I have been at this for a very long time. I purchased my first wine cellar from Eurocave from their NYC showroom in 1981. Still have the receipt. It looked like a coffin but was a real step into my evolution for my next 40 years of winedom.
I would say that the last year up until now I have truly been experiencing some of the best wines in my whole life, and I have had more than a few wines in that life. There is an uncanny quality to what we are treated to these days, days where off vintages mean less than they once did. I blame technology and man’s (woman’s too!) beginning to truly understand what nature has provided us/does provide us and hope to provide us. let us never take her for granted.
Am I alone? Is it…me? Nostalgia? Who knows, all I know is it’s a grand time to be us my brothers and sisters. Can You Dig It?!?
I hope you and your loved ones are safe. Once this virus is over I am incorporating a mandatory 30 second hug for my loved ones, creepy or not. lol
I have not been at it as long as you have but I do agree that in the last 25 years that I have been drinking fine wines there has been a definite increase in overall quality and consistency from year to year.
No I disagree. The wines today are richer and more intense, but unless you are choosing carefully, alcohol levels have increased and the wines seem more generic than ever before, with less sense of place. For example compare California Cabernets now to those of the seventies
There are of course notable exceptions, but Mike was talking about the general wine landscape, and I am less impressed.
I think that’s true of Bordeaux and CdP (let alone Napa), but I think the average Burgundy right now is better than I ever remember it being (with the caveat that I’ve not been drinking as long as you have, obviously). But while there are plenty of bottles of Burgundy I don’t love, there are few I actively dislike because they’re very poorly made, premox issues aside. There are certainly some producers who are heavy handed, but that was also true 20 years ago too.
I agree 100% with Mark G as it relates to Bordeaux, Napa, CDP and, in part, Northern RhĂ´ne. I really doubt many of the Bordeaux from recent vintages while taste quite like Bordeaux from the 1980s. We are certainly seeing more consistency in vintages, but also tremendous homogeneity and loss of sense of place. On the other hand, some new wine regions are blossoming and some old ones are getting better. I personally think Chinon is better today than it was 15-25+ years ago. I think Beaujolais is also better.
I am speaking of younger wines and I am not necessarily speaking of high alcohol wines. Todays Franny Beck makes me ponder this question and this comes after last weeks River-Marie Sonoma Coast; two distinct, amazing and different Pinot Noir expressions held together by two things: Quality and talented winemakers. I think we tend to discount the latter. I have witnessed some amazing winemakers in my time on this earth and I know the French really don’t have a term for winemaker, I recognize the skills such persons bring to the table; (I think Thomas Rivers Brown is hitting his Apex these days). I certainly don’t see the generic qualities Mark speaks of, and that’s a good thing. I think many look at California and Oregon wines through a blurry lens. I have been seeing such a trend in the last few years. Guys like Ed Kurtzman and Brian Loring helped me see much. I can not speak to Bordeaux/Rhone because I don’t drink them. I did however call on the double blinded mid 80s Latour at of one of Nanos double blind tastings but that is a different story for a different time.
Cheers!
I should have also said, we are seeing IMHO a renaissance of Zinfandel. The heritage field blends that quality winemakers are now producing are exceptional.
I don’t agree re: Northern Rhone. If anything, some of the producers are dialing back on oak (like Ogier), and there are a lot more producers now with ever more vines. A lot more producers making wine, some in distinctly interesting ways, even if I’m not always a fan (Dard & Ribo, Ooka, etc.).
Sensing the sense of place and placing the place are two different things. If you try a Bordeaux from the 1980s, you will know it’s Bordeaux. You may not be able to pinpoint the appellation, but you will know. If you try some Bordeaux from this modern era, especially some St Ems, you may or may not know. And yea, I pretty much suck at blind tastings.
I suck at blind tastings, too. That’s why I cannot place so much stock on these romanticized notions. I can tell if a wine is good, or is expensive, and in which range, but outside of that, I can go either way with older Bdx or Napa.
