I have about 30,000 tasting notes going back almost 23 years on my site. As a guess, at least 10,000 are EP. Probably more.
How many did I get wrong? I’m sure a few. And as you can see, I have no problem admitting it, or readjusting my views on a wines evolution, up, or down.
Every wine does not develop as anticipated. Some have developed better than anticipated. Others did not develop as I originally thought. You step up to the plate, swing and let the chips fall where they lay.
My track record speaks for itself. I’ll stack that up against anyone. Can you point out all the errors you think I made? As far as 2000, and 2005 Pavie are concerned, take a minute to check out the links to other reviews in the post just above from Mark and compare those notes and scores with mine. There are 100 Pt scores and even high scores from conservative reviewers. I’m hardly alone in my thoughts.
Of course I have certainty. Why not? If I didn’t, I should not be writing about wine, publishing reviews, and offering opinions. Again, yes, over the years, I’ve missed a few. Who hasn’t? But, overall, I’ve helped a lot of people at all price levels buy better for less money.
You are welcome to think a track record has merit going forward in how a wine should be evaluated. I think that’s lazy. Every year is a new vintage and a new experience. I taste, write and rate every wine solely on the merits of what’s in the glass. That’s all that counts!
It wasn’t just that you were wrong about this or that Pavie or Troplong Mondot tasting note. It was that you consistently argued for years–and even higher up, implicitly in this thread against Larry–that oak and high extraction would not affect the aging if the estate had a history of making wine that aged. Now you say that changed winemaking, specifically less oak and earlier picking will make more age worthy wines. This isn’t just a couple of missed swings. It is implicitly admitting that you now recognize that those who disagreed with you have turned out to have been at least partly right. Some recognition of that, and in large print on your website, along with an attempt to see how you made such an error would seem necessary for people to take your future aging predictions seriously. Indeed, in my view, rather than certitude, it is almost a prerequisite for a good critic to accept that they are writing about things about which the can’ t be certain, that one will make mistakes,and that the only way to improve is to recognize one’ s mistakes and see how they came about.
What’ s in the glass and what will be in the glass in twenty years are two diifferent things.
Lots of stuff here. First, Pavie did not all apart. It just did not develop to the degree I had anticipated. Others do not agree, some scoring it much higher than I do, and others lower. Troplong Mondot, that is a different issue. Those wines have fallen apart IMO.
The overwhelming majority of wines with the ability to age, and evolve, continue aging and evolving. Troplong Mondot is about Troplong Mondot, not an entire region of wines. The same for Pavie.
So, is 2000 just a one off? Will Pavie age better now that it uses less oak and picks earlier? If so, doesn’t it follow that more oak and later picking affected its aging negatively? Do you really consider these things just details?
Jonathan, you forget that a history of making wine that ages is lazy thinking and irrelevant to whether the wine will age. Thus, until we taste each new Bordeaux, we have zero idea if Bordeaux will age. Maybe it is Gallo Hearty Burgundy that will age for 50 years and Latour that will fall apart in two. Using history is lazy. I hope Jeff never wrote anything using the history of Bordeaux as a guide. It would show he is being lazy.
Jeff, well done for agreeing that Troplong Mondot, and perhaps to a lesser extent, Pavie, have not turned out as well as you expected. We all make mistakes. But since you never miss a chance to promote your own website here, shouldn’t you at least correct it? I’ve no doubt some people use the notes to inform their purchase decisions - if you now accept that some of those notes have turned out to be wrong, you are misleading them. You remind us all regularly that WB is a mere microcosm in the world of wine - so unless your site’s followers just happen to look at WB, and just happen to scroll through an overlong thread originally concerning TWA’s Bordeaux wine coverage, how could they possibly know that your opinion has changed before deciding whether or not to bid at auction?!
Also, I don’t know how many people read your notes, but I’m assuming that quite a few have bought Troplong 05 on the basis of your consistently effusive notes over the last 15 years - only 5 years ago, you wrote that it “could be the best wine made in the history of Troplong Mondot”! Your last note was less enthusiastic, but hardly a contradiction of the previous ones.
Howard rightly asked you to show a little humility - I think your admission is your way of doing so - but don’t you feel you should set the record straight on your own site, apologise for getting it wrong and then prevent any others from making an expensive mistake?
