p.ox
premature oxidation of white wines
By billn on July 21, 2011
I just did something that I haven’t done for years – I bought a copy of Decanter. Intruiged by the summary of their story on the Decanter website I decided to see what passes for cutting-edge wine journalism. First I have to say that the magazine is more impressive than the website – but what wouldn’t be hard given that the latter is a ‘mere’ promotional tool, riddled with advertisements and pop-ups. Apart from the news service and some of the ‘blogs’ their website is largely to be avoided and certainly no thing of beauty. Returning to premature oxidation – or early onset oxidation as the BIVB prefer to describe it – for such an important subject it is worth asking ‘what took so long [....]
Posted in Other Sites, p.ox |
By billn on July 16, 2011
Well maybe not all the world, but after Decanter’s recent piece, Jay McInerny is at it in the Wall Street Journal too. Nothing new of-course, just that the story is now trickling out into a more mainstream audience – in a way it’s surprising it’s taken so long…
Posted in Other Sites, p.ox |
By billn on July 5, 2011
The shock!!! It is fair to criticise how long it’s taken, but as they say ‘better late than never.’ I believe there’s a wider discussion of this subject in the magazine; unless you have a problem selling your white burgundy – and today it’s about managing expectations – this wider discussion in the ‘generalist’ wine press can only be helpful in finding a resolution(s) and better managing buyer’s expectations.
Posted in Other Sites, p.ox |
By billn on June 16, 2011
Or this could be titled, how to avoid oxidation – and fail! Although I intend to have some good drinking in my dotage, I generally drink more modest stuff at home; bourgognes, villages and premiers – perhaps only a grand cru once or twice a month. Actually half the wines I drink don’t feature in these pages because they are habitual house wines – whites in particular. Yet any excuse to make a change. I finally finished this week a project that entailed 120 thousand words and visiting over 100 domaines since the end of July last year – but I can’t give any more details this year I think. Now I can concentrate on the Spring Report (oops…) and open a couple of bottles [....]
Posted in Degustation, p.ox, Rebuy - No (2011) |
“In recent years the BIVB have been much more forward and pro-active at bringing new research to vignerons via conferences and their bulletins, but clearly some of the ‘old school’ don’t or won’t want to be told.” That was the interesting quote of a lady vigneron a couple of days before I visited Jean-Philippe Gervais, director of the BIVB’s technical centre in Beaune. It also underlines the complexity of finding a solution to a problem that appears to have more than one root cause, plus the social dimension noted above. Following-on from the data that the BIVB last shared with me/us here (half-way down the page); these are my notes from a visit on 15th October: The technical centre is also an information resource for [....]
My eighth Spring Report is quite a busy one – it’s amazing what you can pack in if seasonal colds desist! Firstly I have to thank Filip Verheyden (Belgian Wine Personality of the Year 2010 – apparently!) who is editor and publisher of Tong Magazine, for allowing me to reprint a brilliant article he published last year. I think I’ve read it 5 times now – it’s just one of those articles where I absorb something different each time. Filip has drawn the ire of some producers for taking a completely neutral position and allowing both pro and anti argumentation for ‘terroir’ in the magazine – it seems that free speech is not to be countenanced in some corridors! I’m expecting the latest issue ‘Burgundy’ [....]
By billn on April 9, 2010
Like a duck paddling away below the surface I’m trying to give the impression of everything being serene above the waist. The fact is the next Burgundy Report (already the 8th year!) is coming together in a much more orderly/timely fashion than usual – in fact you will only have to wait until the 15th because I’ve requested some stuff from external parties, and that’s their deadline – I suppose if they deliver it early you can have it early too I’ve been going through a bit of a white clear-out phase, and didn’t want to subject you to the same notes every week, but during the last 6 weeks I’ve managed to go through the following, only some of which have been mentioned in [....]
Posted in p.ox, Site Updates |
By billn on April 4, 2010
That’s it, enough chocolate for today; 120g of ‘Grand Cru Croquant’ Easter rabbit – a nice 70% ‘Cacao Hispaniola’ – and very nice too, particularly with 5% tiny almond nougat pieces adding a crunch to the texture. The more industrial chocolate of a Lindt bunny awaits – maybe tomorrow! Anyway a few things in this entry. Coming back to my note on Decanter’s ‘April Fool Fun’ perhaps the fool was on them: I looked in the morning to see that there was a not so funny story about North Korea buying all the second wine of Latour from the 2009 vintage, I didn’t have time to read it all so decided to return. At lunchtime – nothing – only an empty entry still in the [....]
Posted in Degustation, Other Sites, p.ox, Rebuy - No (2010), Rebuy - Yes (2010) |
By billn on March 26, 2010
Thursday night and it’s dinner in the Château du Clos de Vougeot, but before dinner, 40 grand crus to taste from the 2008 and 2002 vintage. It’s the second time I’ve been invited – I know, I’m a very lucky boy. Perhaps I’m also a bit more humble than one heavily accented voice I heard complaining in English about this that and just about everything – that will have been the person here on somebody else’s dollar no doubt – there are too many of those people in the world I’m afraid! Back to the ‘Château’; It’s hard not to marvel at the magnificence of both the place and it’s setting, even when the security asks ‘do you have one of these’, I say ‘I [....]
Posted in Degustation, p.ox, Rebuy - No (2010), Rebuy - Yes (2010) |
By billn on March 21, 2010
After the oxidised Roulot bourgogne yet another (fotunately my last) p.oxed Bouchard Père 2002 Meursault Perrières yesterday. I though the case was already finished until I found this singleton, I must have been saving it for a happy day in the future…. The replacement was a Françoise et Denis Clair St.Aubin 1er Dents du Chien – a decent bottle (note to follow) – and also a decent bottle of Castagnier 1996 Bonnes-Mares. Finally some success!
Posted in Degustation, p.ox, Rebuy - No (2010) |
By billn on March 16, 2010
Clearly a rubbish title for this hotch-potch mess of a post, but I was too lazy to come up with something better while I ‘dowloaded’ a few bits and pieces… First – something about wine, dark coloured and a little oxidised wine at that. I’ve been pulling older whites out of the cellar and last night was one of Roulot’s 1999 Bourgognes. A peach of a wine and relative bargain for quite some years after release. This one was quite dark coloured, with a nose partly between baked pear and oxidised aromas. More obvious oxidation on the palate, but ‘just’ drinkable I thought – halfway down the glass I changed my mind and ditched it. The reserve bottle was a 2001 Château de Puligny-Montrachet, Puligny [....]
Posted in Other Sites, p.ox |
By billn on March 7, 2010
Producers in denial as blight leaves some French white wines ‘almost undrinkable’ Hardly a major exposé, but the generalist wine-writing cliques are slowly catching-on…
Posted in Asides, p.ox |
