This can't be good

Florida Jim

Florida Jim

Florida Jim
Another large gathering of crazies last night and among the wines were the 88 La Mouline (past it), 98 Ogier Cote Rotie, (better than the La but not much) 82 LLC (smelled pretty green to me), 96 Margaux (interesting but young), 96 Latour (great textures but not much showing), 90 Haut Brion (good not great), 96 Haut Brion (ditto) and a whole bunch of CA cabs. of which the 99 Shafer Hillside was the clear stand-out.

This worries me. I have never been a huge Cab./Bordeaux fan but having all these fine labels at one time and not really enjoying any of them all that much maybe the water out here has a chemical that makes me want fruit bombs. Or maybe these are just really lean wines. Anyway, my reaction to them was out of character and I cant quite get my head around that fact.

Odd experience.

Best, Jim
 
Maybe, because you have started making wine, you are looking at the wines technically. That's no fun. But the remedy is simple: drink more Clos Roche Blanche.
 
originally posted by Steve Edmunds:
'99 Shafer HSOnly one I ever tasted. Poured it down the sink.
Click to expand...

Up until last night, I would have expected the same of myself.
Bad craziness . . .
Best, Jim
 
You've got the west coast storage and shipping problem, is my guess. It's a little worse than the east coast version, but it makes all kinds of wines appear as less than they should. Face it, a bunch of those wines should have been fresh and beautiful.

Fatboy and I had dinner recently with some pals, and a vintage of Verset Cornas made the rounds. It was quite nice, a little bretty. IIRC it was my bottle, ex-Kermit.

FB kept insisting on going home and retrieving a bottle that he'd flown in from Scotland a few years ago. I kept discouraging him, saying it was too much trouble, until finally Eric told me to shut the fuck up and let fatboy go home and get us the good stuff. This finally penetrated through the fog and I let him go.

No comparison between the bottles. None, zero. the FB bottle fresh, beautiful, fruity, really grand. Mine, bretty, weird, and etc.

it was pretty persuasive, and not my only experience of this sort. Jim, as I read the list of wines above, I'm worried about provenance and etc. in a big way. Several of those should not remotely be OTH.
 
Jim, when you start using pointillism and adjectives like "Wow", "- on steroids", etc. then it might be a time to reassess your palate. Provenance exhibit A (or B?) might be the 07 Lapierres I am loving here in Kyoto. They are perfect to a fault, whereas in the US they seem to be duds.

Cool admission of the mind-stretch tho.
 
Joe,
The Mouline and Bordeaux came in by plane from Tampa, FL; the Ogier came with me. Maybe that trip was disturbing but none weren't residents out here.

Joel,
I actually used the word sexy to describe a wine the other day - a pox upon me.
Best, Jim
 
Californication?? Say it ain't so, Jim!

I have the same feelings whenever I am at wineries there, thinking 'hey, this isn't bad...' to opening one home 'what was I thinking?!'

For the same reason that the light there seduced Hockney, the moviestars seem more glamorous, the rugged Western air making folks seem more intelligent. All these things and more.
 
originally posted by SFJoe:
You've got the west coast storage and shipping problem, is my guess. It's a little worse than the east coast version, but it makes all kinds of wines appear as less than they should. Face it, a bunch of those wines should have been fresh and beautiful.

Fatboy and I had dinner recently with some pals, and a vintage of Verset Cornas made the rounds. It was quite nice, a little bretty. IIRC it was my bottle, ex-Kermit.

FB kept insisting on going home and retrieving a bottle that he'd flown in from Scotland a few years ago. I kept discouraging him, saying it was too much trouble, until finally Eric told me to shut the fuck up and let fatboy go home and get us the good stuff. This finally penetrated through the fog and I let him go.

No comparison between the bottles. None, zero. the FB bottle fresh, beautiful, fruity, really grand. Mine, bretty, weird, and etc.

it was pretty persuasive, and not my only experience of this sort. Jim, as I read the list of wines above, I'm worried about provenance and etc. in a big way. Several of those should not remotely be OTH.
Click to expand...
Except they're not directly comparable. Verset kept his wines in two large foudres in his garage. One foudre he bottled in the spring, the other in the fall. Kermit always took the spring bottling so that the wine wouldn't go through a second hot summer in Verset's garage. The UK importer always took the second bottling.

Not to mention that even if they were the same bottling, with any two bottles that have some age on them, even if drawn from the same case, the differences can be breathtaking.
 
originally posted by Claude Kolm:
Verset ... Not to mention that even if they were the same bottling, with any two bottles that have some age on them, even if drawn from the same case, the differences can be breathtaking.
Click to expand...

Claude, How can this situation with Verset be explained? Is this basically unique to Verset? Or not?

. . . . . Pete
 
originally posted by Peter Creasey:
originally posted by Claude Kolm:
Verset ... Not to mention that even if they were the same bottling, with any two bottles that have some age on them, even if drawn from the same case, the differences can be breathtaking.
Click to expand...

Claude, How can this situation with Verset be explained? Is this basically unique to Verset? Or not?

. . . . . Pete
Click to expand...
I don't understand your question, Pete. What I was saying is that this was not an apples to apples comparision. But even if one does an apples to apples comparison, comparing only two bottles is not enough to demonstrate differences (although it can demonstrate lack of difference). To demonstrate differences, you need to compare multiple bottles to establish a trend.
 
originally posted by Claude Kolm: I don't understand your question, Pete. What I was saying is that this was not an apples to apples comparision. But even if one does an apples to apples comparison, comparing only two bottles is not enough to demonstrate differences (although it can demonstrate lack of difference). To demonstrate differences, you need to compare multiple bottles to establish a trend.
Click to expand...

Claude, Thanks!

Your clarification shows that I misunderstood what you said. I thought you were saying Verset had some kind of unusual variability in its production even with bottles from the same stash.

. . . . . . . Pete
 
Jim - If it can serve as any sort of relief, those of us out here, outside fundamentalist nirvana, in this forlorn southwestern corner of Europe, have actually rather enjoyed the '99 Shafer HS several times in the past, feeling no urge to pour it down the drain. But I know - what's the worth of our disinformed, spoofulated opinion?
 
originally posted by VS:
Jim - If it can serve as any sort of relief, those of us out here, outside fundamentalist nirvana, in this forlorn southwestern corner of Europe, have actually rather enjoyed the '99 Shafer HS several times in the past, feeling no urge to pour it down the drain. But I know - what's the worth of our disinformed, spoofulated opinion?
Click to expand...

Victor,
But you see, I felt so comfortable in my little piece of that fundamentalist nirvana - now what am I to do?
Mark may be right - Californication - perish the thought. But I haven't a better explanation so . . .
And as it happens, I've always liked Hillside; in my beaver days when oak candy was catnip and in my more recent Mr. Natural pair-o-dice - who'd a thought?
Best, Jim
 
originally posted by Kay Bixler:
Maybe, because you have started making wine, you are looking at the wines technically. That's no fun. But the remedy is simple: drink more Clos Roche Blanche.
Click to expand...

That's my usual remedy for ... well just about everything I guess.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top