I’ll stand one up next time, but typically, as per the '98 Jean-Michel Guillon Gevrey-Chambertin 1er Cru Petite Chapelle I opened when I posted this, it was vertical for perhaps 3 hours total.
I don’t mind it, not at all, I’ve just found that it’s more common in older Burgundy than any other red wine. I’ve noticed it in a lot of Joseph Swan Pinot Noir bottles as well, so I attribute it to the grape.
Personally, I have much more in the way of sediment issues with Barolo and Northern Rhone. (not really an issue, but you just have to account for it. Many hard core Barolo drinkers stand their wines up for a month.)
I find this in ALL the reds I drink. It’s why I try to transport reds far in advance but especially Burgundy. I don’t have as much experience as others here…but EVERY Pinot Noir that I’ve had that was more than 10 years old benefited greatly from time & patience for ALL the sediment to settle and then decant the wines. I usually try to set them at a 40 degree angle to allow the sediment to settle into one section of the base of the bottle. I’ve found this gets me between 2-3 oz. sometimes 4oz. more ounces out of a bottle when I’m decanting.
Geez, why do burg drinkers take everything so seriously, its only friggin wine, its ok just to treat it like grape juice
Yeah, pretty much. There a some ageable reds from particular vintages that didn’t throw much sediment, but I’m always careful about transporting older reds within a day or two of drinking them.
I will start replying to the stupid threads you continually start in a similar manner and will repeat your comment every time you object to it.
Great topic. Makes sense to me. Burgundy has super parcellated holdings of a thin-skinned cultivar. Perhaps with each increase in the number of bottlings, settling/racking/bottling becomes more important and harder to execute perfectly/consistently. Add to this that the wines are either lightly fined or unfined and are mostly unfiltered. On the flip side, it seems as though one can easily achieve more consistency in the settling/racking/bottling from larger, less parcellated holdings (Bordeaux, parts of Rhone, Piedmont…). And I assume there is more fining/filtration in certain parts of these appellations.
I have found two reasons, one of which is mentioned many times, fine sediment, the second is Burgundy’s tendency to lighter color and a more transparent hue making it easier to see the cloudiness vs. BDX or Syrah which carry more color. They can still be cloudy, I just find it easier to see in Pinot Noir.
Alan, I’m with you on this one. Don’t be joking about burg, not here, not ever. About most wines actually. It’s why I don’t post notes about any wines here.
Pinot Noir can tend to be more cloudy than other reds because it is typically racked less often during elevage.
No worries, the difference is i dont have a stick so far up my ass that i cant spot obvious sarcasm
I have a '00 Jadot CSJ that I’d like to drink at a restaurant this coming Friday. Before standing it up, I carefully inspected the bottle with a flashlight but could not tell if it was cloudy, but did see some sediment. Do you think transporting the bottle to the restaurant and then immediately consuming would be a problem?
I would decant it, pour it back into the bottle and then take it to the restaurant.
I am going to offer a bit of perspective on this based completely on experience.
Perspective: Like all reds as has been mentioned previously, standing the wines up for A FEW DAYS (not hours) will help all sediment to settle. Also- properly decanting the wine prior to service makes a huge difference especially with this trend that now exists: Heavy Lees retention
LEES. Many red wine producers in Burgundy are retaining all of the lees throughout the fermentation/aging process which has an impact on flavor profile and texture. However, this practice yields a tremendously larger amount of solids in your liquid wine bottle at times. DECANT for sediment upon service. LEES in finished wine make a glass pour cloudy as the lees impact the flavor and texture. YMMV.
Any wine will taste completely different if lees are present in your glass or not.
I’ve had way too many bottles of old Burgundy that people have brought to tastings and dinners and which have arrived cloudy because the sediment has been shaken up. Alan described that as making the wine taste sour, but I’d call it bitter and astringent. It really does alter the texture of the wine for the worse.
It’s always seemed to me that pinot and nebbiolo sediiment are particularly fine, and thus slow to settle out. Cabernet and syrah sediment seem to fall out faster when you stand the bottle upright.
