Tasting Notes on the Top 2004 Red Burgundies -- A Ten Year Review

WINE TALK
41

I’ll add my voice to the chorus of thanks, Don.

I’m most surprised by the 04 Ponsot Clos de la Roche. The flaws I remember was much worse than greeness. I think Ron was with me the night we tasted it and Robert Thornton dubbed it “pickle juice”, a name that stuck for a long time.

I sold off all the 04 Ponsot Clos de la Roche but kept the other 04s. None from Vosne unfortunately, and several from Gevrey, but the prices were cheap then and super cheap now.

42

is it though? Personally I would expect that the top level producers in 04 to make excellent wine. That certainly showed through in the quality of the terroir and producers. The better question would be if the meanies have started to fade on solid to good premier crus and better lieu-dits at the village level?

Obviously it’s a great dinner and a ton of great notes. It certainly does provide some hope in the morass that has been 04 red burgundy. But, again, the quality on display should shine through here.

43

Well, even though the tasting “surprised” because the wines were not downright horrible, I do get the sense that this is a keep away vintage. I mean, the Champagne “starter” was the best wine until the La Tache :wink:! Glad my '04s are from the Rhone…

44

Thank you Don.

45 



With so many superior vintages before and after, they are beyond my notice.....

Not trying to say anything positive or negative about 2004 red because needless to say poeple have different taste and there is really no : who is right or who is wrong with Burugndy wines.

One of the main point is as a true burguundy collector ( and often needs to be on allocation list ), one needs to buy at every year specially 2004 was just before 2005.

This tasting show one needs not to do a fire-sale to unload 2004 reds or open them too young. La Tache will always be a La Tache ( despite from weak year like, 1994, 2000 and 2004 ). When to open one’s red Burgundy is the key in enjoying them.

I have faith in my preferred producers; that being said, I never treat any vignoron like demi-god. They are all like us, have their ups and downs. I would never open my Musigny by Roumier but I will open any bottle from Prieur - the most reasonable price Musigny on planet earth and it is is domaine bottle.

Just my 2 cents…

46

Great post and tasting Don. Best in class this year! That black truffle dish looks sick!

47

Very educational Don. The Tucson group tasted a number of 04’s last year and posted on WB. In general we did not detect a lot of the GM’s. This report, along with our tasting, prompted me to review all my 04 tasting notes. I would agree with your assessment, that Gevrey, in general, did not make particularly great wines in 04, although it does not seem that they were any more affected with GM than others. To me it appears like Chambolle is the village most affected. I am encouraged, however, after reading your report, the ‘taint’ may be fading, as both the Mugnier and Vogue Musigny that I tasted within the past 2 years were markedly affected. Unfortunately, I have not tasted the Roumier Musigny, however several of the 1er crus, especially Cras, were quite affected in my previous tastings. Hopefully they are improving.

BTW, as an aside, I think Jadot did quite well in 04.

Thanks for reporting and I really enjoyed reading your analysis.

48

Very good point. [welldone.gif]

49

yeah…i don’t like drinking alone, either…who can you argue with?

50

Great tasting Don. Thanks again for adding value to the burgundy community.

51

…Sorry about the cut and past -

Don said :

My good friend Michael Zadikian had always said he thought the green character would reduce and integrate with time, so he got to say “I told you so.”

[highfive.gif]

52

Jadot seems to be a good choice in a lot of less than perfect vintages - see also 1997 and 2007.

53

FWIW, the only two Jadot 2004 reds I tasted during a visit in 2007 (Gevrey-Etournelles & Nuits-Boudot) were “green” or “herbal”. The notes on them and many other Jadot 2004 reds on Cellar Tracker show others found similar problems, FWIW.

54

Don’t let people know you are talking to yourself when you drink alone, Stuart. [basic-smile.gif]

Reading this thread and posting this at 35,000 feet - my first experience with US Airways/American’s WiFi on board.

On a wine note, I have had good experience with Gerard Mugneret’s 2004’s, especially his Echezeaux.

Hank [cheers.gif]

55

It depends on which of the vintage stories you buy. It’s not particularly plausible that ladybugs don’t crap on Grands Crus. (Yes, that’s a slight oversimplification, but the point is that it’s an issue different in kind from ripeness of the vintage.)

