Combined posting: Tasting notes, industry talk of Pinot-Noir tsunami, wine
on Internet turns 25.
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Tasting notes, 1996 red Burgundy assortment
Background. Tasting group B (as I'll label it) contains importers,
wholesalers, retailers, enthusiasts, of wines from Burgundy region, who are
located throughout San Francisco Bay area. Meets regularly to appraise and
debate these wines (usually current products; sometimes older, like this
time). Members' Burgundy experience is 5-50 years (average around 25), most
have experience tasting and buying in Burgundy itself, some regularly. I
call it a co-operative tasting group because wine cost is shared, members
rotate organizing and hosting, expenses are minimized. Format is
taste-and-spit double-blind evaluation [1], impressions and rough
preferences written down. Tasters' preference rankings then combine for a
group ranking to structure discussion. Wines discussed, least favorite to
most, then unveiled. Then we bring out food and re-visit the wines we
liked, unblind and with food, using what's left in our tasting glasses and
the bottles. You can extract a lot of information from a wine sample this
way. Meetings occur at homes or friendly, moderately-priced restaurants
accommodating this unusual format. (This group recently surfaced on the
Squires wine web site re Burgundy evaluations.)
These were nine generally respected wines. Obtained from members who bought
them when new on market 1999-2000 at USD $30-75. Place-names not designated
premier cru (PC) below are grand cru (GC). (These wines use the Pinot Noir
grape, in the region that has traditionally produced most of the wines from
that grape.) Wines opened and decanted an hour before tasting. 12 tasters.
"T" marks when I moved from smelling to tasting each.
Red Burgundies of this vintage created high expectations with their
concentration, structure, strong tannins. I tasted some of these at the
time, when first offered. Many of them entered a "closed" phase in recent
years; some are emerging (others, who can ever tell what will happen?). The
strong acids, dry tannins, sometimes austere fruit today (especially from
the Côte de Nuits wines) sum to a good metaphor: Cranberries.
Listed in descending group blind preference.
1996 Mongeard-Mugneret Grands Echezeaux. (Group 1st, my 2nd blind
favorite.) Color browner than most. Faint meaty aroma opens in time (as
did the flavor -- like some others, this developed considerably in the glass
for a couple of hours). T depth, coffee, orangey fruit. Hard and closed
initially but it opened up.
1996 Chandon de Briailles Corton Bressandes. (Group 2nd, my 1st.)
Beautiful floral berry fruit with black olives. Unusually opulent in this
line-up. T concentration, sap, glycerol, fruit, toast. (I thought it must
be from the Côte de Beaune subregion: yes.) Opened up even more enjoyably
later.
1996 Mongeard-Mugneret Echezeaux. (Group 3rd, my 3rd.) Brilliant deep
color. Faint pickle foresmell blows off. Toast. T hard clean classic
struc, strong acid, some fruit. Marginal flaw in the back, a faint moldy or
Bretty hint, many people caught it. Not TCA. Triage issue? (Many grape
bunches were picked over, that year.) Still, popular wine.
1996 Hudelot-Noellat Chambolle-Musigny PC "Les Charmes." (Group 4th, my
5th.) Coffee and herbs. T closed, ungenerous, though finely made. Evident
oak toast. Opened up later.
1996 Vincent Prunier Auxey-Duresses PC "Grands Champs." (Group 5th, my 4th.)
Very faint and closed smells initially. Spicy fruit appears. T
considerable fruit with still hard acid edge suggesting wine is still
developing. Slight cooked smell. Beaune region I estimated, and later
guessed correctly it was the Prunier. At $30 (in 2000), the "value" among
these premium wines.
1996 Lamarche Echezeaux. (Here we get into wines I dumped out once food
arrived.) Dark. Unusual smell, I characterized as India-ink. Wood
resembling Scotch whisky. T coffee but little fruit.
1996 Maume Gevrey-Chambertin PC. Good dark color. Closed aroma. T closed,
acid.
1996 Lafon Volnay-Santenots-du-Milieu PC. Very faint and closed aromas at
first. T closed, hard, almost a mold hint.
1996 Thomas-Moillard Chambertin. Acidic/orange smells, toast, olive; not
bad. (VA, some said.) T solid struc with core of resolved tannin, but
faded fruit. Disappointing wine from this illustrious location. A reminder
once again why this group judges by the experience in the glass and not by
the label.
[1] Double-blind evaluation explanation. Neither tasters nor host knows
which wine is which during tasting, though they may know overall population.
This time I hosted. After wrapping the bottles to disguise them, I gave to
another (who hadn't seen the wrapping) to mark, so neither of us knew which
wine had which letter marking. Because the wines had some age they all had
sediment, so I prepped them to clarify. Stood up for a couple days;
uncorked and poured each into pitcher with a bright light shining through
bottle. Near end of the pour, sediment appeared. Stopped the pour then,
removed remaining wine with the sediment, replaced the clear wine into clean
bottle. With care, this holds back only 10-20 ml of each wine. I collected
the sedimented remains in another container, capped, to settle again and
maybe use -- a "house blend."
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Pinot-Noir deluge, early reports:
One wholesaler described industry scuttlebutt: Prepare for a tidal wave of
mediocre pinot-noir wines from around the world (and attendant marketing),
serving new consumer interest. Precursor waves lap at the shore already.
His firm is being offered wines from countries and producers new to this
grape; some of the wines are awful. (Side note: Merchants in Group B sell
other PNs besides Burgundies but are longtime specialists in this grape.)
Remember Merlot wines in the 1980s, he said; it will be exactly like that.
(I remind you of Harvey Steiman's newspaper feature article, October 1981:
"Merlot, the coming red wine revolution." Still have copies on file, I just
glanced at one.)
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Almost 25 years of wine on the Internet.
The original, continuously active public Internet wine forum, which you are
now reading of course, turns 25 years old, 27 February 2007. It was a
planned spin-off of the original food and cooking forum, created a month
earlier. That one turned 25 in January. I posted a birthday greeting,
message ID below
and at least currently in the Google archive,
http://tinyurl.com/2vmdue .
A few people have posted continuously on these and related newsgroups for
that entire 25 years, others sporadically (yo!). Speaking sporadically, I
don't know what (if any) discussion occurred here about the milestone.
Regardless, a toast might be appropriate, around the 27th of this month.
Cheers -- Max