This. I like a thin lipped glass, but the ability to swirl the wine and get the most out of the bouquet while following it over time is one of my great joys. The afformentioned Waterford glasses some of my friends have can not be swirled without spilling as they are shallow and flared out. Give me a glass that I can swirl first. I’d take a red solo cup over the Waterford (even if the lip is not thin:).
Funny how the quality of glassware seems to run inversely to the fanciness of dress…
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You must be hung like a rogue elephant, Michael.
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Perfect point about vintages, and exactly the thought that had me considering Vintage Matters. I love Bordeaux, but not in all styles. And I do feel that vintages generally carry an overarching style — some are appealing, and some are not, and there’s certainly no consensus as to which are which. 2014 may be — to this point — the most enjoyable Bordeaux vintage since I’ve been into wine. Do I think the best of 2005 and 2010 are better? Absolutely. But I generally find 2014 to be more my style. I guess this goes to How do you assess a vintage? By it’s best? By its overall character? Consistency? I will never understand those who call 2014 a weak Bdx. vintage …
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This is just brilliant Matt. I agree with all of your assessments here but I knew I would just meeting and sharing a glass with you. Fantastic!
When it comes to dress, I like to be comfortable. I am a very simple taste in clothing kind of guy. There are some times where I like to get dressed up in formal clothing but that is extremely rare and usually not one of my wine exploration nights.
Life is way too short to drink out of bad glassware.
Always lots to hink about in these kinds of threads.
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I’m sure my opinion changes over time, but it seems like my central tenet to evaluating a vintage is “balance and scale”. I think 2014 is defined by those two points. I think 2016, which is a better vintage in my opinion, is also defined by those two points, but enhanced by incredible purity of fruit.
I would quibble with you on whether the best of 2010 are better than the best of 2014. I made my decision with my wallet, I really don’t own that many Bordeaux wines from 2010. Nor do I own that many from 2009. I think 2005, at least the best of class in the left bank, will indeed surpass the quality of 2014, think Montrose, Lalande, Baron, Lynch Bages. But I do not think 2005 right bank wines are the equivalent of 2014, in fact I think many are a kinky hot mess and to be totally avoided. This was the height of the era of the modernest consultants like Rolland, with late picking, lavish use of oak and over extraction. At the Cru level, I am not sure that 2005 is greater than 2014. If I had to give a nod to my two favorites, Lanessan and Sociando, I think both of those château made better wines in 2014.
A prefer a mid-weight, balanced Bordeaux with some degree of complexity and transparency, that can mature gracefully over the years. I’ve really been thrilled with the 1983 vintage over the last couple of years, just a beautiful, honest, balanced vintage among the wines that I have been drinking. I wish I had tried more of them in their youth - the vintage predates my mid-90s entry into wine - to get a better sense of what more recent vintage it parallels, but that is definitely an end result that I love.
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Robert,
A lot of vintage preferences are formed by all of us when we taste wines when young. I know that you drink a lot of Bordeaux and have ample opportunities to test out your preferences as the wines age, at least for the vintages that you bought early.
So, I have to ask. For the vintages you have liked young and bought a lot of, are there vintages that you loved initially and then disappointed you later. By contrast, have there been vintages that you did not buy (or did not buy much of) where you wish you had purchased more.
For me, I think of 1989 and 1990. I bought more 1990s than 1989s because (1) they were cheaper, (2) Parker really praised the 1990s and (3) the 1990s tasted lush and wonderful young. Today, while the 1990s are good wine, many are too low in acidity for my tastes and I have tended to like the 1989s I have had better.
Also, I like 1996 and 2000 Bordeaux more than I did when they were young, although these vintages were after I was buying less Bordeaux (and more Burgundy) by that time anyway.
More recently, I have wondered if 2015s are settling down and getting better. When I was with Henri Challeau a couple years ago in Bordeaux, he told me that the vintage conditions in 2015 were very similar to those in 2009 but that he thinks the wines are turning better (or at least more consistently) because a lot of winemakers used what they learned from trying to handle the 2009s. Time will tell. Still, it is hard to buy 2015s when I can purchase 2016s.
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Fletch:
You know, what tipped it for me was something your wife said while we were in bed together.
Alan Stanwyk:
Oh? And what was that?
Fletch:
Curiously, she said we had roughly the same build. From the waist up, I imagine.
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The reply to the stemware question is that it is a must. Bad glasses is like listening to Mozart on an iPhone.
Recently, I went to Peter Luger, and took a bottle, since for they were now allowing corkage. It was expensive, glasses were crap, and I had not brought glassware. Big mistake. The Léoville las Cases 1989 was probably brilliant, but in those glasses, I was getting far less than the complete experience.
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Next time I throw a wine party, the theme is gonna be Cheval Pong
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This thread is such a great topic (thank you @Matthew_King ) and all of the posts offer so much information to unpack. There’s a lot of wine wisdom so far, and also a lot of great individual takes.
I think I’m in Michael Chang’s camp, I’m not fussy about everything but what I am fussy about matters a lot to me.
Top of the list is probably “refreshing” wines. When I started drinking wines, I consumed plenty of massive wines. Lots of “impressive” wines, and now my cellar and purchases are really focused on wines that are refreshing (to me). Must have acidity, this is non-negotiable.
