Chevalier that was not premoxed in the report. The Wiki site (now relocated) has relatively few reviews of wines that are now on the market to purchase. So, for me, I have not found it to be as useful as you have as a buying guide going forward. For example, I spent some change on a Philippe Colin Chevalier that showed very well in one of the dinners (I am trying to remember which vintage), and of course it was premoxed. I suppose a good showing means little, but a bad showing means vulnerability, so stay away.
More useful over the years have been the conclusions drawn by Don in the summaries of the vintage reports, and the more current information of which producers have switched to DIAM, which changes at certain domaines may have accounted for hideous problems like what happened at the previously somewhat spared Domaine Leflaive, etc. The ranking of producers into various categories based on premox incidence is of course very useful, but then again the only category I would consider safe enough to warrant my spending some dollars contains Coche, Roulot, Raveneau, Leroy (if I am remembering correctly), none of whom I can source at anything below absurd prices…so again, not very useful as a buying guide, at least to me.
I am in no way diminishing the importance and value of these sources, I am just saying that I have not been able to avoid premoxed wines by using them as a buying guide going forward, And, unless you are backfilling at auction, by the time the wines enter the premox time period and a few reviews appear, for the most part the wines are long gone from the marketplace. And, as stated, a good bottle means little. Perhaps my recent premox experience with some 2010’s just soured me on the whole proposition.
yes, very limited wines and producers. Roulot and Raveneau.
Selectively, yes. I love white burgundy too much to give up completely. Since we usually buy 6-12 of wines we know we like, we’re able to taste along the way and decide which consumption needs to be accelerated and which seems to be holding up. It is no guarantee, of course, but I am hopeful there will still be a good number of 10 year+ wines in the cellar.
Nothing…
Aged White Burgundy is a wonderful thing…but it doesn’t matter which producer, the chance of premox is still too high and just makes it not worth it. The wines drink great young (generally) or at least with enough enjoyment to keep it worthwhile buying…
Closely watching producers that seem to have turned things around…and hoping at some point soon my answer to this question is YES…sad part will be it will be yes from everyone else too and we know what that means…
That the wines drink “great” young may be true, but it comes to how much one is willing to spend if one has to consume the bottles within perhaps 5 years or so, or conversely age them normally and raise the cost by the percentage of bottles that one must pour down the drain. For me, what made the grand crus and upper level premier crus worth their tariff was what they did over time. I found that the differences between these upper level wines and “lower” level wines were less pronounced and more subtle when they were young…at least to my palate. To some, a young Batard or Chevalier may be worth $200-400+, but for my money it would not be worth that if I had to drink it within 5 years. So for me there is not enough enjoyment to keep buying…at least at the level of wines I used to buy.
Not me either, at the moment, unless keeping it for one of my special events. I’ll declaim this again here (have spoken of it a bit in other threads) that, besides the premox risk (which I actually believe may be decreasing), I also do believe the Burgundian producers have shifted to making their white wines to be approachable at a younger age and to be drunk at a younger age, a trend I would probably identify for myself as having started in 2010 and 2011. That is just my very humble own opinion. I’m (very fortunately) getting my hands on 3 of my WOTY last year (the Meo Corton Charlie 2015) and I may keep one of those for 10 years or so. if I could up my pay grade and buy some Roulot, that is one that I would have to try to age some 
Which is also why my first post on this thread was that I wasn’t aging grand crus (other than CC). Playing roulette with $400 bottles is less appealing.
None. As I try to reduce my wine buying premox is an easy excuse to exclude an entire category.
I most definitely would if I could repeat the glorious 2007 Montille Cailleret I drank from my cellar last year. I just don’t buy today; it’s hard for me to pull the trigger. Last year, I had a beautiful 2013 Pernot BM that gave me pause, and wondered if I should buy a few.