CWD: 2014 Pépière Muscadet de Sèvre-et-Maine Clisson

V

VLM

VLM
Had my first couple of bottles of this last night with a bag of Island Creek oysters. Really vivid and intense, as one would expect. This wine has rounded contours where the Briords has razor edges. As one would expect, went exceedingly well with the oysters. It was drinking really well and as has been my practice, I'll probably drink these over the next few years. However, I did notice that they have switched to DIAM 10 corks. Should that change my approach?

We also has a bottle of 2015 Picq Fils Chablis Dessus La Carriere which showed the richness of the vintage and this bottling always tends towards the rich side anyway (for Picq). However, with some time open it seemed to strech out and show a bit more cut. I can't decide whether a few years will help bring out that structure or whether to just fire away.
 
How do you know what # it is? I've never seen a # on a cork.

Also, surprised to see that DIAM could decrease the levels of SO2 in wine. If this is true, then how come reductive winemaking houses don't use them more often?
 
originally posted by MarkS:
How do you know what # it is? I've never seen a # on a cork.

Also, surprised to see that DIAM could decrease the levels of SO2 in wine. If this is true, then how come reductive winemaking houses don't use them more often?
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It says it on the cork (although sometimes it is hard to read).

I don't know anything about the relationship to SO2.
 
I'm just not interested in being the guinea pig on wines for aging. For short termers, no prob. The plastique is a problem even for short term.

I am truly interested in ten year old wines under Diam. Are they doing ok? Are they aging the same as natural cork?

My stand has been consistent: bottle the 3% of fine wine likely to be aged under natural cork, do everything else with a different closure. Pressure will be off on fine cork and aging wines can be properly set up for success.
 
I'm as conservative as the next guy (as long as the next guy is an urban dwelling liberal), but at a certain point, one has to give in to evidence. I only know what I read on these boards, which really does not count as evidence, but there seems to be a lot of anecdotal support even for aging under Stelvins. I'm open to the possibility.
 
Since Steve is here, i hope he will chime in. Is there any reliable way to test the aging potential of wine under DIAM? Other than side-by-side comparison to a statistically significant sample of bottles under DIAM and cork expected to age well for a long time? In Bordeaux this experiment could take decades. (It’s not like there is a dynamometer for wine.) Do we know if widespread testing is underway?
 
If I never have to commit another corked wine to teh fatsink (TM) I am willing to take the plunge regarding aging under DIAM or Stelvin. Yes, we lack a good longitudinal study of the comparative aging of true vins de garde under various closures, but I've had to discard way too many 20-30 year old wines because they are tainted to hell and back by the damned cork (and BTW fuck the baggie method and all related solid-liquid extractions -- it's like putting a bandaid on a gunshot wound).

I've got a few NZ Pinot Noirs I schlepped back from there in '12 that are aging under Stelvin. I suspect that I've got a number of ESJ wines that are doing the same under DIAM. I will happily report about their organoleptic characteristics in due time, though that will hardly answer the question.

Mark Lipton
 
We can only ever hope to agree on ideal closures if we first agree on the ideal rate of oxygen ingress. If that is zero, as SFJoe once told me, then methinks not even the most perfect cork would ever give us that.
 
originally posted by Oswaldo Costa:
We can only ever hope to agree on ideal closures if we first agree on the ideal rate of oxygen ingress.
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Not necessarily. We could try a bunch of things and keep the ones that give us good wine in 20 years.
 
originally posted by Steve Edmunds:
my first wine bottled under Diam was in 2007, and it's doing just fine. Does someone have a different story to tell?
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Steve, do you have any of these wines left? I have a professional interest in how they are doing.
 
originally posted by Oswaldo Costa:
We can only ever hope to agree on ideal closures if we first agree on the ideal rate of oxygen ingress. If that is zero, as SFJoe once told me, then methinks not even the most perfect cork would ever give us that.
Click to expand...

Oswaldo,

Was it SFJoe’s view (to your recollection) that all beneficial chemical reactions for bottled wine were anaerobic?
 
originally posted by Jayson Cohen:
originally posted by Oswaldo Costa:
We can only ever hope to agree on ideal closures if we first agree on the ideal rate of oxygen ingress. If that is zero, as SFJoe once told me, then methinks not even the most perfect cork would ever give us that.
Click to expand...

Oswaldo,

Was it SFJoe’s view (to your recollection) that all beneficial chemical reactions for bottled wine were anaerobic?
Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure he wouldn't have ruled out the (quite distinct) possibility that extremely slow oxygen ingress could have beneficial effects, particularly in the short-to-medium term, but if he believed the ideal ingress to be zero (an opinion that surprised me by its clear-cut certainty, when he usually defaulted to the position that wine involved too many unknowns to be predictable), then all the beneficial (or otherwise) chemical reactions in a zero ingress situation would have to be a mix of anaerobic and whatever aerobic is generated by the dollop of air between the liquid and the stopper (assuming the wine was not vacuum-bottled).
 
originally posted by Oswaldo Costa:
originally posted by Jayson Cohen:
originally posted by Oswaldo Costa:
We can only ever hope to agree on ideal closures if we first agree on the ideal rate of oxygen ingress. If that is zero, as SFJoe once told me, then methinks not even the most perfect cork would ever give us that.
Click to expand...

Oswaldo,

Was it SFJoe’s view (to your recollection) that all beneficial chemical reactions for bottled wine were anaerobic?
Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure he wouldn't have ruled out the (quite distinct) possibility that extremely slow oxygen ingress could have beneficial effects, particularly in the short-to-medium term, but if he believed the ideal ingress to be zero (an opinion that surprised me by its clear-cut certainty, when he usually defaulted to the position that wine involved too many unknowns to be predictable), then all the beneficial (or otherwise) chemical reactions in a zero ingress situation would have to be a mix of anaerobic and whatever aerobic is generated by the dollop of air between the liquid and the stopper (assuming the wine was not vacuum-bottled).
Click to expand...

the dollop of "air" in the neck of the bottle is not air, but is usually nitrogen (inert) or in some cases argon (inert), depending on what the bottle is sparged with at bottling.
 
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