'02 Huet Petillant Reserve

M

MLipton

Mark Lipton
Just tried our first bottle of this tonight. Yes, it does verge into sweet territory, but has fine acidity and a mineral streak a mile long. Really nice bubbly.

Mark Lipton
 
I would also like to add that someone just brushed off the potential damage to the 2001 Clos du Bourg demi-sec, opining that Huet Vouvray was virtually indestructible. What a fucking fool.
 
Same bottles were in the dry container. Pallets measured at 32-35°C (70-75°F) when I unstuffed the container. They should be glad I didn't ship the Ganevat wines this time. But Christ - Dupasquier, Vincent Gaudry as well. I've been too busy apologising to restaurant and private clients to think about this until now.
 
originally posted by Yixin:
Same bottles were in the dry container. Pallets measured at 32-35°C (70-75°F) when I unstuffed the container. They should be glad I didn't ship the Ganevat wines this time. But Christ - Dupasquier, Vincent Gaudry as well. I've been too busy apologising to restaurant and private clients to think about this until now.
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32-35C is more like 90-95F, which could do some serious damage, I expect. Not that 70-75 is hunky-dory.
 
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
originally posted by Yixin:
Same bottles were in the dry container. Pallets measured at 32-35°C (70-75°F) when I unstuffed the container. They should be glad I didn't ship the Ganevat wines this time. But Christ - Dupasquier, Vincent Gaudry as well. I've been too busy apologising to restaurant and private clients to think about this until now.
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32-35C is more like 90-95F, which could do some serious damage, I expect. Not that 70-75 is hunky-dory.
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Yes, I converted wrongly. My bad.

It's the difficulty in detecting heat damage immediately (even by tasting), the variability of heat damage across the container, the different levels of robustness, and the sheer unfamiliarity of these wines. If you don't know what a pristine bottle is supposed to taste like, how can you tell if the wine has been subtly damaged and no longer fit for sale?
 
Christian Chaussard said that his Japanese clients have a heat sensitive strip attached to every bottle before shipment by refrigerated container and it changes color if the temperature goes one degree celcius higher or lower than stipulated. They are then free to reject!
 
I'm installing RFID chips on selected cases in my next shipment. It's more useful as it provides a data log and helps to identify where it's gone wrong, including bonded storage here in Singapore.

I think the strangest bit was how all the wine was picked up in reefer trucks, but then loaded onto a dry container. (I was invoiced for a reefer container, by the way, so it's not as if my instructions were unclear)

Anyway this might go nuclear and end up in a court so I should probably stop here.
 
Ponsot tried applying labels with heat-sensitive strips for a while (does he still?), but mixed results have been reported.

Sounds like hard work finding shippers who can be relied on to manage temperatures as agreed. Major bummer, Yixin.
 
We explored strips but the actual margin of error seemed to be pretty wide, and I also had concerns about low temperatures as well as actual variation, which in my experience does more damage. It's probably worse to keep shifting every 12 hours (diurnal) between a 25°C room and cellar temp (10°C), then to keep it at the former for the same period of time. I don't have great data, only tested it on some Southern Rhônes (white and red). Probably should bite the bullet and sacrifice more bottles.

The dry:reefer proportion is still quite astounding, even after stripping out the cheaper wines.
 
originally posted by Yixin:
I also had concerns about low temperatures
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I am still trying to sort this one out. What is too low? I've been trying to get this information out of SFJoe but I get his secretary every time I call.

I have been paranoid about keeping bottles destined for short-term consumption in the garage over the winter, but I really could not tell if there was any permanent damage - main reason being that once I brought the bottles up into the house, they seemed more in shock from the sudden variation than from the absolute low they had been exposed to.
 
dotster, I've had bottles precipitate much more solids at say about 3°C (which might not be a problem, cold stabilisation is quite common), and there's a dampening of the structure. We're talking extended periods, of course, not the quick freeze in disgorgement or pre-bottling cold stabilisation.
 
What a bummer. It seems like given the money involved, a more advanced temparature tracking system than temp strips would be feasible...is that what RFID chips are?

This continues to be a big issue. It seems like a fairly simple bonded sealed data temp tracker would be the answer.
 
originally posted by BJ:
It seems like a fairly simple bonded sealed data temp tracker would be the answer.
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I think one of the problems is just volume. Dom. Huet, for instance, puts wine into 150,000 bottles per year.
 
The RFID chips log the variations, so they're very useful from that perspective. But look at any AWRI study on temperature variation within a pallet (not even a container), and it's clear that each bottle receives a different amount of temperature shock. And putting chips on every bottle is quite expensive.

We tasted some of the wines today. 2001 Clos du Bourg demi-sec was closer to a wine in the 1970s. 2002 pétillant réserve much older than it should be. 2008 Chamonard Morgon shot. But other wines in pretty good shape - 2010 Yannick Amirault 'La Coudraye' completely delicious, and 2011 Vincent Gaudry 'Le Tournebride' still very pure and fine, if more forward than I expected. Would, or could I still sell these wines in good faith? No.
 
Greg Moore has horror stories about the old days when he'd contract for shipping in refrigerated containers, only to discover that he needed to stipulate that the refrigeration be turned on.
 
That's quite common. The few days where the wines are being stuffed into the container are crucial as well; sometimes the containers are not turned on, so the wines still get cooked at the yard. Or the transfer from ship to warehouse at destination. Large ships take 24-48 hours to discharge completely at port, you think someone is going to plug in a container at the yard without some prompting? Or for the smaller importers, who ship in LCL (less than full container load), depending on the freight forwarder to consolidate for them. Who unstuffs the container and how? Air freight is usually better but not by much.

At least half of the wines I drink are fucked up by mishandling in some way, but just because it's the status quo doesn't mean it's right.
 
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