Domaine re-conditioned Burgundy. What do you think?

WINE TALK
1

When presented with re-conditioned bottles from a mid level domaine in Burgundy, what do you do?

I wish they hadn’t done it. It’s very tempting and I imagine a pretty good experience but I suspect something gets lost
(or found [wink.gif] ) with topping off and re-corking. Isn’t the rule with antiques… don’t refinish? To think what they had and then tampered with…

2

If you take the example of Bouchard, around every 25 years, they recork all their gems in the cellar. They have a very special employee who is doing just that ! Well : they have over 3 M bottles there.

The main point about this procedure : it has to be done at the property, since they check the quality of the wine and then add what is necessary from the same wine inthe same vintage.

It is not an automatic procedure in Bordeaux where they may come to the client’ cellar and/or, fill up the bottle with a younger vintage.

My way, FWIW : I do prefer the authenticity of the Burgundy method.

Now, you may always say that it is a kind of crime to do so since you “rebuild” something which is not anymore the truly original product.

Question of feelings…

3

I’ve had reconditioned Arnoux that has been quite good.

4

The domain I speak of is Daudet Naudin. AFAIK, these were done at the domain. I had a few reconditioned Arnoux several years ago. They were certainly nice mature Burgs but I couldn’t help noticing that compared to unre-conned bottles I’ve had of similar age, a certain element of intensity was lacking.
I wonder, what is the goal? What is the reasoning by the domain for doing so? Is it to present clean, fresh labeled full bottles
“as if they were new”? It is a quality control exercise? Or to let them go with fresh corks to be cellared indefinitely further?
It would seem that if good bottles of the wine are used to top up the rest then there’s no reason for concern. And yet…
Allen Meadows has expressed that he finds re-conned bottles to not quite match originals. My experience is too limited.

5

I think in the case of Doudet-Naudin purity was never their chief aim, so little harm would arise from a small adjustment here!

6

Yeah I get it, not a prestige domain, but when talking about the 50s, do modern standards of taste and expectation apply? Burgundy was a pretty different place back then. Bottles from producers that might be more “pure” as you put it,
are often of unknown provenance and cost WAY more. Besides, reconditioning domain cellared bottles for release is not supposed to be about “adjustment”. I posed the question generally rather than specifically, do you have experience with or an opinion about domain reconditioned bottles?

7

My only experience was with some 25 year old Rioja (of the cheaper variety), recorked and topped up at the domaine. It drank beautifully, and all 12 bottles were in good condition, though I have no idea how they compared to the original.
It seems to me the upside is that there is much less risk that the wine is spoiled or corked, assuming the domaine is diligent in filtering out bad bottles. The downside is surely that it must introduce quite a lot of air into the bottle, which must have an effect.

8

Do they perform the re-conditioning in an oxygen-free chamber?

Maybe filled with nitrogen and staffed with guys wearing spacesuits?

9

I have generally always been happier with bottles aged on their original corks, which can be surprisingly long-lived and still tenacious after a century or more- even those short little ones that Burgundy used to use most of the time back in the old days. A year or two ago I had a bottle of the ‘37 Clos des Lambrays (which is one of the estate’s legendary vintages) that had been recorked at the domaine a year or two previously, and it was nowhere near as interesting as a bottle with an original cork tasted previously. The wine seemed much simpler and more fruit-driven than the insanely complex and autumnal bottle with the original cork. This is not to say that the re-conditioned bottle had been topped up with younger juice, but simply that it had lost (at least momentarily) much of its tertiary layers of complexity. Whether or not they will return with additional bottle age is simply speculation. In general terms I would always prefer the non recorked bottle if given the option, but one has to keep in mind that some of the best growers with deep cellars of old vintages, such as Henri Gouges and Christophe Roumier, do not hesitate to recork the old bottles from their grandparents’ days. When I discussed this with Christophe one night, he noted that the corks are really only meant to last thirty or forty years, and in his view it is worthwhile to change the corks at least once in a bottle’s lifetime to try and ensure that the wine runs out of steam on its own, rather than succumbing to a cork that has exceeded its shelf life. In his view the wines will recover after a few years and be comparable to the bottles that have not had their corks replaced. I have not had the pleasure to compare a recorked and an original cork from his grandfather’s day side by side (solely in the interest of science of course), but I have had a few of the very old bottles that he recorked, and they certainly seemed to have handled their reconditioning without any dramatic change of character. It seems to me the issue is really more about how much one trusts the domaine doing the reconditioning, and then how long the wines are given to recover before they are sold and/or drunk. I would think with wines from the fifties or earlier, they would need several years to recover from the shock of changing corks.

Best,

John

10

That’s an interesting notion, that there is a period of “awkwardness” and then a return to form. I guess it comes down to risk tolerance. As time passes and exceeds 40 or so years, cork failure increases sharply. So to reduce loss, and continue longevity, recorking is undertaken. A difficult proposition to test for oneself, but your comment is encouraging anyway. At least now I don’t view the practice as well meaning but misguided.