Ah – the anticipation. The ritual of opening so carefully. Not to mention finding the right filter for the photos!
Previous bottles of this from Bertagna were fabulous, but: Ah – the cloudy wine. The smell of mushrooms, of beef, of cork – lots and lots of cork! The sound of wine pouring down the sink because we don’t have the chance to make beef bourguignon in the next week or so…
Having opened the wine of the Comtesse (de Vazeilles) at the end of last week, I thought why not take in the wine of the Comte (Liger-Belair) to start my weekend(?) – You can see that it is the small things that amuse me!
Clearly one of these producers had paid quite a bit more for their seal – but to no avail – the 2013 Vosne was corked. Not strongly corked, but a little more than liégeux as the French would describe ‘faintly detectably corked.‘ I’d rather be talking about the wine – which for the record was a little reductive – but in this case (comparison) it was the cheaper seal that did the job…
At the beginning of February, I had a corked bottle of Castagier’s 1997 Clos de la Roche. The middle of February I had corked bottles of Vincent Dauvissat’s 1997 Chablis 1er Les Forêts and it’s not just old bottles because I also had a corked 2018 Marcel Lapierre Morgon Cuvée Lapierre MMXVIII.
This weekend I managed the double; A corked 1999 Mugnier Chambolle-Musigny and a corked 2002 Cheseaux/Ponsot Griotte-Chambertin. Anyone want to estimate the worth of all those useless bottles?
Actually, not completely worthless, the Chambolle was more ‘liegeux‘ – as the french would say for ‘lightly’ corked – I could drink a glass and a half and it was clearly the best showing for the cuvée since this wine was very young. As for the Griotte, it made a lovely sauce for our boeuf bourguignone – washed down with a delicious glass (or two) of 2019 Beaujolais Villages Nouveau – who would have thought that this would be the best way to employ these last two bottles before opening!
I tasted a lot of Beaujolais Blanc last week, and I must say that I feel fortunate to have been tasting this wine from the 2017 vintage – as, all-over Burgundy, the wines are more approachable in this vintage – and for both colours – because of that I found some good ones! But a large proportion of the wines were sealed with Nomacorc and my experience of these has been truly awful – dead wines in less than 1 year kind-of awful. I understand that there may have been some improvements to the ‘current model’ but I still remain quite shocked by the level of use.
They will have to go to some extreme lengths to prove to me that wines sealed this way are something I should buy! I also note, in what seems like a stroke of marketing genius, they are changing the name of their Nomacorc website – www.nomacorc.com – to something that you could never, ever, guess:
My petite whinge du jour is now over…
“An oak barrel brings value to a wine, but cork is perceived as potentially causing a problem with your wine… – …why is that?”
Antonio Amorim – yes, that Amorim!
This was published on Friday when I was traveling – it mandated comment.
My first reaction was ‘Good!‘
My second reaction was ‘About Time!‘
My third reaction was ‘But really, why has this taken so long? And, and…‘
The more I think about this, the more that my thoughts move from positive to negative. Of-course I am jaded by the loss of so many precious bottles – over many years – not forgetting those bottles in my cellar that are still waiting to bring me the sharp pain of aromatic disappointment.
So this is no solution for me – why? Because, aged 56, I now buy almost nothing for my cellar – it is well-enough stocked for the next 20 years of drinking – because of that, many bottles that I own – particularly in those most horrible years of non-existant quality control (for TCA) between 1996 and 2000 – I expect to lose at least 10% to cork problems – and that’s only the reds…
Cork Problems? – yes it’s plural – it’s not just TCA. There are other unwanted aromas, plus the highly variable rates of oxygen transport – as legions of dead, oxidised whites will testify – it’s not simply about TCA, which empirically (for me) now hovers at ‘only’ about 2-3% – but as stated, for a wider range of cork-related issues, the amount of lost bottles is higher than that number.
DIAM has been a solution since 2004 – a solution that is 95% cork-based – thus protecting the livelihoods of cork producers. TCA-free cork that does not sufficiently address other off-compounds, or the outright non-protection of a majority of white wine, dead in 10 years or less, will be no solution. I would be much more interested in what Antonio has to say about subjects other than TCA.
Practically, for many ‘older’ buyers – only better is no solution at all…
More traction for DIAM – here with the version 5 – it’s not just whites that are moving in this direction.
2009 JJ Confuron, Nuits St.Georges Les Fleurières
Medium-plus colour, some purple hues. The nose has quite some ripe depth, perhaps going lower with a hint of toastiness – it takes a while, but eventually it’s namesake makes an appearance, violet flowers… Cool and intense – that’s a great start. The tannin is slightly blocky but not really grainy. Mouth-watering flavour grows in the mid-palate before falling away. There’s a hint of 2009 on the nose but this is lithe, clean and not a bit sweet and fat like some from the vintage – it’s a bit of a ‘refresher’ of a wine. Enjoyed.
Rebuy – Yes
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