And there are differences in the taste of sediment. Nebbiolo, as others have said, is particularly nasty and bitter. Syrah sediment tends to crust/cake on the side of the bottle in a way I rare see with other wines.
I don’t object to cabernet and merlot sediment so much. I’ve often enjoyed the cloudy dregs of an old bottle of Bordeaux.
It would be interesting to know if anyone has analyzed the makeup of sediment from different grapes.
Isn’t “cloudiness” also just much more apparent in Burgundy than in, for example, Syrah or Bordeaux, just because the wine itself is lighter in color (more red than dark) and more translucent? Not that I haven’t seen cloudy or “creamy-looking” Bordeaux, but at lower levels it just seems like this is more apparent/obvious in Burgundy. Older Nebbiolo also shows this frequently.
Wow - an old thread is new again! My “epiphany wine” was a 2010 Selyem RRV that a friend gave me on my 40th birthday. Until that point, the most extravagant wine I had ever consumed cost maybe $25 and, frankly, most reds in the $10-15 range where we typically sought out the “best outliers” by tasting with friends - all tasted pretty much the same to me. I was intrigued by this Selyem wine, learning it was not as simple to acquire as a stroll down to the local liquor store (as it is now, sadly). I decided to keep it safe in the cool basement for over a year, stashing it in the little box where I kept my stash of “good” wines. When I pulled the bottle out and looked at it over a year later - it had developed a cloudy mass, very much like a jellyfish in it. My first reaction was crap! my best wine has gone bad and I never had a chance to taste it. I took it to a local liquor shop - the biggest one near me that actually had a decent selection of nicer wines. The guy took a look at it and just told me to drink it. It’s organic, he said, not bad but wine is alive and constantly undergoing change. So, I decided to let it sit for a week and, if the blob persisted, just filter it out. I took it home and did what he suggested. When we popped it a week later - the blob persisted. The wife and I decided to pop and pour it anyway and, to our mutual surprise, the wine was absolutely stunning. We had never tasted anything like it. When we swallowed the last of it we were both left wondering what we had just done and how would we would ever get more. We, of course got on the list and have since enjoyed countless Selyems and the RRV has always held a special place in our hearts as a result. I suppose the reason I felt compelled to share this story is that a) it reminds me that wines are living, breathing organic matter and should be treated accordingly, b) organic matter in a bottle isn’t always a bad thing, and c) those of us lucky enough to have experienced that “aha moment” are blessed to have been invited into the endless world of wine and continue to thirst for the next great bottle - of which we’ve now had several thanks to the steer of many members on this board. One of these particular members contributed a couple times to this thread above - a reason I suspect the thread was recently brought back to life - and a great reason to break out some more great juice tonight in search of that next “aha”. Cheers! ![[cheers.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/0/0ff9bfcdb0964982cd3240b6159868fbdf215b1a.gif "cheers"){kind=small}
A serious Burgundy client who started drinking and collecting superior Burgs in the 70’s never would consider drinking an older one within a year of receiving it.
He stands them upright for weeks prior to consumption.
This is why this “never decant a burgundy” stuff gets confusing. I think folks should change that to “never decant a burgundy until just prior to service or transport” (not that I’m really a believer in the never decant thing). Otherwise the last third of the bottle is often cloudy, and subject to sediment taint.
I initially assumed that this thread was resurrected as an Alan Eden tribute… Somewhat classic for him.
re: cloudiness- I had a 2017 Beaujolais that was reasonably cloudy the other day- it was a “natural” wine and unfiltered and un-fined so assume that had something to do with it. Have also had some cloudiness in other domestic wines- pinot, chardonnay, etc- again all unfined, unfiltered and relatively young wines. Other than the slightly cloudy appearance, I haven’t noticed anything off putting about the cloudiness itself, so can’t relate to the bitter comments- This cloudiness seemed unrelated to the cloudiness of mixed up sediment in older wines- which can often also add a slightly grainy texture to the wine and can add some bitterness.