Paradigm shift

originally posted by VLM:

Oh come on. Honestly? We're going to get atomistic about everything? Why stop at "individual wine"? How about what's in the glass in front of you? That's clearly where this line of reasoning leads.

As a scientist you make generalizations every day, why do your panties get all bunched up here?

This is certainly flabby.
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as a scientist, i see folks make lame-assed unwarranted generalizations every day. i rue those too.

the point is, what do you bring to the glass in front of you? (or are we going to be so absurdly dickheaded as to suppose that there exists simultaneously both an ideally undiscriminated and discriminating palate -- in which case, i want to see your designs for the perceptual motion machine). once we lose the bullshit, the taster herself is posed a question: what do you bring to the experience -- an understanding of what might be in that glass, or in glasses in general?

it turns out that the variance itself varies between wines; and pinots are a bitch.

you are smart. i know. which means that you can also figure out the differences in the deltas.

fb.
 
originally posted by fatboy:
as a scientist, i see folks make lame-assed unwarranted generalizations every day. i rue those too.

the point is, what do you bring to the glass in front of you? (or are we going to be so absurdly dickheaded as to suppose that there exists simultaneously both an ideally undiscriminated and discriminating palate -- in which case, i want to see your designs for the perceptual motion machine). once we lose the bullshit, the taster herself is posed a question: what do you bring to the experience -- an understanding of what might be in that glass, or in glasses in general?

it turns out that the variance itself varies between wines; and pinots are a bitch.

you are smart. i know. which means that you can also figure out the differences in the deltas.

fb.
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I would submit that a human being is a perceptual motion machine.

The answer is that you bring to that glass an idea of:

1. The vineyard.
2. The vintage.
3. Vineyard+vintage.
4. General motherfucking experience with Burgundy.
5. The producer.
6. Producer+vintage.
7. Producer+vineyard+similar vintage.
8. Producer+vineyard+vintage.

These are rank ordered by information content. All models are wrong, some are more informative than others.
 
originally posted by VLM:

I would submit that a human being is a perceptual motion machine.
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this is bonkers.

The answer is that you bring to that glass an idea of:

1. The vineyard.
2. The vintage.
3. Vineyard+vintage.
4. General motherfucking experience with Burgundy.
5. The producer.
6. Producer+vintage.
7. Producer+vineyard+similar vintage.
8. Producer+vineyard+vintage.

These are rank ordered by information content. All models are wrong, some are more informative than others.
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to me, this is wrong but informative, in that it suggests that you would always buy an industrially made grand cru from a 'great vintage' over everything else.

shit leads to jadot, no?

for me the order is 5 > 2 > 1, which is why i emphasize #5.

i guess that it is our peers that will judge the success of our approaches...

fb.
 
originally posted by fatboy:

for me the order is 5 > 2 > 1, which is why i emphasize #5.
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the fatsink adds that in its opinion, only when 5 and 2 are controlled for does 1 have any value.

which makes sense to me.

fb.
 
Jim, i think part of the problem is you are drinking shut down wines (i say this based on my general knowledge of how 1999 CdN premier crus and 96 jadots are showing, not the wines you drank). If you have a good 2002 premier cru around, try that. I think most burgs open up about ten years after vintage but might go back to sleep.

Jay, i couldn't quite figure out what you were saying above.
 
originally posted by VLM:

That being said, I've never had much truck with Bizot and I don't think that is one of Jadot's wines from domain vineyards.
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Taking your points in reverse order:

1. You are correct that Jadot's Suchots is not an estate wine. And at least currently, and I strongly suspect back in 1996, it is purchased as wine from two separate producers, not vinified by Jadot. I do not know for sure who those producers are, but I have a reasonable guess as to who they might be, and I think they probably are working better today than they were back then (as is the case with most Burgundy producers).

2. We're talking about Clavelier, not Bizot. I'll just note that Bruno shows his Vosnes before his other wines when you taste at the cellar and leave it at that. Also, add me to the people who think that many 1999s are not in a good phase right now.
 
originally posted by maureen:
Jim, i think part of the problem is you are drinking shut down wines (i say this based on my general knowledge of how 1999 CdN premier crus and 96 jadots are showing, not the wines you drank).
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originally posted by Claude Kolm:

2. ... I'll just note that Bruno shows his Vosnes before his other wines when you taste at the cellar and leave it at that. Also, add me to the people who think that many 1999s are not in a good phase right now.
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something along these lines.
 
