Michael,
>
> Caution: I was talking about that specific cask tasting week in
> April 2002. I had bought some LTC en primeur (at 16.09 euros, VAT
> and delivery included), but haven't tasted it yet.

I can purchase it at 22 euros VAT included, and I pick the wine at the shop
;-)
>
> It's highly probable that there are better wines, but then they
> simply did not show as good as LTC on that specific occasion. I
> just looked up my TNs, Léoville Barton scored 84: "Cardboardy,
> although good structure", very much looks like a sub-par cask
> sample, so your comment makes very much sense.

I do not have a great experience with Leoville Barton but I think I read
somewhere that their wines are usually very tight while in cask and in
their youth. However, I found the 2001 truly an excellent wine.
>
> In my experience, even if clarets taste "international",
> "parkerized", "Michel Rolland vinified" (which happens to be the
> case with post-2000 LTC) in their youth, these oak influenced
> aromas tend to disappear with due bottle age.

>
> All this supports my theory that after 20 years in bottle it's
> more or less irrelevant whether the wine had been vinified in new
> oak, old oak, stainless steel or concrete vats. While being very
> important in its youth, the differences totally edge out with
> time, imho.

That is interesting. I tend to drink wines too young, specially wines that
are new for me. When do you think I should drink my remaining bottles of
LTC 2001?

Best,

S.

Santiago > wrote:

>> Caution: I was talking about that specific cask tasting week in
>> April 2002. I had bought some LTC en primeur (at 16.09 euros,
>> VAT and delivery included), but haven't tasted it yet.

> I can purchase it at 22 euros VAT included, and I pick the wine
> at the shop ;-)

Yeah, but I have my wine in my cellar right from the start. I
really love to know the provenance ;-)

> I do not have a great experience with Leoville Barton but I
> think I read somewhere that their wines are usually very tight
> while in cask and in their youth. However, I found the 2001
> truly an excellent wine.

It probably is. I remember having tasted L-B much better from cask
the other years. Since I taste blind (where possible), there is
seldom a chance to have another bottle (in case there is a bottle
problem). If the cask samples themselves are sub-par (which
happens from time to time), then it's really difficult to give an
appropriate judgment.

>> In my experience, even if clarets taste "international",
>> "parkerized", "Michel Rolland vinified" (which happens to be
>> the case with post-2000 LTC) in their youth, these oak
>> influenced aromas tend to disappear with due bottle age.
>>
>> All this supports my theory that after 20 years in bottle it's
>> more or less irrelevant whether the wine had been vinified in
>> new oak, old oak, stainless steel or concrete vats. While being
>> very important in its youth, the differences totally edge out
>> with time, imho.

> That is interesting. I tend to drink wines too young, specially
> wines that are new for me. When do you think I should drink my
> remaining bottles of LTC 2001?

Ask me something different, please!

No, seriously, this is one of the most difficult questions which
almost entirely depends on how you like your wines, rhather young
or rather mature.

From our yearly Bordeaux tastings "10 years after" I'd suggest to
have wines like LTC somewhere in the 10 to 15 years range,
provided you have good (cool) storage. But, once again, it's all
up to your personal taste.

M.

Michael Pronay > wrote in
:

> Ask me something different, please!

I knew this one was not going to be easy ;-)
>
> From our yearly Bordeaux tastings "10 years after" I'd suggest to
> have wines like LTC somewhere in the 10 to 15 years range,
> provided you have good (cool) storage. But, once again, it's all
> up to your personal taste.

Thanks, I do have my best bottles in a Liebherr Vinotheque which holds
about 250 bottles. Regulated at 12ºC. And then the rest are below ground at
12ºC in the winter and 20ºC in the summer, but with no daily variation. The
LTC are in the Vinotheque.

Best,

S.

