2007 Clos Roche Blanche Gamay - will this age?

originally posted by Kevin Roberts:

With the oxygen you'd introduce, you'd want to check back in a week, unless you're blanketing with CO2 or something else, but that's the homebrewer in me, and maybe a little of the chemist.
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That's what I was wondering about.

Brad, done any side-by-side comparisons of recorked vs. fake corks over time with respect to certain wines?
 
originally posted by Bwood:
originally posted by Kevin Roberts:

With the oxygen you'd introduce, you'd want to check back in a week, unless you're blanketing with CO2 or something else, but that's the homebrewer in me, and maybe a little of the chemist.
Click to expand...

That's what I was wondering about.

Brad, done any side-by-side comparisons of recorked vs. fake corks over time with respect to certain wines?
Click to expand...

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winedisorder.com
 
originally posted by Thor:

Re: fake corks, I think it's worth a reminder here that their inventor warned they were only good for 2-3 years, tops.
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so, to really know the window, one has to find out the date the wine was actually bottled, i guess.
 
Sure, but it's rare wine where that's more than within a year, and yet the bottle's still closed with a synthetic, don't you think?
 
right, so then in general, say, "open by 3-4 yrs from vintage".

i guess i was also wondering about the more idiosyncratic winemakers with less clockwork type elevages who may also use fake corks.
 
originally posted by Kevin Roberts:
With the oxygen you'd introduce, you'd want to check back in a week, unless you're blanketing with CO2 or something else, but that's the homebrewer in me, and maybe a little of the chemist.
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If you're re-corking a case, you could sacrifice one bottle to top up the other eleven.
 
originally posted by Joel Stewart:
right, so then in general, say, "open by 3-4 yrs from vintage". (?)

i guess i was also wondering about the more idiosyncratic winemakers with less clockwork type elevages who may also use fake corks.
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so then in general, say, "open by 3-4 yrs from vintage"
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Without having studied the matter, I'd actually say that's good advice, if maybe a little generous. But I won't be letting any synthetic corks last the year from now on; if they're ruining the wine due to seal failure (and that seems to be the culprit), there's a good chance that failure is progressive, in which case the earlier the better.
 
so then am i missing something here....why the fake corks to begin with? on the surface, it seems weird that, for example, puzelat and crb use plastique, given their whole shtick, use fake cork to begin with...unless it boils down to a matter of cost and survival for the winemaker. if it's a tca protection issue, then ok, but they still use cork for other releases right? still a crap shoot right? i don't get it. unless there are drinking window dates on the bottle, any new consumer who is unaware of the stoppage material issue could and probably would be turned off by bottles of otherwise well made wine, which just happened to turn from the weakness of the stopper. are these "handmade" "vin naturel" winemakers saying their wines released at this level don't stand any chance of lasting, so they implant self-destructive corks to ensure the fact?

it's probly me, but i miss the logic so far.
 
originally posted by Joel Stewart:
are these "handmade" "vin naturel" winemakers saying their wines released at this level don't stand any chance of lasting, so they implant self-destructive corks to ensure the fact?

it's probly me, but i miss the logic so far.
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The logic is that most people don't buy gamay from the Loire to age. In fact, most of the people in this market who do have probably already read this thread. The rest of the people take the wine home and drink it with dinner. Everyone else knows that you don't age wine with fake corks. If you care enough to be aging CRB, you find out which cuvees have real corks. That will then be your clue as to which you should keep.

And TCA is a drag.
 
I also think that, in some cases, these producers would use screwcaps if they could. But their primary markets won't accept them (and in some cases, the actual law won't allow them). So synthetics are the compromise.
 
originally posted by Thor:
I also think that, in some cases, these producers would use screwcaps if they could. But their primary markets won't accept them (and in some cases, the actual law won't allow them). So synthetics are the compromise.
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Fake corks also let you use the same bottles, bottling line, and so on, without the extra investment. There is also ongoing controversy about near- and longer-term aging with screwcaps.
 
OK, but when many of these producers made the switch from bark to synthetic, the reduction issue (which I think is overblown, but that's a separate conversation) wasn't yet on the radar.

And as for long-term aging, I'm not sure I follow the logic. Not wanting to use bark for fear of TCA, the producer switches to a closure they know has a very short life, but won't switch to a closure that might not ensure a long life?

No, I think that's not it. Yes on the no-change-to-the-bottle issue, for certain, but it's a lot more difficult for European producers to consider screwcaps, for market-based reasons, and I think that's why most of them went to synthetic rather than screwcap.
 
originally posted by SFJoe:
originally posted by Joel Stewart:
are these "handmade" "vin naturel" winemakers saying their wines released at this level don't stand any chance of lasting, so they implant self-destructive corks to ensure the fact?

it's probly me, but i miss the logic so far.
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The logic is that most people don't buy gamay from the Loire to age. In fact, most of the people in this market who do have probably already read this thread. The rest of the people take the wine home and drink it with dinner. Everyone else knows that you don't age wine with fake corks. If you care enough to be aging CRB, you find out which cuvees have real corks. That will then be your clue as to which you should keep.

And TCA is a drag.
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I think this is a really good summary. I actually don't have anything against plastic corks per se. In fact, I think they're a very good thing, and wish they were a lot more widely used, for the very wines that Joe is talking about - the wines that get bought by the general public and taken home and drunk. American wines, your basic high volume Spanish wines, Cotes du Rhones, etc. I think the aggregate result will be significantly less overall use of cork. The result of THAT will be less pressure on the cork industry to produce subpar corks. We hopefully will get back to an era of corks that were built for the long haul.

We all want a magic bullet for TCA. I have yet to see it. Plastic doesn't work at all for aging, and I think the screwcap direction is simply going to have its own issues centered around reduction. It is what it is.

I will say that I think plastic corked wine can go downhill pretty darn fast. I even think stuff that's been sitting for a year on a store shelf is a little suspect. I recork em immediately.

Last thing I'll say is that most wines I've found with plastic corks (like the CRB Gamay, or a recent Chermette rose) really do make sense to have plastic corks. But there are others (a ruined case of Christoffel Kabinett being the leading example) I'm just surprised by, and I hope everyone just learns the lesson and moves on. I've appreciated Eric Texier for example adjusting his longer haul cuvees.

In the meantime, I'll continue to check every bottle I buy, including short termers, and recork them if they're plastic. It's quick, easy, and fun. And, incidentally, every recorked wine I've had has been just dandy.
 
originally posted by Joel Stewart:
and those ageable crb's with real corks never have tca issues?
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Joel, I understand your question. The makers are not engaged in a stem-to-stern remake of their packaging. (They are trapped by laws, they are trapped by customer expectations, etc.) What they are doing is making a modest effort to rescue at least one class of wine from the agonies of bark.

If everything was up for grabs, why not tetra-pak some malbec or torrontes?
 
ok, i get the logic, more or less. i'll put a cork in it.

now we can get on to more pressing issues, like the personal hygiene habits of mr. fake cork...
 
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