I am a long time lurker to this board and RARELY post. I have been drinking wine for over 30 years and was ITB for a period of time. I drink unspoofilated Italian and French wine, with one domestic exception, pinot noir.

Threads like this are why are rarely post. I love reading Jim's notes. Great palate, thoughtful, he just eats and drinks well. I am not sure he is really off the mark, unless you are not going out of your way to defend the sacred cow.

FOR ME, buying wines of this caliber (yes there are better Burgs, but these are not cheap, crappy wines, and they are not young), for MY budget and advancing age, I would also expect more. At current pricing, I expect more than a shrug from a $100 bottle that I babied for 10+ years.

I buy select pinot noirs from Oregon, the Sonoma Coast, and Mendocino, and while I may not experience the rare Burgundy epiphany, I think I drink better PN 95% of the time, for less money, less aging, less risk, and less hassle sourcing. Just my 2 cents.

For the most part, I consider myself to be a sharp, educated, and well read professional, but this thread is beyond me. Why can't people with similar palates voice their opinions without it going off the rails?

Jim, I agree with you. And I love your posts, keep them coming.

Best,
Al
 
I note, just to stir things up, that fb (what happened to Richard Slicker? So many monickers, so little time)never really answered VLM's question: if one can't generalize about wines, can one generalize about bottles? How about tastes from a glass? The war against generalizing about vintages (started by doghead, or at least he predates others around here) has a point. To many differences get elided. Even so, if you can't see vintage commonalities in a vineyard's, not to say an appelation's wine at all, I want to put you up for a Funes the Memorious prize. And if you really don't see something approaching, though not coinciding with identity among wines coming from the same vats and going into different bottles, I want to award you that prize. And yes, of course, like everybody else here, I have experienced the same wine from my own cellar tasting differently even within a relatively short period of time. Still, it is meaningful to say about the dog seen at sunset of a given day in profile that it is the same dog as that dog seen from behind at daybreak on another day. To perceive is to forget a difference. How many differences does one get to forget before one stops perceiving again? Is it really the case that we should only talk about bottles, never wines, never vintages?
 
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
I note, just to stir things up, that fb (what happened to Richard Slicker? So many monickers, so little time)never really answered VLM's question: if one can't generalize about wines, can one generalize about bottles? How about tastes from a glass? The war against generalizing about vintages (started by doghead, or at least he predates others around here) has a point. To many differences get elided. Even so, if you can't see vintage commonalities in a vineyard's, not to say an appelation's wine at all, I want to put you up for a Funes the Memorious prize. And if you really don't see something approaching, though not coinciding with identity among wines coming from the same vats and going into different bottles, I want to award you that prize. And yes, of course, like everybody else here, I have experienced the same wine from my own cellar tasting differently even within a relatively short period of time. Still, it is meaningful to say about the dog seen at sunset of a given day in profile that it is the same dog as that dog seen from behind at daybreak on another day.
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it isn't rocket science. it's about what the wine drinker brings to the occasion, be that occasion the swilling from the cup, or selecting the bottle to swill from. some regions -- bordeaux was one, at least in the era i tend to drink from -- are more forgiving of generalities. when i wander into the fatcave in search of hooch, the memory of the last time i drank one st julien is often informative about another, similar wine from a similar vintage.

in burgundy, this kind of generalization doesn't work. as a predictor of how roty's 96 ouzeloy will drink tonight, one's memory of one's last taste of a jadot marsannay from 95 will be pretty much worthless. as my chubby fingers linger over the bottle neck -- do i open it? do i leave it? -- the memories that help are of roty's wines, and roty's 96s, and actually, the most useful memories are the other ouzeloys -- especially 96 ouzeloys -- i have sucked down.

the problem -- and it clearly is a problem, because this issue crops up recurrently, like a bad dose of herpes -- is that the points guys and the wine trade treat burgundy like a commodity, and, this in turn means that, like the deaf blinded by the lame, teh consumers tend to do likewise. in some regions, the strategy of buying different wines from different growers in different vintages based on one's perception of "who did well this year" sort of works. maybe. in burgundy, it simply leads to a situation where people own large, incoherent collections of random bottles of wine that are barely informative about one another. this in turn results in absurd quantities of wine getting opened up at inopportune times, and the grizzled sages shaking their heads and muttering, "burgundy, it's a crap-shoot."

the latter, as a form of "general knowledge," gets old.

