Baby got Butte

L

Lyle Fass

Lyle Fass
The 2009 Clos du Tue-Boeuf Gamay "La Butte" is a wine I would pour down someone's throat if they asked what natural wine is. It is the essence in this bottle. Little spritz when first opened but than all lovey-dovey silky Gamay fruit. Succulent as Clive Coates would say. Minimimal tannin. So good. So drinkable. So gluggable. My favorite vintage yet for the "Butte."

With apologies to Thor.
 
Funny because when I saw your title I swore it was going to be about all the brett in the wine. I even thought the same thing after reading your first sentence. Because that's what my bottle was like.

But nice to hear about other showings that can be possible.
 
I just finished a bottle of 2009 Cheverny and it was pretty similar, but with some slight differences. No spritz on the opening and probably just a little bit more tannin than the bright Butte. After a few hours open in the bottle it really opened up and both the acidity and the deliciously tart fruit really came to the fore. I always kick myself when the end of the bottle is the best.
 
I'm flying into Butte next week - Montana that is. Don't expect to find much Puzelat but hopefully we'll find some trout. Thanks for the note Lyle - I will have to be on the lookout for this one.
 
Zero brett for me either. Lee told me that the Butte is the one showing spritz now....but who knows the Cheverny could show some down the road while the Butte cleans up its act. That's cool with me.
 
One of the great attributes of 'natural wines' is that their fans seem to be much more prone to tolerating a bad bottle and keep hoping for a better one next time - I'm pretty sure 'unnatural wine' producers would love to see the same benevolence vis--vis their own production...
 
Puzzling, Victor--eliminating variation seems to be the goal of most industrial production, and is certainly held as the summum bonum in the sacred texts of industrial wine.
 
This wine is Butte-a-ful (sorry Thor). No brett for me yet. I enjoy the tingling dance on the palate. If only it had a real cork...
 
originally posted by SFJoe:
Puzzling, Victor--eliminating variation seems to be the goal of most industrial production, and is certainly held as the summum bonum in the sacred texts of industrial wine.
Click to expand...

Uhm yeh...that's what I was thinking first off too. Seems to me the point of industrial is to eliminate variation completely. But maybe Victor means something else.

In the end....whether small producer, medium or large, bio-this or non-that, how many strikes before the consumer quits? Close to the same, no?
 
I'm not talking about 'industrial' wines, but about 'unnatural' wines - that's what everything that isn't 'natural' necessarily is, ain't it so?
 
originally posted by VS:
I'm not talking about 'industrial' wines, but about 'unnatural' wines - that's what everything that isn't 'natural' necessarily is, ain't it so?
Click to expand...

I wonder if by this logic all bandages that aren't Band-Aids are Band-Harms?

Of course not.

New German Cinema was once new. Now it isn't. It is actually hard to find someone who has seen any one of several of the key films. That doesn't mean that we refer to it now as Old German Cinema. Nor does it mean that films that have been produced in Germany since are referred to as Newer German Cinema.

Actually, the nomenclature isn't important at all. What is important is the wines (or the films). But wine folk have a much harder time recognizing this than cinema folk, because wine folk have been trained in all sorts of appellation nomenclature and it becomes a worldview and lense. The names are always the last thing, that which is applied later, and in fact, barely relevant to the decisions that are made day to day in bringing up a wine.

Where were all the people arguing against Super Tuscans because they felt that the term impinged upon the Superness of a wine like Rancia? Where were all the people who objected to Barolo Boys because it denied the masculinity of Bartolo and Beppe?

Names are for communication, wines are for drinking.
 
Actually, the Spanish Inquisition was the Vatican's Inquisition - notwithstanding Monty Python.

(Just to follow up on this dazzling analysis of nomenclature.)
 
originally posted by SFJoe:
Puzzling, Victor--eliminating variation seems to be the goal of most industrial production, and is certainly held as the summum bonum in the sacred texts of industrial wine.
Click to expand...

But surely almost all producers would like all their bottles to taste the way the wine tasted before bottling, ie they would like to eliminate bottle variation within a batch? Am I missing something?
 
originally posted by Oliver McCrum:
originally posted by SFJoe:
Puzzling, Victor--eliminating variation seems to be the goal of most industrial production, and is certainly held as the summum bonum in the sacred texts of industrial wine.
Click to expand...

But surely almost all producers would like all their bottles to taste the way the wine tasted before bottling, ie they would like to eliminate bottle variation within a batch? Am I missing something?
Click to expand...
Maybe. There are some who find an acceptable degree of variation to be interesting.

And there are consumers with wider or narrower spectra of tolerance.

And there is a lot of effort on the industrial side put into things like total clarity and the absence of KHT precipitates that really don't matter that much to some consumers.
 
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