Bottle variation

originally posted by Joe Dressner:
Ideally, every wine I drink tastes different the next time I drink the wine.

I change, the weather changes, the wine changes, my mood changes, my brain tumor acts up, I'm tired, I'm happy, I'm alert, I'm angry, the wine is having a bad day, I've eaten something that goes great with the wine, I've eaten something that destroys the wine, I'm with my wife and kids or I'm with some horrible blogger who makes definitive judgements about wine categories.

So many variables make my wine life so much richer.
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I expect my reaction to the wine to change for any number of reasons but I would prefer that the wine not change. That's not a reasonable expectation for bark corks.

I only have a few wines bottled under screwcap, but I love that I don't have to wonder if they're representative or not when I open them, I just pour the wine. It's odd that I find that that's not normal.
 
originally posted by Oliver McCrum:

I expect my reaction to the wine to change for any number of reasons but I would prefer that the wine not change. That's not a reasonable expectation for bark corks.

I only have a few wines bottled under screwcap, but I love that I don't have to wonder if they're representative or not when I open them, I just pour the wine. It's odd that I find that that's not normal.
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Maybe you're in the wrong racket.
 
originally posted by Peter Creasey:
originally posted by Joel Stewart: I have nearly zero confidence using the terms "shut down", "closed", or "asleep". Usually, in such cases, I open something else and try the original wine a day later...oftentimes I am pleasantly surprised.
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Joel, I find it amusing how so many people deliver the "final word" for particular bottlings with the adjectives you cite.

It is good to hear someone like you express contrary sentiments to such often unfounded speculation.

. . . . . Pete
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Pete, thanks.

On the other hand, really, I don't try to wear my ignorance anywhere but on my back...inadvertantly. I do believe some wines shut down...I just don't know which is which.....
 
Christ, I was kidding.

Really maybe not. The fact that the packaging fails the wine more often than it should would be a very limp reason not to like wine, still limper reason not to be in the business. On the other hand it's stupid that the packaging fails as often as it does.

Besides, the number of screwcaps available to me has gone from 0 to 5 this year, many more next year, so I would say things are going in the right direction.
 
Joe,

I have drunk a fair number of different wine types under screwcap, and I may have been lucky but I have never noticed the dramatic reduction that is said to be possible. Given that a fair degree of rubbery or wet-wool reductiveness is a very common note in certain classic French wine types I've certainly never noted anything that surpasses, or even reaches, that normal background level.

I have also tasted three wines that I know very well (that I import) before and after the switch; a dry yellow Muscat, a Sauvignon and a mixed-variety white that tastes a bit like Chenin, and have noticed that the wines seem more precise, more focussed, each bottle like the best bottle of the cork-finished vintages. It's not clear to me how that's not a very good thing.

It seems to me that the wine should taste the way that the winemaker intends; we haven't had a choice that we knew about until recently, so cork was the whole game, but now there's a choice it seems to me logical to have all the bottles taste the way the winemaker intended, if possible.
 
It's funny. My 1995 Montevertine tonight is just dead. I can't find any TCA, any TBA, any anything, it's just dead.

Not an amusing version of variation.
 
Maybe all the deliciousness sank to the bottom. Have you tried shaking the bottle?
You probably upset the wine by shaking the bottle.
It's just closed. That happens to young wine.
Bottle shock.
Travel shock.
Oh, that's too bad. I've got a 96 PT sitting here and I've been debating when to open it.
 
It's funny. My 1995 Montevertine tonight is just dead. I can't find any TCA, any TBA, any anything, it's just dead.

Not an amusing version of variation.
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You should be grateful and pay twice as much for the experience.
 
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