To perceive is to forget a difference. How many differences does one get to forget before one stops perceiving again?
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fwiw, in terms of how we learn to discriminate tastes and smells, this is backwards. even william james knew that.

in re the broader topic, in days gone by i often faithfully bought and tried the various cali pinots raved about on this bored. to say that they were not my thing would be an understatement. even the fatsink recoiled in horror. but to the extent that folks out west may be more likely to buy their local wines consistently and develop some kind of relationship with them over time, i endorse the underlying message.

fb.
 
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
Put down thy James, pick up thy Borges. With apologies to Carlyle.
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In that Empire, the Art of Cartography attained such Perfection that the map of a
single Province occupied the entirety of a City, and the map of the Empire, the entirety
of a Province. In time, those Unconscionable Maps no longer satisfied, and the
Cartographers Guilds struck a Map of the Empire whose size was that of the Empire, and
which coincided point for point with it. The following Generations, who were not so
fond of the Study of Cartography as their Forebears had been, saw that that vast Map
was Useless, and not without some Pitilessness was it, that they delivered it up to the
Inclemencies of Sun and Winters. In the Deserts of the West, still today, there are
Tattered Ruins of that Map, inhabited by Animals and Beggars; in all the Land there is
no other Relic of the Disciplines of Geography.

—Suarez Miranda,Viajes de varones prudentes, Libro IV,Cap. XLV, Lerida, 1658

fb.
 
originally posted by Fat Richard:
in some regions, the strategy of buying different wines from different growers in different vintages based on one's perception of "who did well this year" sort of works. maybe. in burgundy, it simply leads to a situation where people own large, incoherent collections of random bottles of wine that are barely informative about one another. this in turn results in absurd quantities of wine getting opened up at inopportune times, and the grizzled sages shaking their heads and muttering, "burgundy, it's a crap-shoot."
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Bravo.
 
FWIW, my point about 96 and 99 being 'old' was also a comment on the shut-down middle-age aspect of the wines.

As to whether or not it is reasonable to expect a 14 year old Burgundy to show well, that seems to be more a reflection of the drinker than the wine. If you think that way, you'll buy certain wines (and perhaps more CA pinot noir than Burgundy). Those who think differently will buy other kinds of Burgundy.

To each his/her own.

That said, it's clearly a marketplace and producers need consumers. So the trends seem to be pointing towards more of the early-drinking wine consumers. Which should be good for Jim and VLM!
 
originally posted by fatboy:
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
Put down thy James, pick up thy Borges. With apologies to Carlyle.
Click to expand...

In that Empire, the Art of Cartography attained such Perfection that the map of a
single Province occupied the entirety of a City, and the map of the Empire, the entirety
of a Province. In time, those Unconscionable Maps no longer satisfied, and the
Cartographers Guilds struck a Map of the Empire whose size was that of the Empire, and
which coincided point for point with it. The following Generations, who were not so
fond of the Study of Cartography as their Forebears had been, saw that that vast Map
was Useless, and not without some Pitilessness was it, that they delivered it up to the
Inclemencies of Sun and Winters. In the Deserts of the West, still today, there are
Tattered Ruins of that Map, inhabited by Animals and Beggars; in all the Land there is
no other Relic of the Disciplines of Geography.

—Suarez Miranda,Viajes de varones prudentes, Libro IV,Cap. XLV, Lerida, 1658

fb.
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Yes, a map that is identical to what it maps is useless. Maps work by being compressed representations. To perceive is to forget a difference.
 
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
To perceive is to forget a difference.
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You're just trying to bait fb.

I don't have as much at stake, so I'll just mention that it doesn't square with my notion--people of vast experience perceive fine differences between wines that are completely unapparent to noobs.
 
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