Bordeaux is intellectualism.
California is hedonism.
Burgundy is sado-masochism.
FIFY 
Agreed. Stay away from all those early-1990’s reds. Just worse than yak urine.
Yes
And I did not intend to offend Alfert…
Here’s my Burgundy story: three months ago I had a 2014 Confuron Chambolle Musigny that was so good I bought two mixed cases of various villages and 1er cru Chambolles. I was very excited.
Then I had my second bottle of 2014 Confuron Chambolle Musigny. ![[cry.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/8/853b6e76c6e8406be77a6727c2a27ad1672678b3.gif "cry"){kind=small}
The Russians learned roulette from the Burgundians. That is why brains are served with Burgundy…ideally Haut Prion.
Brains are served with Burgundy? I thought it was that Burgundy was served to people with brains.
I had the 00 Jadot CSJ a few months ago and really liked it.
That said, that is the only bottle of Jadot I’ve ever had that I’ve thought worth the money, so haven’t bought any in years. As many have pointed out, so much of this is about the producer.
Calf brains, cooked, cleaned, salt, pepper, then mashed well with low salt feta cheese, spread on toasted bread, do go nicely with red Burgs. Just saying…
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I would never double-decant it. I´d open it 5-6 hours in advance, take a tiny sip to taste, refill that and wait.
10-15 min before serving I´d decant it as softly as possible just to seperate it from the sediment.
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(the quote is from Gerhard)
This one always puzzles me–folks tell us they never decant a burgundy, and then–they go ahead and decant it! I don’t get it–how can one say that they are not decanting their burgundies, when they actually sometimes do? I’m not specifically attacking Gerhard, who’s palate I trust and has a tremendous amount of burgundy experience, but I just don’t understand how this last little decant fits into a claim that decanting somehow damages a wine. I’ve seen this pop up in other decanting discussions, when someone will claim that they don’t decant, but then state that they pour the bottle out and back into cleansed bottle, and feel that this somehow doesn’t qualify as a decant.
I would never double-decant it. I´d open it 5-6 hours in advance, take a tiny sip to taste, refill that and wait.
10-15 min before serving I´d decant it as softly as possible just to seperate it from the sediment.
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(the quote is from Gerhard)
This one always puzzles me–folks tell us they never decant a burgundy, and then–they go ahead and decant it! I don’t get it–how can one say that they are not decanting their burgundies, when they actually sometimes do? I’m not specifically attacking Gerhard, who’s palate I trust and has a tremendous amount of burgundy experience, but I just don’t understand how this last little decant fits into a claim that decanting somehow damages a wine. I’ve seen this pop up in other decanting discussions, when someone will claim that they don’t decant, but then state that they pour the bottle out and back into cleansed bottle, and feel that this somehow doesn’t qualify as a decant.
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You do realize that there are multiple individuals who drink Burgundy (and every other type of wine) and that different people do different things? What a naive and silly post.
I’m assuming that i didn’t express myself very well, but otherwise, Howard, I think your response is asinine. If others didn’t understand my post, then I can explain myself further.
The question is…how to prepare a less than 20yo bottle of Jadot CSJ. First, I’d find these discussions to be much more interesting, and much more focussed, if the first portion of every post were focused exclusively on answering the OPs, Kelly Flynn in this case, question specifically…and then discussing generalities of how to best handle burgundies (or whatever). Perhaps folks here have done that, but it isn’t clear to me
All the folks here, Gerhard, John, Howard, and others, have a lot of experience drinking Burgundy all along the aging scale in a way that suits their palate…the latter being the big caveat. Not a bad thing, but everyone appreciates different nuances out of burgundy, and everyone has learned different anecdotes about how to buy, age, and prepare to open burgundy to, oh god please, bring those nuances out in the next bottle we all open. And Gerhard, John, Howard and others have a lot of experience/success doing this and are ignored at your burgundy peril. Unfortunately, paying too much attention to what we say brings as much peril.
The slow-ox technique that Gerhard was suggesting (opening a bottle 5-6 hours ahead of time and leaving the bottle be) is an interesting and worthwhile technique for older bottles, generally/roughly 30+ years old, tho there’s no firm line here. But, many experienced burg palates here view this slow ox technique as controversial and some as folly. Personally, I’ve slow oxed a decent number of older bottles of burgundy, and I’ve tried it on young/middle aged bottles which I’m less likely to repeat soon.
