Wines that derange

S

Sharon Bowman

Sharon Bowman
Stumbled into a restaurant this evening (OK, wasn't stumbling yet), and eight were at the table. Guy had already ordered the "apritif" wine. It seems a Parisienne of the party is white-wine averse, so the apro was a red. But Guy, knowing or thinking I like untraditional fodder, had ordered a Courtois Cailloux du Paradis "Racines."

I laughed and tapped Guy on the shoulder. "You're in for it, good fellow." Soon after, the wine arrived.

General disarray. What could be this thing?

Yet, the final consensus (we moved on to more consensual fare; still wino-y, fortunately, but less extravagantly militant) was that Courtois had looped back: a bid for artiste terroir had landed him right back in the fibery green vin de pays he had sought to upstream. Anne, from Sologne, said, "Oh... what an... agreeable little country wine." Yes.

It may be a truism here, but this was proof in the pudding that extremes are for extremists, perhaps exclusively.
 
I may have been drinking too much wine today (well, actually, I definitely have been) but I'm not sure I follow your point.

So the wine was restrained and moderate?

What vintage?
 
originally posted by Susannah:
I read it as, "it was too hipster for its own good."
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I don't know. That used to be the case, but "Courtois had looped back" implies that he actually made drinkable wine despite himself.
 
originally posted by Rahsaan:
originally posted by Susannah:
I read it as, "it was too hipster for its own good."
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I don't know. That used to be the case, but "Courtois had looped back" implies that he actually made drinkable wine despite himself.
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I think the looping back is to mediocrity.
 
originally posted by Susannah:
I think the looping back is to mediocrity.
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Ding, ding, ding!

Thanks, Susannah, for clarifying for Rahsaan during my sleep. (Well-deserved, I should add. Lazy! Ha!)

I never imagined my post was so cryptic.

In any event, it was a 2005. It seemed to do a little better with air, but it was pretty rustic. That, to me, was what was interesting. Non wine-geek people who like things like Meursault and Pauillac saw it as an embarrassing "little" wine and didn't understand Courtois's Weltanschauung. (Or should that be Weinanschauung?)
 
originally posted by Sharon Bowman:
originally posted by Susannah:
I think the looping back is to mediocrity.
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Ding, ding, ding!

Thanks, Susannah, for clarifying for Rahsaan during my sleep. (Well-deserved, I should add. Lazy! Ha!)

I never imagined my post was so cryptic.

In any event, it was a 2005. It seemed to do a little better with air, but it was pretty rustic. That, to me, was what was interesting. Non wine-geek people who like things like Meursault and Pauillac saw it as an embarrassing "little" wine and didn't understand Courtois's Weltanschauung. (Or should that be Weinanschauung?)
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But are you saying that he ironically failed because he made an agreeable little country wine? Or the he succeeded his aspirations? Is an agreeable litle country wine a mediocre or wonderful thing? And Racines in particular, did you find it uninteresting more than provocative or delightful? I haven't tasted the 2005, but in previous vintages I have found this to be a mercurial wine, ranging from bursting with material to sublime to undrinkable - within vintages or between. (And one only knew the "vintage" from secret coding or hearsay.)
 
originally posted by Sharon Bowman:I never imagined my post was so cryptic.
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The 'looping' comment was throwing me off. Not sure what you were saying/judging about his starting point vs. his intentions vs. the final wine.

Regardless, I've never had a good bottle of his wines (although they may exist).
 
originally posted by Jeff Connell:
But are you saying that he ironically failed because he made an agreeable little country wine? Or the he succeeded his aspirations? Is an agreeable litle country wine a mediocre or wonderful thing? And Racines in particular, did you find it uninteresting more than provocative or delightful? I haven't tasted the 2005, but in previous vintages I have found this to be a mercurial wine, ranging from bursting with material to sublime to undrinkable - within vintages or between. (And one only knew the "vintage" from secret coding or hearsay.)
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Jeff, in backwards order - I checked the little code, which revealed L-2005-3 (so: 2005, presumably. Unless he's even more odd than that).

