The quick answer is: Absolutely. Some wines are so immediately breathtaking for what they are that they can be deemed great. Whether that means they will be great 25 years from now – well, that depends, and I think wines that we consider truly great young are perceived as such because, as great as they may be in the now, they are only offering a piece of what we sense they can become.
Before anyone makes the obvious counter-argument – that of enjoying the Muscadet by the seaside with the oysters with your beloved – yes, that is a great experience, and yes, it is fuelled in part by the wine, but I’m assuming Ray means Beethoven’s 9th wines and King Lear wines and War & Peace wines. In other words, wines that transcend your particular experience of the moment into a shared community greatness.
I get it if you cannot enjoy both kinds of wines or understand the difference, but some of us can and the debate over great and context isn’t relevant here.
And now, having said “absolutely” I’m going to qualify the hell out of my answer.
I’ve been lucky enough to taste a lot of great old, mature and young wine. Most of my posts about those tastings are hidden away on the Parker board, but I still do them from time-to-time. In my experience, there are few, if any surprising monuments amongst the classic wine regions. You may argue about the degrees of greatness – as an example, tasting 62, 67, 71 and 76 Yquem side-by-side, but there just aren’t that many wines that the collective body of knowledge didn’t notice upon release as being great that later blossom into something special.
It can happen – my personal experience, shared with at least a few board members here, the 93 Domaine d’Auvenay Chevalier at Mitch Hersh’s La Paulee – of course, the surprise was less that it was great and more that it was so great – it remains one of the finest Chevaliers I have ever had.
So, while there is certainly obvious greatness, there is also unexpected greatness. The 93 White Burgundies followed the much more overtly great 92s, and d’Auvenay Chevalier is produced in microscopic quantities. I never tasted the wine young, but it would be interesting to learn what people thought of it then. I suspect 93’s young profile was pretty unfashionable, as this was the beginning of trying to make more approachable wines. Bordeaux went through a major shift in 82 – Parker was ready for it. One major difference – 82 was perceived as less than great because it was possible to enjoy it young – 93 White Burg was perceived a less than great because the wines were difficult to enjoy young (A lot changed in 10 years!).
I also think we have become much more vintage conscious over the past decade or two, since wine publications began widely trumpeting “vintages of the century” every second issue – not that there wasn’t vintage hype in the past, but it seems to consume consumers in way it didn’t before. Because so many people seek out a simple binary “buy/don’t buy” filter via vintage reports, many less obvious great wines remain undiscovered until well after vintage furors die off. See how people are now typically more interested in 96/99 Barolo over 97/00. Or look at how many 00 Red Burgundies deliver great experiences, though perhaps in a more minor key then 99 or 02. I feel like the same thing happened with 06 and 07 Red Burgs – overshadowed by memories of 05, but when they are cellared and mature, that comparison will be mostly irrelevant, and many great wines will be revealed.
I often think we have so much information available to us that we have lost sight of how much we don’t know and how much of a wine’s development remains a mystery. My feeling is that there is the obvious great – because the wine has everything (05 La Tache), and then less obvious great – the virtues are less overt, or perhaps one characteristic demands the wine’s other characteristics compensate (03 Clos des Lambrays)…
Anyway, that’s my four cents!
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