I guess everyone has really missed my point in posting this article. I
have been drinking and tasting Bourdeaux wines since the "60's. I'm
quite familiar with cellaring Bourdeaux as well as the fact that many
are quite closed young. That being said, you can also see the aging
potential immediately. Often still in the cask though I've never been
privy to that. From the 1998 vintage onward my tastings of first growths
have not produced anything I would be overwhelmed with in terms of QPR.
Many Bourdeaux's seem to increasing in price while dropping in quality.
My percentage of corked wines from France now approaches 15% since 1990
vintages though the price does not reflect the lesser quality of some
wines and the dismal state of corkage in France. Over the last 2 years
I've lost about 40 bad bottles of French wines from Bourdeaux. Burgundy,
Rhone to a total of $1900. My cellaring program has kept track. In that
same time I've lost 6 bottles of various California, Spanish, Italian
and OZ wines to the same problem to the tune of $125. Because of this I
have severely reduced my buying of French wines restricting to Rhone and
white wines only as these have been the fewest losses. The French wine
industry has serious problems from my small sampling but my tasting
group which now numbers 60 has expressed the same feeling and have begun
limiting French purchases for the same reason.This has zero to do with
politics though we do have a number of active military and ex-military.
None supported the boycott. This is pure economics. We have yet to have
a tasting involving French wines without a bad bottle and some of these
folks have envious cellars. Just my personal rant here. From what I've
read lately there are others in this group with similar feelings.

In article >,
Santiago > wrote:

> Michael,
> >
> > Caution: I was talking about that specific cask tasting week in
> > April 2002. I had bought some LTC en primeur (at 16.09 euros, VAT
> > and delivery included), but haven't tasted it yet.
>
> I can purchase it at 22 euros VAT included, and I pick the wine at the shop
> ;-)
> >
> > It's highly probable that there are better wines, but then they
> > simply did not show as good as LTC on that specific occasion. I
> > just looked up my TNs, Léoville Barton scored 84: "Cardboardy,
> > although good structure", very much looks like a sub-par cask
> > sample, so your comment makes very much sense.
>
> I do not have a great experience with Leoville Barton but I think I read
> somewhere that their wines are usually very tight while in cask and in
> their youth. However, I found the 2001 truly an excellent wine.
> >
> > In my experience, even if clarets taste "international",
> > "parkerized", "Michel Rolland vinified" (which happens to be the
> > case with post-2000 LTC) in their youth, these oak influenced
> > aromas tend to disappear with due bottle age.
>
> >
> > All this supports my theory that after 20 years in bottle it's
> > more or less irrelevant whether the wine had been vinified in new
> > oak, old oak, stainless steel or concrete vats. While being very
> > important in its youth, the differences totally edge out with
> > time, imho.
>
> That is interesting. I tend to drink wines too young, specially wines that
> are new for me. When do you think I should drink my remaining bottles of
> LTC 2001?
>
> Best,
>
> S.

Lawrence Leichtman > wrote:

> My percentage of corked wines from France now approaches 15%
> since 1990 [...]

Last Wednesday we tasted 45 Bordeaux from 2001 and 2002. 9 of them
- exactly 20% - were corked, from heavily to almost indiscernible.
The latter was the case for Léoville Las Cases 2001, scoring 90
for the first, 94 for the second bottle.

M.

In article >,
Michael Pronay > wrote:
>
>Last Wednesday we tasted 45 Bordeaux from 2001 and 2002. 9 of them
>- exactly 20% - were corked, from heavily to almost indiscernible.
>The latter was the case for Léoville Las Cases 2001, scoring 90
>for the first, 94 for the second bottle.


How do you manage to taste 45 wines and retain any information about
them? Is this an art which must be practiced or is it genetic?


Dimitri

D. Gerasimatos wrote:

> How do you manage to taste 45 wines and retain any information about
> them? Is this an art which must be practiced or is it genetic?

Compared to Michael I am a slow taster, but I have taken notes on 20+
wines tasted over several hours. The keys are to spit, to write as you
taste and to employ mental shorthand to reduce the amount of writing.
When you know in advance what wines you are tasting, you can write down
the identification (name, year, etc.) in advance and simply supply your
impressions as you taste. It is definitely a different activity from
even a visit to a winery: more analytical, less time to savor what
you're tasting, little conversation and a minimal amount of eating.
It's not recreation, but a great way to quickly gain an impression of a
large number of wines.

Mark Lipton

In article >,
Mark Lipton > wrote:
>
>Compared to Michael I am a slow taster, but I have taken notes on 20+
>wines tasted over several hours. The keys are to spit, to write as you
>taste and to employ mental shorthand to reduce the amount of writing.
>When you know in advance what wines you are tasting, you can write down
>the identification (name, year, etc.) in advance and simply supply your
>impressions as you taste. It is definitely a different activity from
>even a visit to a winery: more analytical, less time to savor what
>you're tasting, little conversation and a minimal amount of eating.
>It's not recreation, but a great way to quickly gain an impression of a
>large number of wines.


