Figeac vertical and wondering about Bordeaux critics

WINE TALK
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Jeff, You also use this site to push readers to your site every chance you get.

I believe your site to be a valuable resource, but I also find that your constant promotion of your own website to be a borderline violation of the spirit of WB’s stance regarding ITB participants. Every third post from you links to your site, which drives traffic and search ranking. While your website is free without a paywall, you do make money off of advertising (and perhaps through other commercial arrangements due to the high profile of your site on search results; in no small part due to the search authority power conferred by frequent linking from WB, which has a SEMrush score of 28, comparable to vinous.com).

Other ITB folks, be they winemakers or importers, generally give wide berth to any posts that might be considered promotional. William Kelley mostly contributes unique insights to WB that are neither available in his fee-based content via rp.com, and almost never directly references his own fee-based content unless in direct response to a query about it.

I am curious about other WBers thoughts on whether Jeff’s posts should be considered commercial or not. Again, this is not to say that I feel that Jeff isn’t a valued member of the community, because I do believe that Jeff is a net positive to the community. I just wonder if it violates the spirit of the forum in a way that is not accepted for other ITB members.

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If the timing works, would be very interested Mark. Happy to contribute money or wines. As it turns out, most of the vintages I own end in 0’s - 70, 90, 00, 10, 20. Hehe.

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FWIW, I make just about enough to pay for the server and maintenance. I do not do it for the money. There is zero profit in it. It is not how I fund my life. The people on here that know me can attest to that. There is no registration to use the site. We do not sell anything. We do not collect your emails or ips.

The site hopefully helps you and others learn about the regions we cover, and more importantly we help you find better wines for less money than you would without it. That’s the goal, and hopefully you have, and will continue to benefit from it.

In the FWIW category, links from chat boards are not really valuable to search engines because anyone can add them. They are only slightly above spam. The only value here is related to the specific topic so interested people can see more detail about the topic at hand.

FWIW, I think the only people here reading the site through links already know it, so the traffic doesn’t increase.

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85

Is it really that telling to compare old Figeac from the 40th, 50th, 60th to wines only a few years in bottle? One has to be a genius to know how the 47, 53 or 61 Figeac tasted in their youth. Even if someone is still alive who tasted the oldies when they were young I guess the memory can´t be fresh enough to have a clear picture. I know the theory that modern wines will not age as well as those of the past. But that is a theory without proof.

I know how the 82 Bordeaux tasted when they hit the shelves. Today the wines are very different. That is pretty normal. We call that evolution.

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Well said Jürgen.

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Thanks for sharing. It is interesting to see the evolution since that time.

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Some good points there, but I would quibble about that “proof” thing. We are 15-20+ years into the “modern” period we are talking about. I think we do know how many of these St Ems on steroids are “aging”. The 1982 reference is a common one, but I thought those wines were mostly in the 12% ABV range, while the wines from vintages like 18, 15, 10, 09, mostly push 14% and some 15%. Perhaps that is a distinction without a difference, but not for my wallet. I continue to bet on the less ripe vintages, though will admit that I got sucked into 2019 and am liking it.

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Agree, I’ve tasted a number of wines of the post 2000 vintages that are already on a downward path, dried out or altogether dead. Especially on the right bank. Even some top wines. But I would argue that in many (most) cases the oak treatment, level of extraction and fruit ripeness is far less pushed today (i.e. 2015-2020 vintages) than it was in 2003 to 2010. That makes me much more optimistic for the more recent vintages than I am for 03, 05, 09 and 10.

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Thanks for unearthing this! Academic habits die hard, and I had actually tried to find the source of the line to no avail, so that makes sense.

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Yeah, agreed: the writing is on the wall for wines made with over-ripe, sunburnt, shriveled fruit (or, if you prefer, desiccated artifacts) that were subjected to an excessively oxidative élevage (i.e. lots of new oak, racking with aeration, and sometimes micro-oxygenation).

We understand why those wines haven’t aged well, and the same reasoning leads me to believe wines such as 2020 La Conseillante and 2020 Troplong Mondot will age very well indeed.

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92

It’s also about the farming - not de-leafing when you shouldn’t, keeping the fruiting zone as shaded as possible, retaining some cover crops to shade soils, promoting deeper rooting to make vines more resilient etc etc

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FWIW drinking mature Figeac is for me what has given most joy from all Bordeaux
Nobody knows if 2010, 2016, 2019 or 2020 Figeac will evolve to equally impressive wines. Lets see in 10-20 years

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Is it surprising? Good and not so good wines in any given vintage? Did all Chateau good in 1945, 1953, 1961, 1964? Did all the Chateau in the past the same, are they all similar, comparable?

