Gritty texture in French 2010 whites?

C

Claude Kolm

Claude Kolm
I've recently run into some 2010 whites from Northern Burgundy and Alsace and good producers that had attractive aromas and tastes but disturbing gritty textures. Anyone else running into this? Any speculation on the cause -- perhaps something related to lowering acidity?

Add on edit: I've tasted many, many deacidified German 2010s, but none that I can recall with a similar grittiness of texture.
 
Had a lovely 2010 Briords tonight that was not at all gritty. But I wasn't really analyzing and it wasn't from your Burgundy-Alsace axis.
 
Not to my palate, but we taste in different places and with different folks.

De-acidification for me is usually (but not always) accompanied by an attenuation of flavours on the finish; most easily spotted in Riesling (Alsatian, Mosel or otherwise). It's not so much a short finish, as a diminution of the flavours that one would expect from the mid-palate, like a muted vibrato.
 
I've tasted and drunk quite a few 2010s from the Loire valley and Jurançon and have found nothing like that; indeed it seems another good vintage. Mildly gritty sounds attractively mineral to me.
 
Claude, I'm not sure what you mean by grittiness - something phenolic? A quality of acidity? My only experience with deacidification trials was with Barbera, so no help there.

That said, I went to a tasting of Burgundy on Wednesday with plenty of both 2010 and 2009 whites, although most of the 1re or grand crus were the latter. I was charmed by the racy acidity on many 2010s, and by this board's standards I am no acid-head. The 2010 Maconnais wines in particular were given a nice lift, without being harsh or austere. Can't say I ran into anything I'd call gritty.

Standout 2010s for me included Burrier's St. Veran en Faux, d'Ardhuy's Bourgogne Blanc, Louis Moreau's Chablis Bieville, Ch. de Chaintre's Macon, Domaine Gueugnon Remond's Macon Charnay, and Domaine de la Crouze Pouilly-Fuisse.

The 2009s were more of a mixed bag, with some clumsy, shallow or flabby whites mixed with some remarkably complex, dense wines that were still well-balanced.
 
Christian -- Gritty is a description of texture for me. I encounter it occasionally in wines of both colors and do not like it, and so I consider it a flaw (but it is not the same as a chalky texture, which I don't necessarily consider a flaw). In the case of the two wines where I recently found grittiness, I am familiar with other vintages of those wines from the same producers and have never found grittiness before.
 
Claude,

Are French producers perhaps starting to use skin contact for whites, as is happening widely in Italy? That will obviously give the wine a hint of tannin.
 
Oliver -- I can't say as to the two wines I was commenting on, but certainly in general, skin contact has been widely used in several regions of France for a long time, so I would find that surprising as the reason here (although I don't rule it out).
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top