23,000 Leflaive GC and Pucelles bottles pre 2014 reconditioned at the Domaine...

Interesting tidbit from reading Tanzer’s Lefaive Chevy tasting article that for the last few years the Domaine has been reconditioning all their holdings of GC and Les Pucelles bottles pre 2014 vintage…weeding out bad bottles(wonder how many, as they didn’t say), and replacing the cork with Diam.

"Morandière informed us that all of the bottles we’d be tasting had been opened, tasted and recorked in recent years. Indeed, one of Morandière’s first decisions after taking over direction of Domaine Leflaive was to carry out this procedure for all pre-2014 Grand Crus and Puligny-Montrachet Les Pucelles remaining in the estate’s cellars—23,000 bottles were “reconditioned” over a period of three years. Morandière made it clear that this process was not undertaken to “refresh” older bottles: “Our main objective was to get rid of the traditional corks and replace them with DIAM closures, which we feel more confident about.”

"The process, repeated for each bottle using the Eternam machine, was to remove the cork from each bottle, take a “splash” sample to taste a few milliliters of wine, then add inert gas and a bit of SO2 to eliminate any oxygen, finally bringing the bottle back to its intended level by adding wine from the same year and appellation—in other words, by sacrificing good bottles of each cuvée—and sealing it with a DIAM 30 while introducing only minute amounts of dissolved oxygen."

you think they’ll process some refunds for me?

Adding SO2 doesn’t eliminate oxygen.

+1 - most recently a 2004 and a 2007 Chevalier opened on the same night.

I think that was just a poorly structured sentence. The preface was “then add inert gas and a bit of SO2 to eliminate any oxygen”. The inert gas replaces the oxygen, correct?

You’re right. I looked up the Eternam machine (link below) and the entire process (removing/replacing the cork, getting a sample to taste, etc) is done inside a 100% inert gas environment…so oxygen never touches the wine during the process (or, that’s what I gathered from the link). Certainly a sensible/preferred way to do it.

My comment was mostly a knee jerk ‘SO2 isn’t an anti-oxidant’…but I was also thinking “they’re exposing the wine to O2 when pulling the cork and adding SO2 to make up for it, really?”. Which they weren’t (and should have been my first clue to look for the link below). But hey, I was grouchy from allergies :slight_smile:

It’ll be interesting to see what the premox rate is for the reconditioned wines…i.e. does premox always show early/subtle markers (that would cause Leflaive to reject) in which case the reconditioned bottles would, in theory, have little/no premox. Doesn’t seem implausible. I don’t know of any other way of testing the above theory (premox always showing early markers), so I don’t think we know this yet (if we do, speak up!)

+1. Lots of us in that line.

Gosh - so it will be worth buying again, except of course that the Chevalier is now north of $1000 :wink:!!!

Good point, how many failed and why. What was the criteria? It just didn’t taste right?

yes. please make it happen. '04-'08

I’m curious how they did all this tasting. A couple of milliliters times 23000 bottles is about 61 bottles. Palate fatigue? Hah a job that many here would apply for :wink:.

Oh, I missed the video, and just read the marketing blurb…obviously it’s not under inert gas the entire time after all, which is disappointing from a premox perspective.

Imagine the upcoming costs if/when released. if someone pays the price now with a % failure rate will they pay x% more for a reconditioned bottle? Certainly there will still be no guarantee.

Interesting…long time buyer of all the Domaine Leflaive PC’s…sparingly the GC. Last vintage was 2005. Never had a bad bottle. Just had my last '96 Pucelles a couple of weeks ago. It was spectacular!!! I’ve never had a better white burg…minerality and depth…you’d think that it was 10 years old, or less, rather than 23…why did Burgundy f’up such a good thing?

The premox phenomenon is such a broad and unpredictable thing that I have generally found it difficult to fault producers for being reticent in the early days about discussing it until there was more clarity on the extent of the matter and how the market was going to respond.

And so maybe I am being unfair, but given how Leflaive avoided premox for so long, took merciless advantage of the opportunity to raise their prices on that reputation to astonishing levels, and then to see how violently- physically sometimes- Anne Claude Leflaive refused to acknowledge the very sudden and serious onslaught of premox in her wines- left me with a very negative feeling about Domaine Leflaive, and unfortunately Madame Leflaive herself who was in many respects a truly remarkable human being.

There is no forgiveness in me there- and I not only no longer own any of the wines, but I avoid tasting them at events unless I absolutely must to avoid insulting whoever brought the bottle.

the same woman who wouldn’t allow bar code labels on her bottles as it would upset the molecular vibration of the wine, or some such nonsense as that.

never really bought these wines, but admire the domaine obviously and have been lucky enough to try a few top wines over the years. this boasting of going back and correcting bottles without acknowledging or doing something for the thousands of loyal customers seems very tone-deaf.

And what a shame that Pierre Morey hasn’t been able to replicate the previous quality of Leflaive with his own wines.

Very good point. They may think they are sending a good message, but really and truly how can you acknowledge formally that your library stock is problematic to the extent that you are undergoing a very expensive corrective process- but then completely ignore the amount of troublesome stock that you have already sold into the marketplace.

I guess all it took was for the old dame to croak, for the domaine to find some dignity. If she had passed 15 years ago, perhaps many would have been spared a small fortune in bad bottles.