This wine is sealed with a SC and starting to slide into reduction oblivion, as the wine shows a slightly metallic/ mineral edge on both the nose and palate. The rest of the bouquet is simple- cherries, smoke, touch of rubber and the start of the cabbage to come. On the palate the wine is medium-full, slightly metallic again, short and pinched on the backend, with a finish that falls off the table. It is too bad, because one can sense that this was probably a pretty good wine before its closure got to it- it is light on its feet and still shows very good intensity of flavor at the core, but it is being stripped down briskly by its metallic straitjacket. If I was the winemaker, I would be pissed with how this has evolved. I would be even more pissed if I had bought the wine at the local shop, took it home and had nothing else to drink at the ranch. But most consumers will probably just think WillaKenzie’s basic botting is just really shoddy pinot.
John, have you communicated this to Willakenzie? I tasted several of their 06 and 07s this summer and it seemed to me that young Thibaud is still dialing in his style. None of the wines seemed to have that affliction including an interesting 07 Pinot Meunier. I didn’t try the 07 Estate PN. The Pinots largely seemed pretty brawny. I really enjoyed their passion and stated direction. Beautiful facility and vineyards.
RT
How disappointing. I’m cellaring a few wines with screwcaps, including some '07 Oregon Pinot. Are there specific measures a winemaker can take to avoid the development of reduction in screw-capped bottles? I don’t know the specifics, but there have been successful long term trials in aging red wine under screwcap, no?
Hi Richard,
I dropped a note to the winery this morning, just to let them know how that bottle had evolved. It was disappointing, as there was clearly a very good wine underneath the reduction issues. I followed up the 2007 Estate with their 2006 Pierre Leon pinot that was sealed under cork and it was really very good for this very ripe vintage. I will plan to visit the estate on my next trip out to Oregon, and of course, lobby a bit for more consideration vis a vis their SC programe.
Hi Jamie,
Most of the research I have read on screwcaps and reduction has come out of Australasia, where aggressive copper fining is generally used to try and hold the reduction beast at bay at least until the vast majority of the wines have been drunk up. Of the clinical studies that I have seen, (off of the top of my head- I have a lot of studies in the files, but am trying to get out a newsletter before Christmas, so not digging them out right now) reduction seems to affect about twenty-five percent of wines sealed under SC between two and three years out from bottling (though I have seen some studies with higher failure rates). In Australia and New Zealand, winemakers are free to use a heavy hand with the copper to try and ward off reduction for wines destined to be sealed under SC, but here in the states and in the EU, there are maximum levels permissable for residual copper in wine- above which the wines are not deemed safe for human consumption- so I do not know what American winemakers do to prepare their wines for closing under SC. Might make a very good question on the Cellar Rats board.
In terms of positive evolution of wines over the long haul under SC, I have not seen any actual clinical studies. Most of the reports are anedoctal of wines aging positively under SC- usually by proponents of the closure who have already signed on for a ride on the SC bandwagon, and so I always wonder whether potential liability issues are coloring those reports as much as anything else. But I don’t doubt that some positively evolving bottles exist- the question is what is the failure rate from reduction of wines under SC and is it a higher percentage than failure rates from TCA contamination for wines under natural cork. From the actual studies that I have read, SC-sealed wines tend to end up permanently reduced in fairly hefty percentage terms if aged. I should underscore that we are discussing SC as they exist today and in the recent past, for SC manufacturers are feverishly trying to develop closures that will emulate natural cork’s oxygen ingress pattern (fairly generous right at bottling, and then leveling off dramatically to close to zero after six months to a year), and I assume that they will one day get to a point where they can handle the redox issues. But unfortunately, your 2007 pinots were not sealed with this future SC technology as far as I know, and if it were me, I would plan to drink them young.
All the Best,
John
I have visited WillaKenzie on a couple of different occasions. They sit just up the road from Beau Freres in excellent Ribbon Ridge terrior.