But how do you compare them between each other? Or is that not the point?
Even when taking notes, 45 is a whole lot. I can taste 45 wines in a day,
but I cannot compare more than 8-10 wines to each other at any one time.


Dimitri

D. Gerasimatos wrote:

> But how do you compare them between each other? Or is that not the point?
> Even when taking notes, 45 is a whole lot. I can taste 45 wines in a day,
> but I cannot compare more than 8-10 wines to each other at any one time.

Most of the time, I'm not interested in comparing them against one
another, as I'm merely an amateur and don't publish my results (except
here ;-)). When I do a comparative tasting, I taste in flights and (if
possible) will return to the best wines for a second comparison against
one another. I don't tend to assign scores these days, but even without
that you can rank order wines in terms of preference.

HTH
Mark Lipton

(D. Gerasimatos) wrote:

>> Last Wednesday we tasted 45 Bordeaux from 2001 and 2002. 9 of
>> them - exactly 20% - were corked, from heavily to almost
>> indiscernible. The latter was the case for Léoville Las Cases
>> 2001, scoring 90 for the first, 94 for the second bottle.

> How do you manage to taste 45 wines and retain any information
> about them? Is this an art which must be practiced or is it
> genetic?

It's my job, and all I can say is: practice, practice, practice.

We started at 5pm with 28 Austrian Weinviertel wines (25 whites:
13 grüner veltliner, 5 rieslings, 2 chards, 2 sauvignons, 3 other
whites, 3 reds) to proceed to 45 clarets, tasted in roughly
ascending order of price, from EUR 6,60 (Malesan Bordeaux) to EUR
80 (LLC). Finished at 9pm. And, of course, I sit, taste, write TNs
into my laptop, the other tasters delivering descriptors from time
to time. We taste in flights of four.

This was a rather small tasting, in fact. When we do our annual
~1500 wines roundup, we usually do 200 wines a day. Needless to
says that this is very hard work, but it's possible.

What we do in our tasting panels (between three and five members),
is to agree immediately upon the score we attribute a given wine.
If it's excellent, we award a score (usually 91 or higher) and put
it aside for an open final tasting of the best 10 to 15 percent of
the wines. This final round is rather fast and serves very well to
evaluate the top wines against each other.

M.

Michael Pronay > wrote:

>> How do you manage to taste 45 wines and retain any information
>> about them? Is this an art which must be practiced or is it
>> genetic?

> It's my job, and all I can say is: practice, practice, practice.

And spitting, of course.

M.

Made my point thank you. At the prices these bottles fetch losing 20% to
bad corkage is a major loss. 9 bottles of wine that some could be over
$200 is a big loss.

In article >,
Michael Pronay > wrote:

> Lawrence Leichtman > wrote:
>
> > My percentage of corked wines from France now approaches 15%
> > since 1990 [...]
>
> Last Wednesday we tasted 45 Bordeaux from 2001 and 2002. 9 of them
> - exactly 20% - were corked, from heavily to almost indiscernible.
> The latter was the case for Léoville Las Cases 2001, scoring 90
> for the first, 94 for the second bottle.
>
> M.

Lawrence Leichtman states in part:

"I guess everyone has really missed my point in posting this article. I
have been drinking and tasting Bourdeaux wines since the "60's. I'm
quite familiar with cellaring Bourdeaux as well as the fact that many
are quite closed young. That being said, you can also see the aging
potential immediately. Often still in the cask though I've never been
privy to that. From the 1998 vintage onward my tastings of first growths
have not produced anything I would be overwhelmed with in terms of QPR.
Many Bourdeaux's seem to increasing in price while dropping in quality.
My percentage of corked wines from France now approaches 15% since 1990
vintages though the price does not reflect the lesser quality of some
wines and the dismal state of corkage in France. Over the last 2 years
I've lost about 40 bad bottles of French wines from Bourdeaux. Burgundy,
Rhone to a total of $1900. "

I too have cellared wines since the 60s. The last wines I bought for
long keeping were Haut Brion 89, Margaux 90, and a mixed case of DRC 90.
Thus I have no experience with more recent French wines other than a few
whites and simple wines for everyday drinking. From your reports, those
of Michael Pronay, etc., I must conclude that the percentage of corked
French wines has increased since perhaps the late 80s to mid 90s. I have
not had many corked wines from my older wines, which are stored under
ideal conditions. However I well remember a badly corked 70 DRC
Echezeaux.


