Thank Goodness for Bottle Variation!

J

Joe Dressner

Joe Dressner
Isn't that a demonstration that a wine is still alive. If you live with a wine over a period of time, you are bound to find good, average and bad bottles.

It is easy enough these days to level down a wine to make a homogeneous quality that barely varies.

My experience is that wine has its ups and downs, as do the people drinking those wines.

Have to run to the cancer treatment ward....
 
originally posted by Joe Dressner:
Thank Goodness for Bottle Variation!Isn't that a demonstration that a wine is still alive. If you live with a wine over a period of time, you are bound to find good, average and bad bottles.
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This, alas, presupposes that one has multiple bottles of a given wine to sample to gain access to the knowledge of what constitutes good, bad and average for that wine. And, to me, bottle variation is less a demonstration that a wine is alive (apart from secondary fermentation or Brett infection are wines ever alive?) than it is a referendum on closures for the bottles. After all, the wine in the barrel is hardly variable, is it?

It is easy enough these days to level down a wine to make a homogeneous quality that barely varies.

My experience is that wine has its ups and downs, as do the people drinking those wines.
Click to expand...

True 'nuff, but even among those vingerons who eschew the homogenization of industrial production, there are those whose wines are relatively constant in character and those whose wines are... variable.

Have to run to the cancer treatment ward....
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Good luck with that.

Mark Lipton
 
Cellars have large barrel variations.

Some of the best growers bottled barrel by barrel.

Furthermore, growers which unify their wine before bottling in vats often do multiple bottlings.

Then, there is the question of weather, storage, the mood of the taster, the lunar cycle and so many variants which can change how a wine tastes.
 
originally posted by MLipton:
This, alas, presupposes that one has multiple bottles of a given wine to sample to gain access to the knowledge of what constitutes good, bad and average for that wine.
Click to expand...
Yep.
It is now the rare wine that I buy a single bottle of. I almost always buy a case of the wines I like. Sometimes more.

And, to me, bottle variation is less a demonstration that a wine is alive (apart from secondary fermentation or Brett infection are wines ever alive?) than it is a referendum on closures for the bottles. After all, the wine in the barrel is hardly variable, is it?
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Wine in the a single barrel is consistent. But wine in the bottle can vary for many reasons, not just closure. Some of the factors I can think of would be bottling regimen, temperature, humidity, pressure, light, the bugs/problems you mention, etc. And heaven knows the chemistry that takes place in there over the years. I should think that the variations would be nearly infinite.

But I like Joe's point about the taster. Sometimes I think most bottle variation is really personal variation.
Best, Jim
 
originally posted by Florida Jim:
It is now the rare wine that I buy a single bottle of. I almost always buy a case of the wines I like. Sometimes more.
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Your estate is going to have to distribute a lot of wine, isn't it?
 
originally posted by Jeff Grossman:
Your estate is going to have to distribute a lot of wine, isn't it?
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Jeff,
You'd be surprised.
By current inventory my cellar is 589 bottles.
As you can see, I'm selective when buying.
Then too, I'm not shy about drinking.
Best, Jim
 
originally posted by Joe Dressner:
Thank Goodness for Bottle Variation!Isn't that a demonstration that a wine is still alive. If you live with a wine over a period of time, you are bound to find good, average and bad bottles.

It is easy enough these days to level down a wine to make a homogeneous quality that barely varies.
Click to expand...

Well, within time-point variability should be pretty low. This has to do with stability, not homogeneity. Wines that are massively variable at a particular point in time are fucked in some way.

Now, how fucked is too fucked is a matter of degree. I can deal with the instability of Thierry Puzelat's wines, because to me, when they are good, they are very very good. Indeed, they are among my favorite wines in the world and the tariff is reasonable.

The over time variability should be high. This is the trajectory of the wine's development.
 
originally posted by Florida Jim:
originally posted by Jeff Grossman:
Your estate is going to have to distribute a lot of wine, isn't it?
Click to expand...
Jeff,
You'd be surprised.
By current inventory my cellar is 589 bottles.
As you can see, I'm selective when buying.
Then too, I'm not shy about drinking.
Best, Jim
Click to expand...
Jim, by my calculations, you're good almost until the new vintage gets bottled in the Spring.
 
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