Mark, I get your point about CA Cabs, and I could say the same for Bordeaux, for sure, yet there are so many regions and wines that are much better off today than they were 20 years ago. Piedmont is so much better, as many of the producers that made ponderous, oak bombs there have gone back towards the old styles. Whites from Spain, Portugal, and Italy are far better than they were at that time. Beaujolais is better, or at least has more serious producers. People around the world are treating rose with respect. Champagne has improved as have sparkling wines from other areas. Even many producers in CA, WA, and OR are dialing back the ripeness and wood and trying to make more balanced wines. In my mind there is such a variety of delicious wine out there. Maybe the highs of certain areas aren’t quite as high, but the overall quality (and quantity) of producers that care about their wines seems to be very high now,
Not sure. I’d say the general overall quality is definitely better than in the late-80’s, but there are also about 1000% more wines out there than 40 years ago. What I miss are things like: acidic bonechilling Savennieres, TRUE German kabinett, less-ripe California reds. I think this may be a golden age of Loire cab franc, gamay, mencia, Piedmont reds, N Rhone reds. But then prices have increased a magnitude greater than income, so many of the better-best wines are becoming unaffordable unless you are part of the top 5% class. So…a coin toss.
For Bordeaux, vintages started getting a lot more consistent starting with 1978. The number of excellent producers really ramped up AFTER the 1982 vintage for about a decade or two after that. However, by 2000 and in many cases earlier, a lot of producers started making wines that are not that recognizable as Bordeaux, esp. in St. Emilion. There still are a number of outstanding Bordeaux producers but it has become a minefield for those who do not follow it closely.
For Burgundy, vintages started getting a lot more consistent starting with 1985. About that same time, a whole generation of fabulous growers started marketing their wines on their own (not just selling to negociants) and the quality of Burgundy has been going up and up since then except for a brief flirtation with Parkerized wines that seemed to hit a peak when Pierre Rovani starting writing about Burgundy. This school was pretty well rejected by around 2007 when David Schildknecht took over (briefly) in writing about Burgundy for the WA. I doubt that there has ever been a higher quality of wine in Burgundy than there is today with a new generation of truly wonderful producers adding their talents to the mix. The only problems with Burgundy today are the prices and, for whites, premox.
California wines came on the scene largely in the 1970s and 1980s and there were some really wonderful wines. Then, along came producers who decided that if rich is good, ultimate richness must be better. Today, California is another minefield where a lot of the best wines are made by the old-time (1970s and 1980s producers).
German wine vintages started getting a lot more consistent from 1983 on. Like with Burgundy, we started seeing a whole new generation (at least to consumers in the US) of wonderful winemakers imported by Terry Theise and Rudy Weist. It was a real golden age of German wines that, for me, was ruined by the religion of trocken. Today, there are a lot of very talented young winemakers in Germany but too many cannot shake the religion.
Overall, I have been drinking wines seriously since around 1980 or so and there have always been more wonderful wines to drink than I have the capacity to purchase and consume. That issue has never changed. The biggest negative over the years has been pricing. Pricing was reasonable through the early 1990s, not bad through the early 2000s and since then has gotten more and more ridiculous with every succeeding vintage.
I have witnessed some amazing winemakers in my time on this earth and I know the French really don’t have a term for winemaker, I recognize the skills such persons bring to the table;
Not sure that’s entirely true, although I never really thought about it. But if you say something like “Marc est l’œnologue et vigneron du domaine” people would understand that you meant “Marc is the wine maker and vine grower of the estate”.
I think you’re right that the wine makers and the level of knowledge today is better than ever. Mark is lamenting the way that knowledge has been applied to produce changes in the wines of certain regions. Some people like the changes, others don’t like them so much.
It’s hard to make a statement that gets to every region though. If you liked Gruaud-Larose in years past, it’s not the same today. On the other hand, Brian Loring is making wine from places like Boekenoogen Vineyard, which was only planted in 1997 so there’s no older version to compare.
Of course, Brian does like big wines and knowing Mark, my guess is that he’s not a major fan.
