A wine from a bygone era - purchased for pennies on the dollar, cellared since release and poured as a generous blind. Almost nailed this but missed the vintage. I guessed 96 given the obvious age and surprisingly lively acidity, then shocked to find out it was a birth year bottle! Beautifully powerful and honeyed nose laced with umami, salt, bees wax and spearmint. Broad weighty and spherical on the palate showing candied citrus, quince, brown butter and smoke with obvious grand cru length. Stunning.
Hot take: undoubtedly a special experience to try such a perfectly aged white Burg, but I think this was probably better for my palate at 20 to 25 years old. A lot of people go gaga for super old white burgs, and maybe that’s because they are unicorns in the premox era, but even when they are stunning, I can’t help but think they would likely be better with a bit more acidity and a little less tertiary development.
I agree. Old white Burgs can be awesome but usually better at 25 years than 40 years. We had an '82 Leflaive BBM this summer and it was special, but no doubt it was better 10 or 15 years ago - as the notes back then from bottles from the same case can attest.
When the sulfides go to that place where you get white truffle or garlicky notes on an old Chardonnay, I swoon. When they go toward marshmallow, it can be interesting, but not something I want on a regular basis. I have no skill judging where a young wine will end up in that spectrum. In my experience, most old Chardonnay ends up in that oxidized zone of brown butter, butterscotch, and nutty characteristics (going to Sherried notes). As others have noted, that is distinctly different than premox notes where it is more bruised apple/apple juice.
The 90 Alex poured was a few years ago and obviously 8 years younger, so right in line with 10-15 years younger where I think the BBM would have been in the zone.