I found it slim, weedy, obnoxious, forthright, eventually rounding out, but really almost a caricature of what fruit-bomb-type lovers detest in cooler climate wines. I knew (believed I knew) this was intentional; but context then becomes everything. Like seeing a urinal in a museum, to take a handy example. Or Pierre Menard, author of the Quixote. Good for him that he can so cleverly duplicate the insipid plonk of his countrymen!

Still, all that aside, I'm intrigued by your finding some vintages "sublime." More details, please!
 
originally posted by Sharon Bowman:
originally posted by Jeff Connell:
But are you saying that he ironically failed because he made an agreeable little country wine? Or the he succeeded his aspirations? Is an agreeable litle country wine a mediocre or wonderful thing? And Racines in particular, did you find it uninteresting more than provocative or delightful? I haven't tasted the 2005, but in previous vintages I have found this to be a mercurial wine, ranging from bursting with material to sublime to undrinkable - within vintages or between. (And one only knew the "vintage" from secret coding or hearsay.)
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Jeff, in backwards order - I checked the little code, which revealed L-2005-3 (so: 2005, presumably. Unless he's even more odd than that).

I found it slim, weedy, obnoxious, forthright, eventually rounding out, but really almost a caricature of what fruit-bomb-type lovers detest in cooler climate wines. I knew (believed I knew) this was intentional; but context then becomes everything. Like seeing a urinal in a museum, to take a handy example. Or Pierre Menard, author of the Quixote. Good for him that he can so cleverly duplicate the insipid plonk of his countrymen!

Still, all that aside, I'm intrigued by your finding some vintages "sublime." More details, please!
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The same Pierre Menard, author of a tasting note (which I, for one, only know from the review). What was most obnoxious about a slim, weedy Racine I once had was the price. And then another bottle of the same wine, same vintage ('98 or '99 - probably both), purchased on close-out was beautifully in balance, with delicious fruit and mineral character.

I've never taken any of his wines to be representative of cool climate viticulture, nor anything else, except his own eccentricity, and possibly the rich dirt of his farm in the Sologne.

I will report later on a bottle of Quartz I have laying around.
 
originally posted by Sharon Bowman:
I knew (believed I knew) this was intentional; but context then becomes everything.
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This is a popular story in some circles:

A novice was trying to fix a broken Lisp machine by turning the power off and on.

Knight, seeing what the student was doing, spoke sternly: "You cannot fix a machine by just power-cycling it with no understanding of what is going wrong."

Knight turned the machine off and on.

The machine worked.
 
originally posted by Jeff Grossman:

This is a popular story in some circles:

A novice was trying to fix a broken Lisp machine by turning the power off and on.

Knight, seeing what the student was doing, spoke sternly: "You cannot fix a machine by just power-cycling it with no understanding of what is going wrong."

Knight turned the machine off and on.

The machine worked.
Click to expand...

Do you really think that there are most than 3 people here who will get the humor of that story?

Mark Lipton
 
originally posted by MLipton:

Do you really think that there are most than 3 people here who will get the humor of that story?

Mark Lipton
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I applaud Jeff for taking our incomprehensibility and in-jokyness to a new level.

I am unfortunately left behind, but I cheer as others excel.
 
So, it was a good evening for the Quartz tonight, as it turns out. It is another wine of France table wine, Sauvignon, grown and bottled in 2000. Dried herbs and blossoms, some mineral, lean in the way of fruit, rounded out with caramel. I won't use the "O" word, but I might say that this is probably more or less what people are looking for when they leave their wine in barrel on the lees for two years (plus), with no batonnage and no racking.
 
originally posted by MLipton:
originally posted by Jeff Grossman:

This is a popular story in some circles:

A novice was trying to fix a broken Lisp machine by turning the power off and on.

Knight, seeing what the student was doing, spoke sternly: "You cannot fix a machine by just power-cycling it with no understanding of what is going wrong."

Knight turned the machine off and on.

The machine worked.
Click to expand...

Do you really think that there are most than 3 people here who will get the humor of that story?

Mark Lipton
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I love jokes about speech impediments! Though, I think it would be even funnier if the esses in the joke were spelled out like "sss".

3 people, *psccht*!
 
I got it, but I've heard it before.

I also think this thread should be enshrined forever in the "in jokes" section of the FAQ.
 
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