very expressive young red Burgundy, the wine has dense crunchy cherry fruit that is just delicious. The nose has a hint of herbs and the wine is muscular and tannic, but the tannins are ripe and the wine is accessible. Very fine indeed, Clive might opine. The intense fruit is almost painful, as it is so concentrated. Drink over next 2 decades.
Opened a bottle of this from my cellar about ten days ago and I basically agree with your note. A delicious drink - although not “mature” certainly showing well right now (as are many premier crus from 2002).
Sounds great Alan. I have loved the 02 1ers since release. A little surprised about it being “muscular and tannic” thinking this may be a little to do with the wines adolescence.
well, “crunchy fruit” always sounds to me like the acidity is winning out over the fruit (e.g., when the wine is rather shut down) and that wasn’t my impression of the wine - although that might not have been how you meant the phrase, either.
I can’t speak for Alan, and I haven’t tried any of my '02s from Mugneret, but I use the descriptor crunchy when I’m imagining fruit that’s wonderfully ripe and fresh, but no more (not slipping into overripeness). Think of a grape that would pop when you bit into in, rather than just collapse between your teeth.
In another thread a poster objected to the word, calling it meaningless. I disagree.
Even worse, a crunchy banana! But grapes, specifically, produce different wines depending on time of picking, and a grape can be considered ripe from “crunchy” ripe all the way to skin-falling-off ripe.
Never thought of grapes as crunchy.
I think a lot of table grapes (other than Thompson seedless) are what I’d call crunchy; same applies to wine grapes at a certain point in their ripening.
Exactly - so when I would read notes with that descriptor - but notes that otherwise seemed quite favorable - my inference was, well, the wine is well-made and will be great but the fruit is a bit shut down putting the acid a bit out of whack and making the wine come across as a bit underripe - except that the taster, being an experienced burg person, realized that the fruit was simply shut down and not missing.
To me “basically agree” w/r/t a wine tasting note is pretty much agreement.
And Howard - it’s not that I disagree with you - it’s that if I say up, you immediately say down. If we were 8, my dad would say your constant picking on me must mean you just have a crush on me. We aren’t 8, so you must just be contrary.