BAMA vertical... or when everything goes wrong

WINE TALK
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I’m drinking down a lot of the French cellar as we are gearing up to go back to Montreal.

This means that I have a few verticals to go through (Magdelaine, BAMA and Sociando-Mallet amongst others).

Tonight was the BAMA mini vertical:

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We started off with Champagne Jestin 2009.. The last time I had this was in 2024 with @melvinyeo. Same showing: rich golden color and old school aged goodness. Round and rich with a broad spectrum of flavor: toasted brioche, nuts, golden apple, ripe pear and spices. The nose and first palate hint at too much richness yet the palate is precise and clean. With air this all comes together and is a terrific champagne. Disclaimer: we sell this (if we still have some left).

We moved to Guffens-Heynen Pouilly-Fuissé C.-C 2017. I opened this 2 hours ahead, double decanted and kept in the fridge. Taken out about 30 minutes before serving. The treatment seemed appropriate and this showed wonderfully! Very nice nose with pear, ripe citrus and slight vanilla and tropical fruits. Very aromatic. The palate is opulent initially but gains verve and tension all the way to the long finish. Very good and in a great place right now.

And then the horror story.

BAMA 2005: faint nose, watery, almost no fruit, something is off. I gave it 5 hours of air hoping it would gain appeal. Nope.

BAMA 2003: a little more fruit on the nose, I initially thought TCA as it showed cardboard on the nose. Time and air blew off the cardboard but it remained rather thin and hollow with medium acidity and tannins.

BAMA 2009: the nose finally showed some black fruit and red berries, pyrazines, damp earth and slight coffee. But again, the body was a no-show. An initial burst of fruit but then, watered down Bordeaux. Wtf?

BAMA 1998: the least offensive of the 6 and almost on point. Great nose: red berries, leather, tobacco and earthy tones. Freshness on the palate with medium acidity and some savouriness but again, there’s a hole in the middle that just shouldn’t be there. Darn it.

BAMA 1999: darker berries on the nose, leather, forest floor, dried herbs and stewed plums. Same freaking issue with the body it’s lacking fruit and texture. Medium acidity, medium+ tannins but a watery feel to it.

BAMA 2010: As per the 1998, almost okay. But not quite. Red berries, red plums, earthy, slightly musky and a bit of bell pepper. The nose is enticing but the palate once again is a letdown.

Before you post, yes, I assumed it was me. How else can 6 bottles (4 from the Château, 2 from a reputable retailer) fall short especially considering that I’ve had the 05, 03 and 98 from the same purchase before and they showed well.

There were 5 other tasters with me. It was pretty much the consensus. 2 tasters liked the 1998 and 2009 enough to leave with the remainders. 1 other taster felt the 2010 wasn’t as bad. But overall, total fail.

I opened two different bottles to make sure we weren’t all affected by a group hallucination:

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Château Sociando-Mallet 2014
Dark-berried, mineral, with the cassis leaf greenie goodness on the savoury side. Already drinking well but plenty of structure to endure and probably improve. It felt good to drink something that didn’t fade out before the finish.

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Gabin et Felix Richoux Irancy Veaupessiot 2018
Initially spritzy (perlant) which I didn’t expect, I had to flash decant this. Fruit bomb with some oak peeking through after some time in the decanter. A little overdone but again, glad to have some texture and fruit after the BAMA death march.

This was pretty much a total fiasco considering I was introducing friends to BAMA but the company was great and the warm summer evening dragged on in laughter and stimulating conversation.

That’s wine for you.

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Ok, watching this and any followup threads, along with (I’m guessing) @Robert.A.Jr and @Mark_Golodetz

Sorry for the disappointing results, however…bummer

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Sorry, I’ve never heard of these wines before. Sounds like they suck bad!!!

:sunglasses:

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I think it is pretty established that BAMA can vary greatly from bottle to bottle. My hit rate so far has been excellent; one middling '96, otherwise they have been good to great.

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Sorry to hear about this as it seems like a venture/style/gestalt worth supporting, but I suspect I’d have the same experience too.

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I felt that I put-in a pretty solid effort with this Chateau when I bought two bottles each of the '95, '98, 99, and '00. So far, I’ve been through 6 of them. A few have been like what Phil experienced in his lineup, and a few have been good (although with no apparent room to improve, and very much in a throwback old-school style, which not everyone is going to dig). I tried to wrap my arms around BAMA, but it has proven too prickly an approach.

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Bloody hell that must have been so frustrating. Must be due to sun spots as far as I can tell!