I also think there are more than a few people who know what they think of a 2004 without needing to taste it.

56

Paul:

I hadn’t really focused on it, but you raise a good point. The fact that we all agreed that the Vosne Romanees were completely unaffected by any hint of greenness does tend to suggest that the cause of “green meanies” could not have been ladybugs. (Unless you think Ladybugs don’t like Vosne Romanee. [wink.gif] )

I’m not trying to suggest in any way that there might not be examples of wines out there that were contaminated by pryazines excreted by ladybugs. In fact, I’m the person who originally suggested to Bill Nanson back in 2004 that there was a possible connection between the oidium problems and the very large numbers of ladybugs he observed in the vineyards while working the harvest.

Oidium affects both the leaves and the green portions of the vines as well as the grapes themselves. One of the things oidium is documented to do is to cause very uneven ripening of bunches, i.e. some grapes within the bunch may be fully ripe while others are not. Oidium, when it attacks the berries themselves, punctures very small holes in grapeskins. Those punctures tend to attract aphids which are the ladybugs’ principal dietary staple. Grapevines produce pyrazines naturally, and the pyrazine level diminishes as ripeness increases. Some varieties (e.g. sauvignon blanc and cabernet) produce more pyrazines than others and some level is expressed in even fully ripe grapes. (Cool areas such as Monterey County are infamous for producing green/hebal/weedy aromas and flavors in cabernets, for example.) Pyrazines are less prevalent in pinot noir, but they do exist, and where ripeness is an issue in pinot noir, pyrazines are generally present. The comments that pre-global warming burgundy seemed to produce wines with green aromas and flavors at least two years out of ten probably reflect the naturally occuring pyrazines.

The problem of uneven bunch ripening from the massive oidium infestation in 2004 might well explain the widespread “green meanies” problem. Oidium is very difficult to see with the naked eye in its early stages. The conventional wisdom is that by the time you can see it with the naked eye it’s too late to resolve the problem and that no amount of spraying can then fix the problem. Even if bunches with obvious oidium infestation on the berries were tossed by careful sorting and triage, it’s quite likely (indeed virtually certain) that a lot of bunches of grapes that went into fermenters had varying degrees of oidium (and some individual grapes that weren’t ripe.) Not many domaines can afford to essentially remove all of the berries from the bunches by hand to remove unevenly ripened grapes (but that has supposedly happened at a few domaines since 2004).

The complicating factor is that Ladybugs are known to be attracted to naturally occurring pyrazine since it is a pheremone for them. Aphids normally disappear about the end of August, but they sometimes remain active longer if the weather is right and a food source is still present for them. In 2004 in burgundy conditions were perfect for the aphids in the vineyards in September and thus the ladybugs were all over the grapes at the time of harvest.

Whether the ladybugs are the cause or the effect might be debated endlessly, but I think our tasting does suggest that the GM problem in 2004 in most instances probably stems from naturally occurring pyrazines – and that’s much more consistent with the problem fading/lessening with time in the bottle.

57

Jadot is one producer I can speak to having purchased a bunch of their wines on release. All of those I purchased (csj, esj, chambolle, nsg boudots and bonne mares) eventually reeked and tasted of GMs after about 6-8 months from delivery. The ESJ from 375ml was the last to ‘turn’ but it, too, became undrinkable to me.

Different strokes and palates i guess.

58

I guess so…I’d certainly disagree on the Bonnes Mares…Don disagrees on the Musigny. You should try the Clos de Beze, Clos Vougeot, and Mazis Chambertin. All quite nice to me showing no green. [cheers.gif]

59

Name one…

TTT

60

Unfortunately, this is yet another thread that mainly confirms that evil of 2004…and nothing more: That some people are oblivious to the problem and others hypersensitive …and others in between, from wine to wine. And, tailor their theories on the cause accordingly, as their tastebuds speak to them. (And, I have no doubt that everyone is reporting what his/her tastebuds are “saying” …to them.)

I think it is very important to at least acknowledge that, rather than making proclamations about the vintage’s evolution from such a tasting. (Especially combined with trying to make proclamations from any vintage when tasting just trophy wines.) This is on the off-chance that someone reading it and trying to learn about 2004 is not privy to the “history”.

I hope there’s no other vintage down the pike like this one; that it was a one-off worth forgetting.