So I want to open a half bottle of a good Chablis with dinner. First up is a 2000 Dauvissat Clos. Dark gold in color, nose of sherry, obviously premoxed. Next, 2000 Dauvissat Preuses. Brown color, smells like stale beer, tastes like death, horribly premoxed. I go back to my last half of 2000 Dauvissat Clos. Starts out maybe decent, within ten minutes of warming up, flat, metallic, sherry flavors, down the sink. Now I’m flaming mad. I decide I’m going to open up every half bottle I own. Finally a 2002 Dauvissat Preuses is light gold, enticing nose of sea shell and lemon. Spectacular long minerally finish. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. I’ve stopped purchasing almost all white burgs but have so many hundreds of bottles of potential swill in the cellar. Jeez. And yes I’m entering them all in the wiki.
That’s a sad story. I feel your pain! I’ve had problems with some 2002 Fevre… but not with so many dramatically bad results - especially in one day!
Ouch, thats painful. Sorry to hear.
Chablis, which I have adored since the 1970s, is now a 2-8 years from vintage drinker for me. 8 is pushing things too but I have some 04s in the cellar still.
02 Fevre bottles long gone.
Sorry for your loss.
In our experience white wines in half bottles don’t age as well the same wine in 750’s. We suppose that this must be because there is the same amount of air but half as much wine.
A grand cru from Dauvissat in half bottle should be excellent for 15-20 years minimum. I’ve had some Raveneau and Dauvissat Chablis from the '80s in the last few years that have been spectacular, among the greatest white wines I ever tasted. It’s sad to say those times are gone.
That is a very sad story. I am still buying but I drink everything within 5 years now.
I thought Dauvissat had less problems with premox, but I had a very advanced '06 Les Preuses from a half bottle last year. Post them if you get a chance: http://oxidised-burgs.wikispaces.com/Dauvissat%2C+Vincent
I know many of us do it David, but you should never post when you are pissed!
What’s the current thinking on “from what vintage forward is generally and for the most part safe” in buying White Burgs? I had set my buying on only 2006s and up in the last year, and so far I’ve done fine, but I know that’s a rolling target.
I should probably drink all my 2006s this year and only buy 2007+. What do the rest of y’all think?
Hard to absolutely say…I have Raveneau’s back to '96, and there are no issues with these…
I’d buy '07’s because they are great, else wait for the '10’s, which is the next great white vintage (from what we are hearing).
'06’s, '08’s and '09’s can all be drunk on the young side, but I’d probably go '09 out of the three as my preference…
I have seen some issues with premoxed '07’s though, and heard now about a couple of '08’s also, so whatever they are doing to fix this issue, it is either producer specific, or isn’t working…
the problem is that many of the 2006’s are in the “dead phase” that many of these wines go thru. I’d probably leave them for a while (Ithink most 04’s are now out of this phase, and some 05’s). Best strategy I guess is just to drink them before they close up. Several 08’s still seem to be “open” and enjoyable, although it seems a bit stupid to buy Clos and guzzle it within 2-3 years. Mostly now I just buy fresh lower level stuff.
One of my goals this year is to catch up on my white burgs. I have them going back to 2002.
For what people pay, I can understand expecting the wines to hold up.
Have you done direct comparisons or know of people who have done of the same wine in 375 vs 750 to see what difference there is in flavor profile after some years of age?
I agree that they “should” be good and I am sure that is some cases they do hold up.
I was just pointing out that wine is a 375 is not under the same conditions as the same wine in a 750.
I am not saying that it is any excuse for the wine not holding up.
Chris, if you are asking what is the first vintage where the problem is solved, thus safe to buy and cellar more than a couple years, there is no reason to think that has happened yet. If and when it does happen, it will take another decade or two for comsumers to know it has happened. It would be like a star exploding, but it is 10-15 light-years from Earth.
I wouldn’t keep any white Burg past about 4-5 years. Since I find that most 1er and grand crus come into their own at 10+ when they’re on… well…
Agree.
