That the coccinelle taint was visible so quickly in the Swiss tests as opposed to the months it took to develop in burgundy’s 2004′s could be down to either (or both) of 2 things:
1. they added a lot of ladybirds to get the effect i.e. much more than the Côte d’Or experienced. 12% of the clusters also sounds quite high I’d ‘guesstimate’ that it was more like 3-5% on our sorting table.
2. or that the population of 2004 could have been the smaller european version that maybe is less ‘potent’ I have photos of both, but I’d need an expert to judge
Of-course there’s a third possibility Coccinelle are not involved in the 2004 ‘vintage character’ at all
In Summary
This is conjecture. I’ve ‘hypothesised’ Coccinella as a plausible reason for the malaise that affects so many wines from the 2004 vintage; many winemakers accept that possibility whilst others remain unsure. I fully accept that Coccinelle may not be THE reason but thus-far no-one can tell you otherwise and there is certainly no alternate and ‘viable’ theory yet proposed. I expect that no wineries will be sponsoring research to find a ‘root-cause’ as they have to concentrate on selling their 2007′s.
Other than to ‘keep my hand in’ I’ve all-but stopped opening 2004′s as I don’t like the ‘taint’ whatever its source, so the vast majority of my bottles will stay in the cellar a good few more years to see whether MP’s really do diminish with time and that’s a shame as the vintage had much early charm.
