It's critic bingo! (energetic, vertical, explosive beams of tannin)

[Phil_T_r_o_t_t_e_r]

@Phil_T_r_o_t_t_e_r

Louis Michel Chablis 2023
4th bottle of this and I confirm this is not the best vintage. There is an unwanted empyreumatic note to this. Based on the village, I’ll probably pass on 1er and GC for the first time in a long time.

Self-nominating for blowhard use of an elitist term . @Matthew_King called me out on this, appropriately so I think and I played the culture card (Ne me critiquez pas! Je suis français). I even hid behind William Kelley and Laurent Gibet to duck this one!

To my defense, I use it in certain circumstances only. The RVF defines the term, when referring to wine, as:

<…> grande famille d’arômes de brûlé tels que le tabac , la torréfaction, le caramel, le pain grillé, le chocolat, le goudron, le poivre ou encore la fumée.

So they even include “pepper” in that term (which I never have). I tend to use torrefaction when I can’t quite put my finger on the “toasted” aspect of a wine but when it also relates to what I associated with barrel use (coffee, tobacco, etc.). I will use empyreumatic when I also struggle to find the specific aroma or taste but when I don’t necessarily associate it with oak use such as burnt rubber, smoke, dark caramel (i.e. burnt sugar) or road tar.

I used it twice on WB and here was the first:

@Phil_T_r_o_t_t_e_r

Les Ronsures Blanc de Blancs 2020 is 100% Chardonnay on chalky soils. This displayed vinosity but there were over-taking empyreumatic notes to it. Two of us could not get over how smoky this was (burned wood) and we had a hard time getting other notes from the wine.

I think I covered all my bases and can keep using pompous and obscure terms. Monocle back on.