To me they just have never put all the pieces together to make the wine they should be making. I don’t know if it’s the large acreage they are farming, winemakers gaffes and learning curve, winemaker philosophy, or all of the above. They can make good wines, but they can also turn out dogs.
The moral of this story isn’t written yet, but SCs are only one problem they seem to be struggling with.
Correction. WillaKenzie is located in the Yamhill-Carlton AVA - on a series of three small ridges that are part of a larger ridge that is two ridges (and about two miles as the crow flies - 4+ miles by road) to the west of Beaux Freres, Patricia Green and the rest of the Ribbon Ridge AVA. The soils are similar.
Bob;
Thanks for the correction. The AVA lines there are such it’s easy to lose track. I always thought they were still RRidge.
No, it’s actually easy to tell them apart. North Valley Road is the very clear line of demarcation. By your logic, Shea would also be in the RR AVA.
Hi John,
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. It has been my impression that the question of oxygen influx with natural cork is still under dispute. At least I’ve heard opinions expressed on various sides of the matter. But you’re right, this might make a fine question for the Cellar Rats forum.
One thing I don’t understand from your response, however, is why only a percentage of a given wine under SC would fail due to reduction. It seem to me that if SCs create an anaerobic environment, all of them would do that and thus have the same effect on the chemistry of any given wine. Is it possible that only a percentage of the SCs are blocking out enough oxygen to cause reduction? That just seems unlikely.
Hi Jamie,
I am only repeating the results that I have seen from the studies that have been done and have crossed my desk. I would assume that the twenty-five percent figure is more a reflection of the time period involved, and that eventually a higher percentage would show redox if the time parameters of the study were pushed out further. But again it would depend on the test wines as well- some will have higher likelihood of redox prior to bottling than others. I also am unaware of how the wines were “prepped” pre-bottling (i.e copper finings etc) and this could of course affect the numbers of wines showing redox at certain time intervals. The research data is pretty persuasive that copper treatments can push out the onset of reduction by several months or even years, but it seems to only push back the time or reckoning, rather than alleviating the problem. Of course a lot of wines that are sealed under SC are made to be drunk young anyway, so I assume this is the rational for the heavy hand with copper and the continued use of SC.
But I would have to dig out the papers and see how the data was measured, as is the case with TCA, humans have different sensory perception levels for sulfur-related aromas and flavors, and if this study was being done based on human threshold perception, that could also explain some of the variations. The gentleman that you should talk to about this is Paul White, who has done an inordinant amount of research on the issue down in New Zealand and could answer a lot of your questions better than I can (at least with a new issue coming up on deadline). You can reach him through the thread on “Less than 1% of wines corked” here on Berserkers, and he can bring you up to speed on all of this if you are curious. He has done some very heavy lifting on this issue and is good friends with one of New Zealand’s top chemists and winemakers, so he really has a handle on the chemistry of reduction and screwcaps. If you contact him, tell him that I sent you his way and I am sure he will be happy to point you in the right direction in terms of what scientific papers have been published and what is currently under study. The papers could make good reading while sipping a little 2007 pinot from Oregon 
All the Best,
John
Ok, different bottle but worth mentioning in a discussion of screw capped entry level 2007 Oregon PN. Over the past year or so I’ve gone through three cases of the screw capped 07 Siduri Willamette PN w/o a failure. Every bottle was pristine. I’ll likely buy another case soon. It sure would be nice if someone could come up with a closure that works all the time. Corks have caused me a lot of money, hate and discontent in the last 25 years. Haven’t consumed enough screw capped wine to make a fair comparison, but for me screw caps are doing well with wines destined for early consumption. No science behind my statement, just personal experience.
David ![[drinkers.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/8/82916bed5ad74ac8470bc04089d9758b0c80c9fa.gif "drinkers"){kind=small}
Seems to be the best thing about them. What has me worried are SCed wines like the 2005 Baumard QdC that are supposed to go for decades. Although, could it help some of the premox reported in the Savennieres and Papillons?
RT