Even in 1982 many were not up to the game. In 2003 wines like Chateau Ausone on the right bank made a great job as did several others on the left and the right bank. The so called modern techniques were not implemented everywhere at the same level. Not to forget that the soil has and had a big impact, the effort, focus on the work in the vineyard and so forth.

Generalizations are almost ever problematic. Amongst them is to state any wine above 13% alc. is unbalanced. Not to forget that lots of Bordeaux were labeled with 12,5 but the alc. content was actually higher. Do not forget that in the old days many Chateau had no lab analysis. The label changed but only in case of the vintage printed on it.

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I hope you are right on Ausone, my experiences, however, were different. Had this twice blind in the past 2 years and both times I wrote „already drying out“, „too much/heavy handed extraction“ and the last bottle had noticeable alcohol heat.

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You mean the bottles you had recently did not show well? That is not unusual because the evolution of great Bordeaux is not a straight line. I am not 100% sure – who is – but if this wine is at the end of its life I would be very surprised. A lot of people write off many 2005 Right Bank Bordeaux also (I mean the great ones). I guess this is premature too. We will see.

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Curious, what do you think of 2015 Ausone?

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I haven’t found this at all. If anything as @Tom_Reddick said above I find that the wines of the oughts are aging more slowly than previous eras, still full, rounded, and somewhat fruity after 20 years. I drink more left bank than right though, so YMMV

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I see your point. I did not mean to say that all of these wines/vintages age really fast (at a recent 2000 horizontal tasting hardly any wine had tertiary aromas at all). But there are just quite a few wines, especially on the right bank, that have dried out or are even oxidized after 10-15 years. Look at the 100pts Beausejour Duffau Lagarosse 2010: every other bottle is already oxidized (on CT, in Lisa Perotti Browns 10 year on tasting for Parker, 2 bottles of Neil Martins 10 year on tastings, Quarin had an oxidized bottle), the 100pts Le Dome goes into the same direction. And these are just some high profile names. Had many „smaller“ wines going into the same direction.

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100

Jurgen, I am sorry but disagree with a lot of your assertions in this post.

Curious as to which serious 1982s were not up to “to the game.” I can think of three offhand, Domaine de Chevalier which suffered a localized hail storm, Pichon Baron that was going through the motions at the time, and Ausone, where I have had some good but mostly mediocre bottles. I would add Giscours, but that was the first vintage in a really bad period for them. There are probably others, but for the most part, failures are few and far between, as has been demonstrated by several tastings marking the fortieth anniversary of the vintage.

Not a fan of 2003 Ausone, but last tasted it in 2015, and gave it an 87. Perhaps it got better.

For most of the last century, châteaux struggled to get to 12%. Chaptalization was not just common, but used most years, and very ripe vintages were the exception. There may not have been labs, but these guys knew what they were doing, and could check sugars easily enough, not to mention they were always tasting grapes.

Finally the alcohol question. The cut off is not 13%. Even the most Luddite among us would have no problem with levels in the 13% region. I personally find problems with 14.5%, but there are wines at even higher levels I have tasted that seem to manage a good if slightly precarious balance.

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I name a few … Deuxiemes Crus … Rauzan Gassis, Durfort Vivens, Lascombes, Brane Cantenac, Ducru Beaucaillou … Troisiemes Crus … Kirwan, d`Issan, Giscours, Langoa Barton, Malescot, Boyd Cantenac, Desmirail, Marquis d Alesme … Cinqiemes Crus … Pontet Canet, Peseclaux, d´ Armailhac, Grand Puy Ducasse … Graves … Chevalier, Pape Clement, Smith Haut Lafite, Malartic Lagravieres … Right Bank … Too many to mention but a few … Angelus, Pavie, Belair, Troplong Mondotte etc. The list is not complete …

All this Chateaux make way better wines today as they did in 1982. Some of them produced not only wines that were barely acceptable but full of strange aromas (due to unclean cellars, barrels, no fruit selection at all …).

Many of the very good Crus Bourgeoise we know today did not well in 1982 … too many to mention.

I agree that in the past many (bad) vintages made chaptalisation a necessity. But 1982 had almost perfect weather conditions for reds so every Chateau which produced no very good if not outstanding wine did something wrong.

I find it a fault to rate wines mainly by their alc. content. I even think this is misleading. If this is the yardstick most wines of Spain and Italy would be judged as “bad”, even the best Baroli and Barbaresci, Sassicaia, Ornellaia, Vega Sicillia and so forth.

A wine with 14,5% alc. is not necessarily unbalanced. That is my opinion. I know that you and some others do not agree. Well … different opinions and palates are no big deal.

BTW: For most wine lovers of the past the Right Bank wines of 1947 were the holy grail – Cheval Blanc, Petrus, Lafleur to name the most famous. All with high alc. (around and even above 14%).

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