I had a 2010 Patrick Piuze Bougros Côte de Bouqueyreaux in 2013 that was horribly pre-moxed.
At Ramonet they have admitted to it happening with some bottles of 1989 Bienvenue Batard. For me personally, Amiot Montrachet 1986. The phenomenon worsened greatly starting with the 1995s, but I think it has always been there in some measure.
2012 Domaine Vincent et Francois Jouard Chassagne-Montrachet Vieilles Vignes was very obviously premoxed when tasted in October 2016. Lifeless and flat with a flavor profile somewhat reminiscent of Viña Gravonia.
I’m a small time white burg enthusiast (mainly due to premox fears), but I had a bad 2012 Henri Boillot P-M Clos de la Mouchere just a few weeks ago.
I had a couple of 1990 Lafons that were clearly oxidized. This was probably in the early 2000s.
86 Lafon Perrieres was a problem, but not pre-mox, he just picked too late. Winemaking flaws and techniques as against pre-mox is a totally different animal, which the later having begun to rear it’s ugly head beginning with the 1995’s white burgundies.
Over the years till 95, one could confidently purchase a case of top white burgundy and be sure they’d age and improve for many years. 9 btls would be perfect, one would be off, and 2 still good, but not as good as the pristine 9. This 75% pristine rate was for me the norm, and the wines for me were priced accordingly. This is a general average percentage for me. If a white burg at 10-15 years was a 90 point bottle, for the other 2 bottles that were “off”, the deduction in points for those who quantify that way it would be between 2-5 points. The “off” 2 were still extremely pleasurable for me, and generally only slight disappointments only more so if it was the last bottle from a case.
Unfortunately for the most here my above discussion is sadly irrelevant.
I have not had any premox in the first three years after release. The number I have experienced has increased with the number of years past the three year release.
The risk or premox has gone down a lot in the last ~5 years tho cuz most of the worst affected producers (and many others) have done a number of things to address this…switching to Diam corks and changes in the cellar (assumed in many cases, Fevre has been the most open about the fact they had problems and what they were doing in the cellar). My observation is ~2005 to ~2011 were the most risky vintages (in large part because of a number of previously ‘no premox’ producers decided to jump into the game!). Overall, ~five years after the vintage is when it gets dangerous (for when clearly premoxed wines begin to show up) for the producers that are prone to it…and 3+ years after the vintage when those wines start appearing tired/etc (esp for the most prone producers). It’s not clear that the advances made in recent years have changed the 5 & 3 years to appearance of problems (i.e. the over % of problem bottles & problem producers has gone down…but has the ‘years to the appearance of problems’ changed, for bottles that eventually show problems? That’s not clear to me.
I haven’t seen a case of premox with a diam closed wine, and I’ve looked (cuz I use Diam on my wines). As I said above, I’m sure it’s changes in the cellar + using diam that’s the key. Fevre made a significant number of changes in the cellar prior to switching to diam (in their 1er & grand crus) and they continued to have significant premox problems…resolved only when they added Diam. There are other solutions that are similar to Diam that are out there now.
Yup, that’s the earliest I’ve seen, by a couple of years.
Having opened a lot of cases of white Burgs over the years, the phenomenon really started to come on with the 1996 vintage. I’ve found that there’s general safety with vintages previous to that, but you never say never.
I went to a tasting of 1995 Montrachets…around 2002…more than half gone…
I think most people have figured out things since aROUND 2012…bUT EVIDENTLY NOT ALL…
1995 was the first vintage of the premox devastation.