This continues to be a fascinating thread - and it certainly has taken a few twists and turns. The question does still remain - with ‘evolving’ winemaking techniques of making wines more approachable younger, what will happen to these wines as they age? I don’t think ANYONE has an answer to that - but I’m curious for insights.
As more and more winemakers make wines to please those without patience, what will happen to the ‘old guard’ of wine consumers that look for ‘development’ in a wine rather than it either ‘staying in place for a decade or two’ or ‘falling apart in a decade or two’?
And @Jeff_Leve , I do not have specific examples - looking more ‘philosophically’ with noticable changes seemingly being made to make these wines not only approachable but quite drinkable young - something that would not have happened a few decades ago.
Ha - Jeff - you know my taste!! Am I likely to have a secret stash of Troplong?! No way José! I did have a few but sold them a very long time ago when I realised that they were not for me.
But seriously, if you accept that Troplong 05 has crashed and burned, it means you must have tasted it more recently than your last note - and surely you owe your readers that honesty?? You know the owners - ask them to send you a bottle! And if they refuse, say so on the site, buy your own, and then denounce them. Isn’t that what wine journalism is about?
And if I charged for subscriptions, OK. But that’s not the case. Seems like a big ask to me.
Again, I do not take notes on every wine I taste. Why would I? That’s way too much work. That being said, if it shows up again, I’m happy to write about it. I will not forget.
As for asking the new owners, (an insurance company) Troplong never kept much back stock. They sold almost everything they produced, which was the case for most Right Bank wines. I imagine the new owners, 20 years after the vintage have even less back stock of older vintages.
I note that you never answered my questions above, and here you are being patently evasive: if you now believe that Troplong Mondots have seriously deteriorated, or even just have not aged as well as you thought they would your website has an absolute responsibility to register your current view. We already now know that your estimates of how a wine will age are made of little value by your inability to admit or learn from error. Now it seems that we must suspect that your actual tasting notes, and, by extension, your generalized evaluations of an estate’s wines may not represent your current beliefs.
I dont understand how you say “Again, Pavie did not fall apart”
when in this comment:
you say:
Pavie did fall apart.
I’m kinda confused. Not trying to be argumentative or anything but… ???
Personally, for my casual observation, I just dont understand how a wine that has fallen apart/‘not develop as expected’ equates to a 96. Is it ‘not evolving as expected’ therefore 100->96? Because the 96 note reads quite glowing to me, I wouldnt have taken it as ‘this has significantly decreased since my last review’ based on the text alone. Dont know if thats just me?
Apologies if I’ve missed a bridging post, I woke up this AM to loads of new posts and haven’t read them all
Jeff, if you failed to properly evaluate 2000 and 2005 Pavie (for multiple reasons) but remain certain about 2007 Pavie, that certainty is not a virtue, it’s a failing.
I also think you are being fundamentally either disingenuous or inconsistent - when you talk about 2020 Pavie being different because the farming is better, that shouldn’t be relevant because, as you write, you taste and rate “solely on the merits of what’s in the glass”. The farming is not in the glass, only the wine is. So either you do consider the producer and their farming techniques (among other things), or you do not.
Jeff, I hope you understand that you encourage a lot of cynicism towards both your work and wine critics generally when you write things like this. The clear implication is that you err on the side of keeping scores high as you privately acknowledge the wines have fallen apart.
Where did I say anything about 07 Pavie? Though I’m fairly certain it’s a pleasant drink, and as a guess, like many other 2007 wines, probably offers better than expected, light, charming drinking. Though I haven’t seen it since 2017, and doubt I’ll see it again.
Where did I say I want to keep scores high?
I hardy think saying Troplong Mondot fell apart on this board is keeping it quiet🤣
Based on the multiple typos, my guess is, my bad. I’m guessing, or hoping from my notes, scores, and posts, 96 Pts is not a score for a wine that’s falling apart.
As I’ve written to others, the next time I taste a bottle of Troplong, I will write and post a note. If you are all that interested. Please feel free to send a bottle and I’ll happily report on it. Though, I doubt you’re anymore interested in spending your money on a bottle as I am.
You have already tasted a bottle that makes you believe it has fallen apart. Otherwise, how did you arrive at that opinion? However you arrived at it, holding that view and not disclosing it on your website is in the highest degree irresponsible. Not having another bottle to taste now is nothing to the point.