When I was buying many of my wines in the early 70s, the spread in price
between better Bordeaux second and lower growths and first growths was
not nearly as great as now, with a first growth costing 2 to 3 times as
much as a very good second growth. The same applied for Burgundy. I just
received a price list of 2003 Bordeaux en premier. You may have a single
bottle of Petrus for US$ 1999.99. Lafite is a relative bargin at
$374.99. Lynch Bages is $66.99. In the early 70's( just after the crash
in the wine market) a very good recent Lynch Bages would have been well
under $10, a Lafite about $22, and a Petrus about $35. I would be very
upset if I paid the fortune that new first growths now cost, only to
find the bottle corked or the wine not built to age when opened perhaps
20 to 30 years from now.

Besides a very few corked bottles, I have had a few bottles showing
random oxidation because of cork physical flaws, and a very few wines
that just were not well made. I do not plan to buy any more recent top
wines because of the cost, the reported cork problems, and because, if
the wines are very good anymore, top ones would need 20 to 30 years to
fully mature and I likely would be dead by then or too old to enjoy
them.

I do find some wines very difficult to evaluate when young, with Mouton
perhaps being the most dfficult - or at least it was when the old Baron
was still alive. It was sort of like a high wire act. If it makes it to
the end correctly, it can be outstanding. However if something becomes
just a bit out of balance, it can come crashing to the ground. Still the
Mouton 45 may be the greatest Bordeaux made since WW II. However in many
other years that are good in general, Mouton has not been as good as it
should have been for the year.

Reply to .

Most of my bad bottles have come from mid to late 80's vintages but the
highest percentage in the 90's. Just had 2 corked bottles at a Burgundy
tasting laswt night out of 20 bottles opened. Both were very expensive
including a La Tache from 1988 and a 1985 Le Roi Cambolle Musigny.

In article >,
(Cwdjrx _) wrote:

> Lawrence Leichtman states in part:
>

> I too have cellared wines since the 60s. The last wines I bought for
> long keeping were Haut Brion 89, Margaux 90, and a mixed case of DRC 90.
> Thus I have no experience with more recent French wines other than a few
> whites and simple wines for everyday drinking. From your reports, those
> of Michael Pronay, etc., I must conclude that the percentage of corked
> French wines has increased since perhaps the late 80s to mid 90s. I have
> not had many corked wines from my older wines, which are stored under
> ideal conditions. However I well remember a badly corked 70 DRC
> Echezeaux.
>
>
> When I was buying many of my wines in the early 70s, the spread in price
> between better Bordeaux second and lower growths and first growths was
> not nearly as great as now, with a first growth costing 2 to 3 times as
> much as a very good second growth. The same applied for Burgundy. I just
> received a price list of 2003 Bordeaux en premier. You may have a single
> bottle of Petrus for US$ 1999.99. Lafite is a relative bargin at
> $374.99. Lynch Bages is $66.99. In the early 70's( just after the crash
> in the wine market) a very good recent Lynch Bages would have been well
> under $10, a Lafite about $22, and a Petrus about $35. I would be very
> upset if I paid the fortune that new first growths now cost, only to
> find the bottle corked or the wine not built to age when opened perhaps
> 20 to 30 years from now.
>
> Besides a very few corked bottles, I have had a few bottles showing
> random oxidation because of cork physical flaws, and a very few wines
> that just were not well made. I do not plan to buy any more recent top
> wines because of the cost, the reported cork problems, and because, if
> the wines are very good anymore, top ones would need 20 to 30 years to
> fully mature and I likely would be dead by then or too old to enjoy
> them.
>
> I do find some wines very difficult to evaluate when young, with Mouton
> perhaps being the most dfficult - or at least it was when the old Baron
> was still alive. It was sort of like a high wire act. If it makes it to
> the end correctly, it can be outstanding. However if something becomes
> just a bit out of balance, it can come crashing to the ground. Still the
> Mouton 45 may be the greatest Bordeaux made since WW II. However in many
> other years that are good in general, Mouton has not been as good as it
> should have been for the year.
>
> Reply to .
>