In this case, a 2000 Jadot CSJ is still young, or perhaps middle aged, esp given Jacques Lardiere’s structured winemaking approach. After all, Francoise Audouze, who has posted the most about slow ox, typically does it with 30-50+ year old bottles. In this case, I think slow oxing is ill advised, simply because I think the wine isn’t old enough to warrant that sort of treatment, and think air contact based on an initial taste of the wine, is the most prudent. Anways, hopefully folks will post their specific best/worthwhile approach for this wine.
(the quote is from Gerhard)
This one always puzzles me–folks tell us they never decant a burgundy, and then–they go ahead and decant it! I don’t get it–how can one say that they are not decanting their burgundies, when they actually sometimes do? I’m not specifically attacking Gerhard, who’s palate I trust and has a tremendous amount of burgundy experience, but I just don’t understand how this last little decant fits into a claim that decanting somehow damages a wine. I’ve seen this pop up in other decanting discussions, when someone will claim that they don’t decant, but then state that they pour the bottle out and back into cleansed bottle, and feel that this somehow doesn’t qualify as a decant.
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You do realize that there are multiple individuals who drink Burgundy (and every other type of wine) and that different people do different things? What a naive and silly post.
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Well, Howard, what a rude and stupid comment.
OK, so I believe that this thread started with someone sharing their experience of being underwhelmed with some Burgundies, and many people proposed some possible explanations, including the wines not being ready, going through a dumb phase, not being that good to being with, not being properly prepared, subject to bottle variation, the taster’s palate being attuned to other more dense varietals, etc. And when the discussion turned to “properly” preparing the wines so that they have the best chance to show well, things seemed to get a bit out of hand.
I think many of us have tried different approaches to preparing our Burgundies, often in response to experiences where a Burgundy, opened just prior to serving, has just started to sing after a few hours in the open bottle or decanter at the end of the evening when there is little left to enjoy. I am not sure anyone has the complete answer. I rarely drink wines that are over 25-30 years old, so I tend to double decant wines a few hours ahead, and depending on the vintage, the younger the wine the more I consider instead decanting it and leaving it in the decanter for a couple of hours ahead. I am not sure I have experienced a wine suffering from decanting, but then again, I would not decant a very old wine hours ahead as I would fear it fading before I had a chance to follow its progression.
Anyway, I am sure many here have much more experience than I do, and certainly much stronger opinions on the matter than I do. And sometimes the semantics are confusing…never decanting Burgundies except when they are decanted, for example. But perhaps I am just silly and naive.
The folks who tell never to decant Burgundy are not the same folks who decant them - simple!
To be clear: I mainly decant to seperate from the sediment, or in a blind tasting to hide the bottle/label … and I try to do it softly (and not doubled).
For younger wines the short decanting may be also slightly for the benefit of the wine´s showing, but ONLY after slow-oxing for some time.
Immediate decanting without slow-oxing in advance may result in dry tannins and more noticable acidity ( it MAY result …)
Howard, I have enjoyed your posts over the years. However, your response to John S. was over the line. Take a deep breath, relax. ![[cheers.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/0/0ff9bfcdb0964982cd3240b6159868fbdf215b1a.gif "cheers"){kind=small}
Gerhard, I’m still not sure that I your feelings (and others) about decanting/double decanting Burgs. Whenever I decant or double decant, I do it very gently, so I don’t think that is a valid distinction between a double decant 2-3 hours before drinking vs a gentle decant 15 minutes before. So it must be a timing issue–do you feel that the double decant exposes the wine to too much air too far ahead of drinking? Personally I’m not sure that I would buy that argument, because much of the time a burgundy is consumed over 2-3hrs with dinner, and often with other bottles. So if you’ve decanted it 15 min before serving, 1.75 hours later, what’s the difference between this wine, and your first tastes of a wine that you decanted 2 hours before serving?
I try to be open minded about this, because of the many folks who prefer not to decant their burgs, but like Robert, I’ve tried multiple times to slow ox, or just pop and very slowly pour a burg, and most often I just experience a wine that needed more air than it received, and find that only the last 1/2 glass of the bottle is where it finally should be.
Re: the notion that the last glasses of a particular botlle of Burgundy are often the best.
The cynic in me believes that the taster may just be buzzed rather than the wine appreciably changing because of more air! Let’s just say his/her critical faculties may change with more wine and ensuing mirth at the table …
It’s certainly happened to me.
Hey, there’s never any mirth at my table–we’re deadly serious. A counter-point to your assertion, though, is that with a wine that doesn’t evolve or improve with air, I tend to find that it gets more and more boring on repeated sampling as your palate gets tired. So when a wine improves with each taste, I think that it is actually, in fact, improving.