$35-$60, and it allows you to open one without planning weeks in advance:
Considering what a Durand costs, that’s cheap!
I recently was disappointed by some Barolos, showing curiuos signs of evolution at these ages (soy sauce).
This is here for Bartolo Mascarello 2008 and 2004 :
Note : wines in magnum and maybe a problem of bottling ?!
In June, same problem with the Barolo Settimo Rocche dell’Annunziata 2009 and even the Barolo Settimo Rocche dell’Annunziata Riserva 2009 (but with much less impact), showing these strange signs of evolution.
This was not the case, for example for the fantastic bright and vivid Mascarello Monprivato 2009, very fresh (flowery, fruity, spicy).
Note that if all the tasters found the Rocche 2009 flawed (soy sauce), some tasters loved the Rocche Riserva 2009.
Can “sediments” be a clue for an explanation ?
A few years ago I made a shelf like an angled library bookshelf to hold bottles at an angle such that the bottom of the cork is in contact with the wine and the sediment collects at the bottom of the bottle. Mine is a few feet long and can hold lots of bottles.
Sounds like a sensible idea. I actually store most of my old Barolo (as well as old Rioja) - at least what I think I might drink within the next five years or so - upright so I can open them on shorter notice. I’ve had bottles that have taken over 3 months to settle after shipping… just no point in taking any chances. Filtering the wine will remove some of the larger sediment but it will still taste pretty nasty.
No. What I was saying (and I think Al was) was that wines from the last 20-30 years aren’t throwing much sediment. But they aren’t old enough yet to know if they’ll eventually show sediment like those from the 60s and 70s.
Given that these wines tended to spend more time in cask in the old days, you’d think there would be less sediment in wines from the 60s and 70s. But who knows.
In my experience, old Rioja usually has little or no sediment, presumably because of the long aging in tanks. (Perhaps it’s also due in part to tempranillo.) You can usually transport those and open them without fear of sediment.
John
How did you read my wondering post … ?
Did you have 2009 Settimo recently ?
Again a link to this awesome video
Great minds . . . . ? ![[wink.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/0/04707e6a7bbb03e0153e349d8a9270d30e1e9525.gif "wink"){kind=small}
No, I haven’t had any Settimos in a while. They’re pretty low on the La Morra slope, where the vineyards generally don’t produce vins de garde. Perhaps that was a bad combination with the warm vintage. (That’s just speculation.) I never bought any 2009s and have never liked them much, so I don’t know if others are going in this direction.
Thank you, John
Burlotto, MT Mascarello, G. Mascarello … produced great 2009 …
Rocche is supposed to be a great terroir.
Cellatracker ratings however are good for Settimo 2009.
Settimo’s wines are not widely available in the US. Most of mine I’ve bought in London or Vancouver.
?Rubber surgical tubing? makes me a little nervous.
Yeah, he said plastic, but it sure looks like surgical tubing. One can easily buy food grade plastic tubing for this. Small scale (carboy) beer and wine making supply. Stainless tube with a sediment cap inside the bottle, tubing from there.
Being well aware of this bitter sediment issue, I very carefully decanted a '64 Bersano earlier this year before bringing it to a Berserker OL. The thing is, there was no fine sediment at all. Just dense crystalline chunks. The wine was good, but not mind blowing. A little tired and “past its prime”. So, when I brought a bottle to our 4th of July party, I didn’t bother to decant (shining a light through the bottle showed the same lack of free sediment). Pop-n-poured, it was lively and highly impressive.
Clearly an exception to the rule, but interesting. There seems to be something about Neb that usually prevents tannin chains from forming. Does tartaric acid play a role? (Short tannin chains are what we perceive as that particularly nasty bitterness.)
Interesting. Thanks, Wes. I wonder if the wine was kept for a Rioja-like period in cask.
My take on traditionalist vs modernist:
Traditionalist is rustic, no frills. Time has shown the great terroir and this grape stand up to this, overcome it, with decades of aging.
Modernist: Trying to “resolve” issues of tannin and acid by recklessly mimicking “modern” wines from elsewhere. Very trial and error. We’re now seeing some of those wines they were mimicking, who were sort of doing the same thing, not age well. Some of these may be great, many clearly aren’t.
Current: Some producers’ test batches have blown away their excellent standard wine.
Except in this case, Settimo has been very traditional.
It’s a mystery (to me, at least) why some wines develop the really fine sediment and some don’t even if some varieties seem more prone to it. FWIW, old Burgudies can also have really fine sediment, although it generally does not have the bitter flavor issue.
-Al
That fine pinot sediment isn’t as bad as nebbiolo, but I’ve had the misfortune to be served a number of old Burgundies that people have brought to dinners via the subway. Sadly, the wines were often bitter, though sometimes, if we nursed the bottle long enough, they clarified in the bottle or decanter and began to show their real selves. I’ve wanted to scream, “You idiot!”