Posted from CellarTracker
Would LOVE to see Leflaive in screw cap!
yeah—they’ve been screwing us, time to screw themselves.
This is under DIAM 30 and is the first vintage of Leflaive to reflect a number of winemaking changes designed to tackle the premox issue. Those include more attention to press fractions, browning of the must, new custom-sized racking tanks, racking under nitrogen etc etc. Report and reviews coming in the next issue of TWA. I’ve suffered my fair share from premox chez Leflaive (including an '05 Pucelles last week) but I’m guardedly optimistic that they’re making progress. They also now discuss the subject candidly, which is a great first step towards solving it.
William, it’s really nice hear this. How much of these changes are new techniques as opposed to returning to the old pre premox Leflaive ways?
Great question. You would think that one of the few producers who was fairly spared from the premox plague for so many years when most others were affected could revert to how the wines were made up until roughly 2002.
Leflaive’s winemaking is more of a moving target than that, having evolved under François Virot and Jean Virot, and then under Pierre Morey from 1988 onwards, and then under Eric Remy, and now under Pierre Vincent—to say nothing of the important influence exercised by Vincent Leflaive, Anne-Claude Leflaive and now Brice de La Morandière. It isn’t always easy to figure out exactly what was going on at any given period, for obvious reasons. But in the Morey era, the Domaine began to perform more battonage, moved to native ferments, and after 2004 seems to have used less SO2. They also bought Bucher pneumatic presses which offered the possibility of more rapid pressing. Beginning I don’t know when, the domaine was also fermenting the wines in a cellar near the church and then transporting them in cask across the town back to the domaine for tank-aging. The changes under the new regime seem to be oriented towards longer pressing, and then reducing dissolved oxygen in the wine, as well as maintaining SO2 levels (something I think Morey was actually very fastidious about - I’m assuming the decision to reduce them can from Anne-Claude Leflaive). Hence racking and sparging with nitrogen and doing the whole elevage in the cellars by the church (in the new tanks). I don’t think those could be called new techniques, though they in some cases involve new technology. That’s as good an answer as I can give for now; I’m going to discuss it in more detail next time I visit.
In a weak moment I bought 6 bottles of '14 Leflaive, the only bottles of Leflaive left in my cellar after pouring many many previous vintages down the drain. The remaining bottles will all be consumed by the end of this year. Unlikely I will ever buy another bottle of Leflaive in the future.
Fred - Why do you say it is going to premox when you have a sense of plenty of sulfur?
Leflaive = premox.
Had a 07 leflaive pucelles that was gorgeous this week. I should have played the lotto!
William, it’s really nice hear this. How much of these changes are new techniques as opposed to returning to the old pre premox Leflaive ways?[/quote]
Leflaive’s winemaking is more of a moving target than that, having evolved under François Virot and Jean Virot, and then under Pierre Morey from 1988 onwards, and then under Eric Remy, and now under Pierre Vincent—to say nothing of the important influence exercised by Vincent Leflaive, Anne-Claude Leflaive and now Brice de La Morandière. It isn’t always easy to figure out exactly what was going on at any given period, for obvious reasons. But in the Morey era, the Domaine began to perform more battonage, moved to native ferments, and after 2004 seems to have used less SO2. They also bought Bucher pneumatic presses which offered the possibility of more rapid pressing. Beginning I don’t know when, the domaine was also fermenting the wines in a cellar near the church and then transporting them in cask across the town back to the domaine for tank-aging. The changes under the new regime seem to be oriented towards longer pressing, and then reducing dissolved oxygen in the wine, as well as maintaining SO2 levels (something I think Morey was actually very fastidious about - I’m assuming the decision to reduce them can from Anne-Claude Leflaive). Hence racking and sparging with nitrogen and doing the whole elevage in the cellars by the church (in the new tanks). I don’t think those could be called new techniques, though they in some cases involve new technology. That’s as good an answer as I can give for now; I’m going to discuss it in more detail next time I visit.[/quote]
I thought I would quote an older post from Don Cornwell on the subject of Leflaive, SO2, etc:
"Then I think Leflaive got scared by what happened to them in the 2004 vintage, which experienced the most severe oidium problems for white burgundy in the modern era. Everyone dusted their vines and fruit with elemental sulfur every two weeks for several months. No one seems to have realized, until after the wines were well into the fermentation process, that a lot of sulfur was trapped within the bunches. The result was that everyone made wines reductively in 2004. For Leflaive, who apparently didn’t adjust their usual techniques, they ended up with super-reductive wines in 2004. A few of the Laflaive cuvees, particularly 2004 Clavoillon, ended up being permanently reductive and in some instances exhibiting mercaptans – in a nutshell, the wine was completely undrinkable. I also opened a couple of Batards that exhibited mercaptans as well. The 2004 Leflaive grand crus always struck me as very hard and somewhat harsh wines and there was no escaping the fact that they were quite reductive. I still have couple of bottles of the Chevalier left just for monitoring purposes.
I surmise that the 2004 vintage, along with Anne-Claude’s growing fixation on method bio-dynamie, caused Leflaive to lower their use of SO2 and, as you say, become less concerned about monitoring of the wines, topping up the casks, and adjusting SO2 throughout the wine-making process. The most recent figures I’ve seen on Leflaive’s free SO2 targets for bottling – at 25 to 28 ppm – are among the lowest in burgundy today. Obviously, something has substantially changed over time because Leflaive went from being one of the five best producers from a premox perspective from the 1995 to 2001 vintages to one of the ten worst producers from a premox perspective from the 2006 to 2009 vintages."
Sorry the quotes at the beginning got messed up…since there is a limit on the quotes within quotes within quotes that can be quoted, I tried to erase some and created a deformity.
the comments from Don Cornwell are interesting - a recent Burghound tasting note on the 2004 Leflaive chevalier Montrachet goes:
“I held my breath when this was opened given the number of premoxed 2004s I’ve encountered from Leflaive but happily my concern was unwarranted as the highly complex and elegant nose of citrus, wet stone and white floral aromas was not only quite fresh but even relatively youthful. Confirming the impression conveyed by the nose was the excellent vibrancy of the beautifully well-detailed and vibrant medium-bodied flavors that exude an almost agressive minerality onto the penetratingly persistent and impeccably well-balanced finish. This is strikingly good and if perhaps not one of the all-time great Leflaive vintages for their Chevalier, this more than holds its own. Note that for my taste this is still on the way up and while it would be no crime to open a magnum now, it should reward a few more years of cellarling and then drink for another 10 to 15 years after that.”
I guess its really a lotto system when it comes to these things!
Yes, a crapshoot. Which certainly argues against buying these wines unless one is a gambler or has money to burn. As to what do do with these wines should one have them in the cellar, well, either drink them since the money was already spent years ago or sell them and convert the cash into more reliable wines…ie:reds, unfortunately.