I’m also really fussy about “made” wines. See @Robert.A.Jr post on the Rolland era. The winery supply store is loaded with a plethora of ameliorations to scrape any form of perceived weakness out wines. But if Willamette Valley producer A adds Quertannin Intense to their Pinot Noir, and Yakima Valley producer B adds Quertannin Intense to their Grenache both wines may be “better” but both also have a distinct component that will taste exactly the same. I don’t drink wines just because they’re good anymore, I need it to tell me about itself, where it’s from, and who raised it, and what was happening in the area. If that means it’s a $25 bottle instead of a $75 bottle, that’s fine with me. Best is a relative term, and I think as wine becomes a passion, Frankenstein’s monster is only interesting once or twice.
Vintages-I think that the conversations/media/sales pitch about a vintage is almost always a little past where the vintage actually is. Heralded vintages are rarely that much better than very good vintages, and good producers often make nice wines in off years. Many of which become some of my favorite vintages from those producers. My earliest wow experience with Barolo was from 1983, not a reknowned vintage at all. And of course the “Another sh**ty 2007 Oregon Pinot Noir thread should be a must read on here. That vintage was just brutal for rain. I’ve never cursed more in my life (and I set a high bar playing video games when I was a kid). 5 years later the wines just seemed to magically shift into completely different creatures. And heralded vintages can sometimes just be ripe.
I’m with @Howard_Cooper in that 1990 is a delicious vintage, but over the years 1989 has been the vintage I preferred.
I tend to buy down from the top wines in “great vintages” as lesser wines tend to over perform more (IMO) than the GC wines (which can get a little showy to be honest). And I tend to buy up into the better Crus and producers in the “lesser” vintages. I tend buy “balanced” vintages the most, and I always take chances on pale/less fruit driven vintages.
Temperature-just say no to warm red wine…
Glassware-I’m not fussy here, either the Grassl Mineralité or the Liberté will do. Unless it’s red wine and then the Cru is fine too.
Company-I definitely prefer to share and enjoy wine with friends. The back and forth of seeing what the wine does over the evening is best tracked with a conversation and multiple opinions. I just gain a lot more from the experience.
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Everything you say here resonates with me, especially the R Bank stuff, as those caricature years turned me off of those wines, and with generally higher prices of admission on the east side of the river, I haven’t tasted enough to heal that wound. The jury is still out on 2016 for me, as I haven’t tasted widely enough, but what I have tasted so far hasn’t really blown me away; but I’m sitting on a decent amount, on the strength of near-unanimous opinion that it’s a fantastic vintage. A couple minutes after my post I did realize that 2019 deserves to be in the conversation, too — I have consistently been very impressed.
That’s what she said
I wish all producers were required to disclose any/all additions to wines (other than sulfur, which is already noted). I think this happens even at some ‘good’ producers, chaptalization included.
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all i ask is that sediment be decanted off on wines and for wines that don’t require decanting for sediment, do the bare minimum of tasting it to see if it needs air prior to coming to dinner.
That’s it. But sediment is big. I really hate sediment in my wine. #1 wine pet peeve by a significant margin. Nothing comes close.
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Ousi Li’s slosh/swirl/pour of my bottle of 1999 Bachelet Charmes will live in Fu’s memory bank forever!
Charlie’s got a system involving tubing and gravity to fight the pernicious evil of sediment…
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Thank you all for your generous sharing of experiences. I now have a lot of stuff to add to my list of First World Problems… 
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If you’ll allow me the indulgence of some self -reference, here’s a tasting note on a 2015 Clarendon Hills Onkaparinga Syrah that degenerates into a rant on this exact topic:
Very new world to me. First scent impressions were very heavy on vanilla. Cherry, pine resin, allspice come out a bit later. It’s Syrah all right, but a modern and not terribly exciting kind of it. Tasty in a sort of generic way, undemanding. Why, then, 90 pts if it is so meh? Well, objectively speaking, it’s competently made. I am reacting mostly to the lack of differentiation to this - the single biggest complaint I have against “modern” wines. It’s not that they are modern, it’s that, having “followed the science” to the optimal recipe , now that is all you get. All the time. Everywhere.
Screw your optimization: I want magic. I am willing to risk a bad bottle or 10 in search of the ineffable once.
“Not your sin but the meanness of your sin cries out to heaven: there is thrift even in your sin.”
Objectively speaking there is nothing wrong with this wine. It’s actually pretty good. It’s just the sort of wine consumed by people who don’t care that a team slaved out in the fields and obsessed in the chai for 2 years to bring you …. Magic. I just hate deracinated people. And they are f-ing everywhere.
Score: 90, wishing it were more.
Relative to expectations: 0. Bullseye. You’ve priced it correctly to the penny. Now let me die.
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Oh my stars and garters!
That is an absolutely fabulous rant that absolutely encompasses my own beliefs about modern wine, only said better than I think I could ever have said it myself!
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Perfectly said.
I think that is why I have been unimpressed with ‘ultra sorting.’ There has been a trend toward homogeneity - I agree with you whole-heartedly (whole clusteredly?)
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