I have not had the opportunity to drink much old burgundy. Last night I opened a 1982 Domaine Lambrays which had a great fill and seemed in great condition. The nose was really great and had lots of secondary aromas and was pretty expressive. The palate was also quite long and complex. So I assume the wine was a good example. However it was seriously cloudy!. It was like a mud pool. I wondered if many old burgundys go cloudy and why this is the case. However it may be that I should of stood up the bottle for a week or so and then carefully poured it. If I had stood it up would it go clear? and also does this make a big difference in the taste?
Yes & Yes. My belief is that older wines, and certainly a 1982 burgundy is considered an older wine, should be stood up for at least a week to “settle out” deposits and sediment and that the floating detritus in a wine can affect its flavor. Just my 2 cents. YMMV.
The sediment in an old Burgundy can be extremely fine grained … so standing up the bottle for at least a week, better several weeks, is heavily recommended.
I also recommend to “audouze” such a wine - to open it several (4-5) hours in advance for slow oxi … and then pour it very gently (along the edge of a caraffe) into a decanter immeditately before serving - just to seperate it from the sediment.
For instance right now I have a 70+ old Burgundy standing in my cellar - it was cloudy as the docks of London in November several weeks ago - and now is bright orange red and clear …
Ok got it. I will make sure to stand the bottles before opening. I have 2 more bottles of the same wine so it will be interesting to stand them up and see the difference.
Its interesting as I drink a lot of older bordeaux and most often you dont get the same muddy cloud even without standing up.
Store your bottle label up. Stand it upright for a week and then carefully decant it label up. The sediment should be concentrated at the bottom of the bottle opposite the label and you should be able to pour most of the wine out before the sediment is disturbed. If you are taking your bottle out, best to decant at home and put the decanted wine back into the cleaned bottle.
Use a strong light to locate where the sediment is in all your older wines. A clear wine in a glass is a beautiful thing and tastes better too.
I stand mine up for 2 days before drinking. A few years back I had the same problem with a 1988 Philippe LeClerc Gevrey that I carted to California. When I opened and tasted it was as you described. Still a nice bottle of wine. Wine fault bottles would rear their ugly head and would not be drinkable…Gary
I think one has to distinguish between floating sediment and “cloudy” wines. As people say, gravity, ie, standing them up to let the visible sediment fall to the bottom and then carefully decanting them is a solution. However, many red Burgs from before 1990 will remain cloudy, no matter how much the sediment is allowed to fall. And, in the glass, they remain cloudy.
I don’t consider this a “flaw” nor do I think this affects taste. I think it is/was more of an issue of the winemaking techniques at the time. Wines were not a finely filtered nor was there as rigorous of an effort to clean them up before bottling or as much racking to lift them off their fine sediments. Certainly, visually, they are not as pretty as wines that are not affected, especially when holding a glass up to a light source. And, when wines are cloudy (vs. filled with visible sediment, which does affect the taste), though I don’t think the taste is affected, I am often distracted by it. Nothing will clarify the wine, though, unless you have some bentonite and/or egg whites and a barrel of the wine to clarify.
Also, the barometric pressure at the time of bottling can affect this. That’s why the Biodynamic wines of today are not cloudy; they bottle according to the lunar calendar, as to many others. This is one of the reasons, maybe the main one. And, eye appeal does mean a lot.
I’d say even MORE of an issue with Barolo and Barbaresco, simply because whatever sediment is present in the glass is more likely to materially damage the taste of the wine.
I’ll look later for a better explanation. To be clear, people in Burgundy, I know, were using the lunar calendar for bottling dates long before Biodynamie appeared as a method in the region. It was explained to me in the '80s; I had never heard of BD then. And, the practice is done by many who don’t/didn’t do BD.
Right. For old Nebbiolos, I’m an extremist, but I generally recommend standing the bottles up for a minimum of three months, double-decanting at home if they’re intended for drinking elsewhere and stopping the decant the second any sediment starts to flow out.
My experience is different than yours.
I have been drinking aged Burgundies since 1971 [starting with 1957 Richebourg]. Hundreds of them. I have never had one that I could not decant clear. So am I just lucky?
To me a cloudy wine has something wrong with it.
Fine lees and tannins will settle. They also are very easily re-disturbed. A little planning and careful handling can be beneficial to the final experience of the bottle. Cloudiness caused by bacterial issues, in other words, genuine flaws will become apparent. While a unsettled, unflawed wine may be good as a drink, they’re even better settled and decanted.
I think , Paul, you are extremly “lucky”…or…you leave a good portion of the wine in the bottle? Some of this stuff is so microscopically small that many people don’t even see it, including me.
Nice to hear what your “starting” wine was…
I’ve had a couple wines that I stood up, decanted with the use of a powerful flashlight…and then a coffee filter…and were still cloudy…in the last two weeks. (Anyone who has had an Ampeau '83 Volnay-Santenots has had a cloudy wine, FWIW. I tried many times to decant it clean, to convince the importer to bring it in, but…he said every bottle would be returned; so, I have a little stash of it; the taste is fine, if not the visual impression.)
FWIW, from 2008: Ampeau Volnay-Santenots 1983: gift from Michel Ampeau 2007; tasted and liked at the winery 4/07. This wine has a muddiness that people take for a flaw or sourness. I don’t. But, the wine cannot be cleaned by merely putting it through coffee filter paper. It needs to be stopped when the sediment begins to flow. Still…both bottles nice. Alive.
From April/'09: Daniel (Patrice) 1988 Rion Nuits-Vignes Rondes: A bit cloudy as it had not been fined or filtered. Delicious sweetish red fruits dominating the palate and the long finish. The elegant side of Nuits (near Vosne). When I told my friends that there was one grand cru, 2 of the 3 thought this was the grand cru! (And, they are both knowledgable: both went to Burgundy and Alsace with me in 2001; one went back with me in 2004 and is a WSET intermediate certificate holder…whatever that means). Pretty regal a for a Nuits 1er cru. Also, fine the next day. The other wines were all 1988: Mugnier Amoureuses, Grivot Nuits-Boudots; Rousseau Mazy-Chambertin.
We are talking about “cloudy” here…not just wines that have lots of visible sediment, which can mostly be cleaned up, especially with a coffee filter at the end of the bottle. No amount of filtering will remove the cloudy effect, though. Is it a flaw? I think that depends on how the wine tastes. It’s certainly not desirable.
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