Jayson Cohen
Jayson Cohen
Isn’t JLL’s book now somewhat dated?
TN: Two and Three (Dec 7, 2017)
- Thread starter Jeff Grossman
- Start date
Jonathan Loesberg
Jonathan Loesberg
Jeff only scratched the surface. Unless you talked to every vigneron in Cornas, got accurate information from each one and rigorously tested what they told you against every wine, classified against what each vigneron told you about that wine, you will be making classically flawed inductions.
Visiting vignerons is a very good way of finding out what you like and making good guesses as to why, as long as you remember that you may regularly find that you guess wrong. I do it religiously for the Southern Rhone and I bemoan that I can't do it everywhere. But the original question was not asking for such local conclusions.
Visiting vignerons is a very good way of finding out what you like and making good guesses as to why, as long as you remember that you may regularly find that you guess wrong. I do it religiously for the Southern Rhone and I bemoan that I can't do it everywhere. But the original question was not asking for such local conclusions.
Christian Miller (CMM)
Christian Miller
Geek heaven. Not sure about the grape axis; selection massale could narrow variance in the vines too, depending on the criteria for selection.
Ian Fitzsimmons
Ian Fitzsimmons
"Fruitful." Ha.
Christian Miller (CMM)
Christian Miller
Would be interesting to see how consistent the plots were between various wines that you like.
Jayson Cohen
Jayson Cohen
Worthwhile to brave the search function sometimes — before Cornas was hip, recall there was “creamy” Cornas:
http://winedisorder.com/comment/56/6646/?all=true#98602
http://winedisorder.com/comment/56/6646/?all=true#98602
Jayson Cohen
Jayson Cohen
Woke up early today. I realized I’d never really responded, and the wee hours are the time I am most likely to offend, so here goes. Your and Jeff’s responses here are perhaps steeped in an unjustified skepticism that possibly misses the point and the original question or maybe not or maybe I have failed to communicate it. This last paragraph is getting somewhere.
The purpose isn’t scientific-academic rigor or absolute truth. No one isn’t going to take a conversation with a vigneron with a healthy skepticism when practices are related. No one will take it as gospel truth. Nor is there any possible reason to talk to every vigneron in Cornas. I was more interested in whether similarities and differences between the detailed practices of various vignerons who one might identify as traditional might provide some deeper insight into why we like what we like and don’t like what we don’t like. I can accept that we might guess wrong.
Definitely secondary sources play a role, hence I only questioned whether JLL was dated, which pertains to understanding current winemaking practices of the current crop of winemakers, but I don’t doubt its potential usefulness with respect to the overall agenda. It seems to me from the descriptions above that the info contained in JLL is the type that would be useful, but I also understand the information there is also likely to be only partly accurate and part truth.
Maybe i am delusional that we could get sufficient and sufficiently accurate information to draw conclusions that are more than romanticized. Maybe my own skills as a litigator would help here talking to winemakers. (Voluntary winemaker depositions?) Probably not. Maybe multivariate statistics could potentially help, cognizant of the first principle of statistics—BS in, BS out. But I don’t think the type of firsthand knowledge (potentially) gained from talking to vignerons, and in particular asking questions that might go deeper than most people ask, should be discarded a priori as seemingly suggested here just because the information gained may have (will have) inherent flaws.
Honestly what’s better to a wine geek than the idea of sitting in a cave or standing in a vineyard on a beautiful hillside, asking a vigneron to tell you about picking and fermentation practices. I’ve done it many times, just never with the type of focused agenda discussed in this thread.
If only I didn’t have a day job and a family to support....
Jayson Cohen
Jayson Cohen
I have a vivid memory of standing over the old Rhône shelving at Garnet and trying to decide whether to buy one or two bottles of the 1998 Verset on release. I was a moron.
Jonathan Loesberg
Jonathan Loesberg
I was responding to the original claim that, with regard to learning about winemkaing practices and their affect on different kinds of styles, "second-hand knowledge" is uselsess. I would readily agree that for learning the wiens in a region you like and something about the techniques that lead to those wines, talking to vignerons is extraordinarily valuable, maybe even irreplaceable and I noted that I do it extensively. It remains, virtually by definition, anecdotal information. Litigators face different kinds of questions--did x do y--for which interrogating witnesses seems a good way of going about finding answers. For the kinds of generalizations that the original argument was about, though, the usual warnings about imperfect inductions do apply.
You and I both, Jayson, though in my case it was the mid-'80s vintages. In my defense, I was an impecunious Columbia grad student who had yet to internalize the lesson of buying deeply those producers whom one loves. And of course who could have foreseen that the wines of humble Nöel Verset or, for that matter, Marius Gentaz?) would become as sought-after as Petrus or DRC? Oh, to be young and naive again...
Mark Lipton
Jonathan Loesberg
Jonathan Loesberg
Having bought 86 Clape for $8 on a bin sale and 88 Verset for like $10 and the 90 and 91 Clapes and Versets for 12-15, I thought it had gotten altogether too expensive by 98. My cellar would be a lot better if I were less of a penny pincher. But my retirement might be more constrained.
Jeff Grossman
Jeff Grossman
I think the first undercuts the second. Of what use is it to say "I like wine made with X practices" if X might be Y ?
Without (at least) a high percentage of truth in your statements I'm not sure why you're bothering to utter them.
Jayson Cohen
Jayson Cohen
I’m a physicist. When I say scientific rigor, I really mean it, and it’s not possible here. There is an in-between where correlation is not causation even when the input parameters are the best one can do but subject to error.
Nathan is the statistician. He seems all Gung-Ho to create spider plots. All power!!
Jeff Grossman
Jeff Grossman
Maybe we just need to improve the closure?:
Jayson Cohen
Jayson Cohen
This was soon.
2013 G. Gilles Cornas. This ain’t Juge. But over a two-hour dinner this has purity on day one in a more classic young Cornas mold of purple fruit, cracked and white pepper, olive tapenade, length, firm but not harsh tannin, and a sense of a 2+ decade future. Opens up nicely and eventually a hint of violets emerges. Worked with duck rillette. I’ll check back tonight.
2016 F. Cotat Culs du Beaujeu. Its typical profile (easy to recognize but somewhat hard to describe — quinine, earth, licorice, a hint of varietal gooseberry) in a midweight format. I like. It’s probably not going to be a 2010, 2008, 2004 stunner but i predict it will age gracefully and improve on its balance.
Ayala Brut Majeur. Attractive rich briochey champagne that benefits from its vigorous bubbles. Air makes it a little steely and lemony in a good way in the finish. 7 g/l dosage is a tad high here. It does well at the table as a dinner champagne.
Jeff Grossman
Jeff Grossman
Glad to see the note on Gilles. I received that offer, too, but have stayed my hand.