The Market

Cork to blame for premature Burgundy oxidation says Coates February 21, 2007 Poorly-performing corks are the main culprits behind prematurely aged white Burgundy, says Perry Mason MW. Writing in a forthcoming feature for Decanter magazine, the Burgundy guru says that changes in the way corks are produced have led to poorer wine isolation and oxidisation. To backup his findings, Mason points to top Chablis producer Raveneau, which covers the cork and bottle neck with sealing wax (and lots of fancy stuff), and is one of the few domaines which did not experience oxidation problems (unless you look here – Ed). [...]

I addressed this observation to all the winemakers I met last week and culled the following information: Winemaker 1. “Yes I know exactly what you mean – it’s also there in some whites. We see this to a lower extent in many vintages, but I have to admit it’s on a much higher level since we bottled. I’m keeping my eye on it but fully expect it to fade – though for this vintage maybe not entirely – actually, there’s a good chance that this may give a very interesting component to those wines 5 years down the line.” Winemaker 2. Him: “Really? No I’m not aware of that”, me: “Well it’s kind of like we are tasting right now…” Hmmm – change of subject… [....]

There is always hype of some kind associated with the launch of each new vintage – but comments like the one above are not the norm. That the comment came today from someone who has already largely pre-sold all their 2005′s is telling – even internally at the domaine they are carving up their remaining bottles; “If I give you three bottles of this, I want 3 bottles of that in return…” – there will be almost no showings of their 2005′s – instead they will move direct to 2006′s for customer days! I will add more info as I visit the domaines this week…

You only need to look at notes for the 2004′s tasted here in the last 2-3 months to see that something is going-on in those bottles, so I had to write something about it. Initially I felt compelled to say something, simply because I felt that others were (I felt) misrepresenting the wines (in general); by describing them as ‘green’ many were also taking the a logical assumption that the wines were unripe – many without even tasting them – and this was becoming accepted as fact by many others who also had not tasted nor would they based on this ‘fact’. I had my say, and it seems that we agree that there is something about these wines – let my try and explain. [....]

Back to reality – Christmas is over – it seems in a flash! Lots of friends were seen and surprisingly few bottles were drunk as I was mainly the chauffeur. My first disappointment is that I’ve finally given up trying to match red burgundy with the traditional Christmas meal – it doesn’t work – there are just too many sweet and salty elements on the traditional plate – white burgundy can continue, but next year I see something more cabernet-based! My second disappointment was the sad case of UK wine prices. I will use the local (UK) Oddbins as my example, but note that I’m using them as a prime example of the UK wine trade and what (it appears) they can charge rather complaining [....]

Apparently the ‘Brits’ like to name wines by their varietal. I’m not sure who came up with that statement, or how it applies to Chablis, Châteauneuf-du-Pape or ‘claret’ for instance, but someone was convinced enough to pay for a series of adverts in ‘lifestile magazines’ and the ‘colour supplements’ of the weekend newspapers in the UK and Ireland in the last months of 2006. Apparently the campaign “helps to simplify the Burgundian appellation system and so makes the wines more accessible to the British, while serving as a reminder of the unique quality conferred by terroir.”