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I think if you prep your palate with Ovid cabs like @Robert.A.Jr you will like them a lot more! JK. My 98’s and 2000’s have been excellent so far. 95 and 99 not so much.

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I shoot, did I forget to mention that I blend them with Ovid?!?

I cracked the Rolland formula!

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I ordered some 95/98 BAMA from board advice and have been underwhelmed. Maybe it’s not them, it’s you?

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You usually drink swill so 95 BAMA should be right up your alley :stuck_out_tongue:

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From reading CT notes, I think BAMAs need a lot of air to become more expressive so when I open mine I’ll probably open them in the morning!

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I had been pretty lucky up to now. I’ve consumed 28 bottles of it over many vintages: 96, 98, 99, 03, 05, 06, 09 and 10. Before yesterday, only 2 had been underwhelming / affected. Looks like my failures decided to hide in the back of the cellar, hatch up a plan and all come out swinging simultaneously!

I had another 2 bottles of 09 and 10 in the cellar but decided that it was no time to continue to push my luck! :smile:

I even checked the biodynamic calendar and it showed leaf day… I’m a Cartesian man but maybe…

I’ve had enough to know I like the style and didn’t have enough duds in the past to know there could be so much variability. But I spent all evening trying to figure out what external criterion could be responsible for this: food pairing, very warm day, fruit fly taint. I couldn’t find one to explain them all.

The 05, 09 and 10 were opened 5 hours in advance. The 03 was opened almost 4 hours in advance. The 98 and 99 were opened 1 hour in advance. We came back to the wines throughout the evening so another 5 hours there. For these wines, air didn’t seem to do it.

My buddies left with the 98, 09 and 10. We’ll see what they say about them today. I’ve got the other three bottles recorked and in the wine fridge “for cooking” I’ll retry a taste today.

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Correction, he grabbed the 99 not the 10.

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Blimey Phil, how awful. Really sorry it was such a crappy experience.

One bad BAMA is not unexpected, but six in a row from different vintages is completely out of the ordinary, like winning the lottery in reverse. Well, nowadays at least. In my first BAMA-buying phase, drinking vintages from 85 to 90, bad bottles were so frequent that I gave up buying the stuff, until I “rediscovered” the wine back in 2017 and was pleasantly surprised. Since then I’ve had a few bad ones, mostly the 96 vintage, but nothing close to your appalling run. I just hope the three you kept somehow do the greatest comeback since Lazarus!

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Robert and Julian (I know you two drink a bunch of BAMA), do you find BAMA wines to be more inconsistent than other of your favorite wines? If they are more inconsistent, this could just be bad luck one night where he opened all of the bad ones. But, I usually think of inconsistent as wines very susceptible to harm from less than ideal storage. And, when most of the wines came from the winery, poor storage does not seem to be much of a risk factor.

I must admit as someone who grew up in Georgia that just the name BAMA seems offensive to me. I usually think of the proper pronunciation of the University as Alagoddamnbama.

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So, you think the real issue with Rolland wines is that he puts from Bordeaux in with the Ovid??? You have many times said you like the purer “Crack” Ovid.

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Since I have had limited experience of Bama, three bottles and none of them good (but none of them flawed) I think it’s time to move on and have some Magdelaine. I have found it can soften the hardest of disappointments.

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I’ve got another BBQ tonight. Today was Kermesse at the kids school (liters of beer were consumed) i think I’ll bring a 2009 and 2010 to check them out on a different day!

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Bel Air Marquis d’Aligre is the polar opposite of the sleek, precise wines made with state-of-the-art technology, consultants and fifteen different types of oak barrel toasted in five different ways that most CCs have on their production lines. It’s made by an old fellow who is now, I believe, in his early nineties, on his own using the same equipment he probably had in the 70s, and using the same techniques. Much of the charm of Bel Air Marquis d’Aligre stems from the fact that it tastes like wines did before the Parker revolution.

Now, say what you like about His Bobness, but it’s undeniable that his period of hegemony either inspired or at least coincided with massive improvements in production techniques that have rendered wines from most châteaux a lot more reliable than in the past.

So yes, Bel Air Marquis d’Aligre is less reliable than most “normal” wines. Unfortunately, it’s the price those who enjoy it have to pay, but the thing is…when it’s good, it’s absolutely amazing, one of the finest wines I’ve ever had the pleasure of drinking, the epitome of what a fine Margaux should taste like. But, yes, when it’s bad, it’s really awful.

I’ve never heard of such a bad run as poor Phil had last night though.

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