Impressions October 2019

[Jonathan Loesberg]

The cheapest I ever paid for Verset was $8 in maybe 1989 for some 86s in a cutout bin. I didn't know you were that much older than me, Mark.

 

[MLipton]

originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
The cheapest I ever paid for Verset was $8 in maybe 1989 for some 86s in a cutout bin. I didn't know you were that much older than me, Mark.

It may not be a matter of age but of when we started shopping for those wines. I got the bug early and was haunting KLWM in Berkeley when I was in my early 20s. I'd guess that my first vintage was '82, but that's mere speculation.

Mark Lipton

 

[Jay Miller]

originally posted by VLM:

originally posted by Brézème:
Verset was really the man of the off vintages.
I have had my share of '98, but this bottle was either a super smart Rudy fake (1998 St Joseph for Jean Marsanne blended with 16.3% of 2002 Rayas and 9.6% of 1994 Chave) or one of the very best bottles of the 8th bottling of 1998.
I just can't think of any 1998 from the Rhone that reaches those heights in terms of complexity and élégance.
A special bottle of syrah, drank with special people.
Exactly the kind of feeling that turned me into wine and vines!
Merci!!!

Personally, I think the 1998 Chave is the last great Chave Rouge but it isn't as good as that Verset. Magical.

+1 from me on both counts. Though I haven't had either in years.

 

[MarkS]

originally posted by MLipton]

Fuck that shit. I was buying Chave in the ‘80s for $10-15 a bottle retail. If only I’d had the money, the storage and the foresight to buy it in quantity for cellaring. That wish is on a par with wishing my mother hadn’t thrown out my Avengers #1 and Fantastic Four where Silver Surfer and Galactus are introduced. Oh, and I was buying Verset for $5 a bottle at KLWM back then. FML.

Mark Lipton

hmmm....bought some closeout Chave (87) for $15/bottle, but and saw Verset closed out at $11 in the early 90's but prices were generally about 2x of those closeout prices. Perhaps you lived in Unicorn Valley at the time?

 

[Pavel Tchichikov]

originally posted by Jay Miller:

originally posted by VLM:
Personally, I think the 1998 Chave is the last great Chave Rouge but it isn't as good as that Verset. Magical.

+1 from me on both counts. Though I haven't had either in years.

You are a couple of termites. Just wait till I unleash Oswaldo The Sleeper Agent on you. And be grateful that it's Oswaldo and not Callahan.

 

[Jayson Cohen]

originally posted by Pavel Tchichikov:

originally posted by Jay Miller:

originally posted by VLM:
Personally, I think the 1998 Chave is the last great Chave Rouge but it isn't as good as that Verset. Magical.

+1 from me on both counts. Though I haven't had either in years.

You are a couple of termites. Just wait till I unleash Oswaldo The Sleeper Agent on you. And be grateful that it's Oswaldo and not Callahan.

I have to say, comrade: I’m with Jay and VLM here.

 

[Pavel Tchichikov]

originally posted by Jayson Cohen:

originally posted by Pavel Tchichikov:

originally posted by Jay Miller:

originally posted by VLM:
Personally, I think the 1998 Chave is the last great Chave Rouge but it isn't as good as that Verset. Magical.

+1 from me on both counts. Though I haven't had either in years.

You are a couple of termites. Just wait till I unleash Oswaldo The Sleeper Agent on you. And be grateful that it's Oswaldo and not Callahan.

I have to say, comrade: I’m with Jay and VLM here.

So a "great Chave" is therefore not as good as "that Verset"? Merely trying to establish algebraic closure, mon ami capitaliste.

 

[Jayson Cohen]

originally posted by Pavel Tchichikov:

originally posted by Jayson Cohen:

originally posted by Pavel Tchichikov:

originally posted by Jay Miller:

originally posted by VLM:
Personally, I think the 1998 Chave is the last great Chave Rouge but it isn't as good as that Verset. Magical.

+1 from me on both counts. Though I haven't had either in years.

You are a couple of termites. Just wait till I unleash Oswaldo The Sleeper Agent on you. And be grateful that it's Oswaldo and not Callahan.

I have to say, comrade: I’m with Jay and VLM here.

So a "great Chave" is therefore not as good as "that Verset"? Merely trying to establish algebraic closure, mon ami capitaliste.

You mean “that great Chave.” Then yes, at least for now. I don’t think 98 Chave is ready or wasn’t last time I had it, which I believe was with Jay 1.5-2 years ago.

 

[Pavel Tchichikov]

originally posted by Jayson Cohen:
You mean “that great Chave.” Then yes, at least for now. I don’t think 98 Chave is ready or wasn’t last time I had it, which I believe was with Jay 1.5-2 years ago.

Several things.

That was not the implication. Absolute terms were used, and for good reason, I believe. Not only because 98 Chave may or may not be ready; I happen to have overdosed on "that Verset" when it was too young (instead of hiding it in the cellar as I should have), and I assure you there was no time in its life when its degree of greatness could have been questioned because of its youth, regardless of what you served it next to. The same can be said of the really great vintages of Chave in their youth.

We are talking a different level of wine. And the thing that I object to is not the thing that you think I object to: it is not so much the relative quality of say 98 vs 91 Chave, but a casual implication of continuity. That in itself is absurd. You might as well call beethoven opus 111 a classical work or say that les demoiselles d'avignon belongs to the blue period. We can start with the axiom that it is a very different style of wine, and then argue greatness.

That said, one of you should open a bottle, and I promise to bring something worthy of your contribution. I am all out.

 

[Jayson Cohen]

No one claimed, at least I wasn’t signing onto, a global 98 Verset or other Verset over all great Chaves. Or Chave continuity. That said, you and I disagree a little about 90s Chave. I think the 95 is stupid good and for me showing continuity with the 88-91 stretch. I’ve reserved full judgment on the 98 in the past and wish I owned it. I’m sticking with my reservation for now.

 

[Jeff Grossman]

My last remaining bottle of Chave is the 2001. Where does that fall on the newly-christened Termite Scale?

 

[Oswaldo Costa]

originally posted by Pavel Tchichikov:

originally posted by Jay Miller:

originally posted by VLM:
Personally, I think the 1998 Chave is the last great Chave Rouge but it isn't as good as that Verset. Magical.

+1 from me on both counts. Though I haven't had either in years.

You are a couple of termites. Just wait till I unleash Oswaldo The Sleeper Agent on you. And be grateful that it's Oswaldo and not Callahan.

How flattering that recent forays into the finest Burgundian estates did not occupy the entirety of visitors' bandwidth and permitted a smidgen for a humble apparatchik.