The biggest problem is that no one knows what is causing it, so any resolution at this point would be dumb luck IMO. What have the vinters changed in their practice to fix the problem?
Chris
I still encounter a lot more corked white Burgundies than oxidised.
I reckon the 06’s are actually drinking really well at the moment from the top down. A recent Bouchard ‘Cabotte’ and Coche’s Corton-Charlemagne are sublime and Fevre’s 06’s at 1er and Grand Cru level are really in the zone as was a Dauvissat ‘Sechet’ last week. Domaine Leflaive’s Meursault was just a little overblown for my liking but there is certainly concentration there and Carillon’s ‘Combettes’ is in a really nice place.
“I still encounter a lot more corked white Burgundies than oxidised.”
Jeremy,
I just do not understand how this can be…how your experience can be so different from mine and so many others on this board. Either you jave been VERY unlucky with corked bottles, or VERY lucky with non-premoxed bottles. Reading your excellent tasting notes, I would assume that you drink more Burgs than I do, even though it is my wine of choice, red and white. Unless you drink most of your white burgs at younger than 5-7 years of age, I am at a loss to explain how you have been relatively spared. Don’t they say that the prevalence of corked bottles is maybe in the range of 7% or so. I would not be surprised if I am seeing a little less than that. However, of the white burgs that I have tasted since the premox scourge began to be recognized about 5-6 years after the 1995-1996 vintages or so, therefore over the past decade of tasting, the incidence of premoxed white burgs in bottles over 6 years old has been MUCH higher than that. (Maybe if I only drank Coche-Dury and Leflaive it would be lower…not zero, but lower.)
Now, if I mainly drank white burgs at less than 5 years of age, I would expect my incidence of premoxed wines to be pretty close to zero, and therefore lower than my incidence of corked bottles. But assuming that you are referring to white burgs of 6+ years of age, and assuming that you would call premox what I would call premox (in other words, does not have to be brown in color and dead on arrival to be called prematurely oxidized…it can be prematurely advanced and anywhere from mildly to horribly oxidized), then if your incidence is that low, and I do not doubt you, you should consider yourself extremely lucky. And I would be interested in what factors might account for this, for example, where you source your wines from… east coast vs. west coast, direct shipment from Europe, etc. There are members of these boards, great fans of aged white Burgundy, who have given up one of their great pleasures due to the unacceptably high incidence of premox (including John Gilman), and I don’t think they would have done so if the incidence was below 10%.
So, I do not doubt you at all, but any clue as to why your experience has been less horrific than that of many others?
Robert,
Any bottle that is corked or premox’d is a horrific waste of good wine and money and I am a strong advocate of using screwcap as an enclosure as I know it will fix tca and strongly believe it is the right closure for today’s wines to eliminate premox.
I buy most of my young wines from various Australian importers who source the wine direct from the Domaine (no grey market stuff). I buy quite a bit of stuff at auction, usually pre 1993 but do take regular punts on stuff at the right price of interest, knowing full well that I could be short changed by tca or premox. I drink and taste a lot of white Burgundy in a year, running into the 100’s of bottles and a lot of it is indeed less than 5 years old, hence very little premox but still cork taint (I reckon somewhere in the 5-10 % range). I still experience premox’d wines and had an oxidised 04 Fevre ‘Les Clos’ last week (I have been very lucky with Fevre having only a handful of affected bottle’s from 100’s of wines drunk from 2000-2009). I don’t keep data or update the wiki but the most affected vintage for me (and I have been lucky and have a relatively low rate compared to the anecdotal evidence of others) is 2004 having also had recently 2 bottles of 04 Maison Leroy ‘Perrieres’ looking oxidised (interestingly enough a wine that I bought from Premier Cru in the States, I suspect they did not source direct from the Domaine).
I hate premox and tca equally but I love white Burgundy, I still buy white Burgundy. We give more airtime to premox when we should give just as much airtime to tca as it robs us of 5-10% of all of our wines, not just whites!
Best Regards
Jeremy