loire vintages pre-1989

originally posted by vaughn tan:
even after a reluctant decant, it took two hours to begin to open up. not that i know so much about old muscadets (or anything really), but i bet this one has a ways to go yet.
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Does two hours count as long ass? (It's so hard to understand talking monkeys.)
 
originally posted by Jeff Grossman:
originally posted by vaughn tan:
even after a reluctant decant, it took two hours to begin to open up. not that i know so much about old muscadets (or anything really), but i bet this one has a ways to go yet.
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Does two hours count as long ass? (It's so hard to understand talking monkeys.)
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not long enough. that other thread about decanting makes my head hurt. knowing what i know now, if i ever go back there for the 89 l d'or, i'll call ahead and have them open it the day before and keep it in the whites cooler. who wants to join the name of science? perhaps someone with leftover field experiment budget burning a hole in their pocket?
 
I wouldn't decant '89 L d'Or for a whole day. That's a lot to ask from an older dry wine from melon. Shit, I wouldn't decant '89 Constance for a whole day, it feels like too much risk.
 
originally posted by SFJoe:
I wouldn't decant '89 L d'Or for a whole day. That's a lot to ask from an older dry wine from melon. Shit, I wouldn't decant '89 Constance for a whole day, it feels like too much risk.
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not decant, just open and (with a stopper) in the wine fridge. a gentle airing. or still too much? that bottle last week was just opening up as we finished it (some other people at the table were swigging it down, dammit).
 
I don't know, there's enough variation on quarter-centenarians that any decanting advice is pretty much useless. For older melon, it's always useful to keep a fresh, young bottle with similar structure on hand in case the older bottle needs some refreshing. The 2009 L is very good in that regard for the 1989.
 
FWIW my last try with '89 Ld'Or--this past winter--showed best after two days open. And it was shut down tight for the first three hours.
 
My experience is pretty limited, but I am with Yixin on the variation point. I saw a couple bottles around NYC over the last year that I thought were a little tired. It's possible that I wasn't patient enough and the wine was just closed, but I suspect that freshening it up with some 09 would have helped. But I have also been lucky enough to taste a good bottle once or twice, and those seem like they will last a long time, and maybe even develop positively.

Vaughn, I have no immediate plans to be in London, but if I get shipped over there for work at all, then I will be glad to explore this question with you.
 
originally posted by Kay Bixler:
FWIW my last try with '89 Ld'Or--this past winter--showed best after two days open. And it was shut down tight for the first three hours.
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seems consistent with what the bottle we opened. nice enough but sort of muted at first but no time to see what would happen later. anyway, if someone else is paying for this bottle, i am willing to take the risk of having it opened earlier.

yixin: first i've heard of this method of refreshment but i'm not usually a drinker of old muscadet. thanks for the tip. is this recommended for other varietals?
 
originally posted by Michael Lewis:
Vaughn, I have no immediate plans to be in London, but if I get shipped over there for work at all, then I will be glad to explore this question with you.
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i sometimes don't monitor this board, riveting though it can be, so definitely email me at firstname.lastname@gmail.com if you're coming into town. might be able to round up a couple of people to join. would that be ... a jeebus? forgive me, for i am just a n00b.
 
yixin—this may be a tangent but honest question: what are you cuing into that tells you that the 2009 L is a good structural match for the 1989? i ask this because i don't think you would have had the chance to try the 1989 fresh in the bottle? i have been wondering about how to build my little internal correlation table of young—>old, and empirical data is useful.
 
originally posted by vaughn tan:
is this recommended for other varietals?
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Explain yourself. Warning: Say the wrong thing and you will be eaten by a grue.
might be able to round up a couple of people to join. would that be ... a jeebus?
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Yes.
forgive me, for i am just a n00b.
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No.
i ask this because i don't think you would have had the chance to try the 1989 fresh in the bottle?
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Yixin is as old as the mountains. (But no one is as old as Lou.)
 
originally posted by vaughn tan:
[...]

yixin: first i've heard of this method of refreshment but i'm not usually a drinker of old muscadet. thanks for the tip. is this recommended for other varietals?
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Yixin has a good poker face, it can be hard to tell when he's joking.
 
Is no one going to throw a hissy fit about using varietal for variety? Or is it just for the purposes of variety? This bored is losing all its standards.
 
originally posted by Ian Fitzsimmons:
originally posted by vaughn tan:
[...]

yixin: first i've heard of this method of refreshment but i'm not usually a drinker of old muscadet. thanks for the tip. is this recommended for other varietals?
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Yixin has a good poker face, it can be hard to tell when he's joking.
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I don't think he was joking.
 
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
Is no one going to throw a hissy fit about using varietal for variety? Or is it just for the purposes of variety? This bored is losing all its standards.
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We've moved away from standards and are embracing the avant-garde. Not caring about "the Muscadet varietal" is the new safety pin in your earlobe.
 
muscadet happens to be 100% melon. i assume, since yixin mentioned specifically wines from melon, that it was an approach for the varietal not the appellation. as far as i understand, a varietal is a wine made from just one variety. jeez: give a guy a break. he just spent 7 hours walking around frieze london trying to find something interesting and there wasn't much, let me tell you.
 
Old-timers are still scarred, Vaughn, by the past variety-varietal skirmishing - just ignore them. The underlying issue is so sterile that only a dull mind would fail to be bored by it.
 
originally posted by Ian Fitzsimmons:
Old-timers are still scarred, Vaughn, by the past variety-varietal skirmishing - just ignore them. The underlying issue is so sterile that only a dull mind would fail to be bored by it.
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i'm usually someone who gets riled about this kind of precision too. for instance, people who say font when they mean typeface. sounds like it is time to take another sip of this 100% grenache varietal wine from the ardeche (gregory guillaume "l'epicurien" 2012, which was reductive and required an hour of decanting).
 
originally posted by Ian Fitzsimmons:
Old-timers are still scarred, Vaughn, by the past variety-varietal skirmishing - just ignore them. The underlying issue is so sterile that only a dull mind would fail to be bored by it.
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Blasphemy!
 
Varietal wines are usually named for the variety they contain, if anyone is still wondering. I think the practice in the US is usually credited to Frank Schoonmaker.

Separately, a lurker has written me to endorse Green Man and French Horn, but to lament the condition of many of their older Loire wines.

Hmmmmmm.
 
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