report of Clos St. Hune premox

originally posted by .sasha:
originally posted by Brad Kane:
Some of us discovered this problem on a mini mid-'90's Frederic Emile tasting at Gilman's house in May. Major disappointment.
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I respectfully disagree. The '97 showed better than expected, '95 was out of control, and as bad as the bottle of the '96 was, I just didn't get that nice and fuzzy premox feeling from it, sorry. The 1990 showed poorly as well, but it wasn't pre-, post- or neo- anything either.

Jay, I have not followed the link you've referenced, in fear of a rash, but I must have been very lucky with both 97 and 99 CSH lately. I actually don't fully "understand" the 99, but the bottles have certainly been most undeveloped.
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Although I wasn't at this particular tasting, I have to agree with Sasha.

I've had the 1996 in the last couple months and the 1995 and 1997 in the last year, and have followed all since release.

The only complaint I have is a general mustiness that mostly blows off.

Several posters had the 1996 at the annual Bwood-Durham conference.
 
originally posted by .sasha:
originally posted by Jay Miller:

Well, I am somewhat relieved to hear that. Personally, I haven't had a '96-2000 FE in a number of years but was concerned by what Brad and John had reported. So what did you think was wrong with the 1996 if not premature oxidation?
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this bottle was orders of magnitude too oxidized for a normal premox bottle :)
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So your position is that it was so badly oxidized it couldn't have been oxidized?
 
originally posted by VLM:

Although I wasn't at this particular tasting, I have to agree with Sasha.

I've had the 1996 in the last couple months and the 1995 and 1997 in the last year, and have followed all since release.

The only complaint I have is a general mustiness that mostly blows off.

Several posters had the 1996 at the annual Bwood-Durham conference.
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Sorry, but the whole issue with the premature oxidation curse is that it strikes randomly and some bottles in a case will be affected and others won't.

Once again, I have no experience with premoxed Trimbachs at all. But that also doesn't mean it isn't happening. I just get worried when I hear about oxidized bottles of wines that I own...
 
Human nature. Give something a name and all of a sudden everything that "could" be related, is. Reminds me of all the kids with TMJ. Never mind the fact that they chewed gum for 3 hours straight yesterday - their jaw hurts so it must be TMJ.

Not sayin' that bottles aren't oxidized - sure, some are. Some bottles of apple juice are probably oxidized too. Does that mean there is a systemic problem with apple juice?
 
Ask Chris about the hat.

On edit, OK, I actually agree with you about apple "juice". Cider, OTOH...

Wasn't there something about you relocating to our land of cider?
 
I honestly find apple juice boring. There are all sorts of 'fresh' 'farmers market' bottlings and in London it was often tempting to buy because apples and pears are the only local fruits they had. The stuff was always good quality, but didn't really excite me. Some of the blends (apple/rhubarb, apple/blackberry, apple/beetroot) were a little more interesting. But for the most part I found the stuff boring.
 
originally posted by mlawton:
Wasn't there something about you relocating to our land of cider?
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Yes indeed. And the gastronomical part of me is living in fear.

But I'm sure I'll get over it. :)
 
originally posted by Brad Kane:
originally posted by SFJoe:
I wasn't there, but .sasha has my proxy on Trimbach questions.
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Yes, but he also has a much higher tolerance for flawed wines than I and how do you explain the differing take by the professor?
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Sorry, I should have mentioned that I called the Good Professor before making this post, to compare notes. He too thought it was an outlier, particularly given the high amount of sulfur used in that wine.

I do my homework, before such important debates.
 
originally posted by Jay Miller:
So your position is that it was so badly oxidized it couldn't have been oxidized?
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Exactly! You see, there are so many premox whites out there that they have spawned their own classification and rating systems. We are even working on an AOC for them.

This bottle was rejected from all such categories.
 
OK, this is all a lot more reassuring, as it turns out that 1/3 of the anecdotal blame and 99/100 of the hype have Brad as a source (who is, thank God, maintaining stringent standards for wine quality that the rest of us would do well to adopt).

But I haven't removed the needles from the Rovani doll yet. There's still Otto, Ingacio, Odd...hey, didn't all these people buy theirs in Scandinavia?

particularly given the high amount of sulfur used in that wine
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To be serious for a moment, this is one of the reasons I'm always suspicious of reports of Trimbach having premox problems. Frick I could understand. But Trimbach? Next we'll hear that JJ Prm is having issues...
 
Well, the last two bottles of '94 Hune I've had, while good, have not been as high as from the first bottle from a batch I got about six or seven years ago, or as good as the one some of us had at the Hune vertical I put together a few years ago. Both bottles, the last one being last December, showed more advanced then they should've.

Here's Greg's note from that evening, followed by my own.

1994 Trimbach Riesling Clos Ste. Hune - France, Alsace, Hunawihr, Alsace AOC
The color was a bit darker than expected and the nose showed perhaps a bit advanced with good intensity of aromas that started out a bit wooly slowly revealing layers of light petrol, slate, dried figs and lots of pollen and dried floral notes. Crisp and focused in the mouth this offers great rapier-like acidity and crunchy minerality with rich apricot notes appearing on the backend leading to a long finish with citrus and peach pit notes. Relaxes with air offering a but more body and softening at the edges. This drinks more youthful than I expected from the nose. Will improve. (***/5)

Mine:
I thought the Hune, while delicious and much like you described, was not a pristine bottle. There was a little more roundness and age to it than there should've been, despite having a great core of minerality and acidity. I've had better bottles. Call this one a low A-, but good bottles easily merit an A.
 
Re: 94:
malolactic

"Next we'll hear that JJ Prm is having issues..."

That's not premature oxidation, it's premature peroxidation!
 
originally posted by David M. Bueker:
I do think the problem is overstated on the pointy board, as the general consensus over there is that if a wine isn't fresh as a daisy while also displaying the perfectly aged characteristics of 1822 DRC Montrachet then it was clearly from a crap vintage or crap winemaker who should turn over the reins to Manfred Krankl.
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That's always the danger with anecdotal information. Even the Oxidised [sic] Burg wiki doesn't really help, as the only people who enter data are those who are a) aware of the problem, b) aware of the wiki and c) motivated enough to enter data, making it an extreme example of a self-selected population.

Mark Lipton
 
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