I asked a friend who runs the wine committee of a NY club if he has found similar problems with premox to white Burgundy. He felt they were at least as bad, and he was buying very little for personal consumption, and drinking them young. That sort of mirrors my own experience; Burgundy gets all the bad press, but I have seen premox in plenty of other white wine producing areas.
I have long wondered about this. Good to know. Same time period? More recent advent?
I heard white Rhône has issues. I haven’t heard of it happening for whites from the US, other than the chateau montelena story.
Loire too.
Not sure. A 2003 Margaux Pavillion was oxidised. Could it be the vintage? Should it be expected to hang on 16 years? If it were Graves or P-L, I’d say yes. I have heard of issues with Smith Haut Lafite 2006, but have had all 5 bottles drunk so far have been excellent. Other than the Margaux and hearing of issues with 2006 SHL, all good.
I was just over in the 2019 EP thread pondering who buys and who drinks the top Bdx Blancs - production is way higher than most White Burgundies, and we see tonnes of TNs for those quite regularly. Would be great to see more notes and understand the trade-offs drinking young vs significant age and anything in between. I’ve experimented with DdCs but have had no opportunities to try old examples or appetite to spend on the Haut Brion Blanc or similar! FWIW, I have not found high / higher rates of premox in White Rhones - my last oxidised Rhone was actually a '98 Beaucastel Rouge! With climate change, recent technical improvements and good run of vintages, there’s certainly a lot more good White Rhone available than 10 years ago, and some decent values too.
I don’t drink that much Bordeaux blanc, but my experience is not that the wines are flawed with premox but mostly that I just don’t like them. Also I’d wonder how/why producers who make gazillions of reds with regular corks (and don’t seem to have well known oxidation problems) would suddenly have problems with whites, and whites alone? Am I missing something - are they much harder to produce, bottle up safely etc.?
I’ve had 20 year old Clos Flordenes, a blanc Graves, that tasted as fresh as any thing. That’s a good estate for white bdx, IMO. That’s the only one I’ll cellar among the traditional white Graves/Pessacs.
It’s true, Premox is probably just as prevalent in Bordeaux, Rhone and elsewhere as Burgundy — it’s just so rare we taste aged bottles of those it doesn’t seem like the same issue.
Premox in white rhone is well known to “reverse” after a period of time. It’s a topic that’s been covered on many online forums, with general agreement, but rarely explained. I don’t think the chemistry is fully understood.
Ignoring that, as I don’t think it’s relevant as white BDX doesn’t seem to have the same reversal track record - my overall commentary is yes, white Bordeaux has extreme premox issues that are currently unsolved. Some more aware producers are switching to DIAM as a solution, but ultimately most chateaux have exactly the same issues as those in Burgundy, and in some cases it’s been egregiously ignored. White bordeaux is a style that I am obsessively interested in, but I’ve completely given up on for the very reason that they cannot maintain freshness nor illustrate a desire to recognise the problem.
DDC Blanc and Carbonnieux Blanc are some of the worst offenders. I have never been a lover of Pape Clement so I cannot speak to their track record, and Haut Brion Blanc, Laville/La Mish being out of my budget. Either way, it’s a dangerous place to buy these days.
Young and (very) good qpr: Chasse Spleen Blanc; Carbonnieux Blanc and Lamothe Bouscaut Blanc.
DDC Blanc can be very good, but premox strikes there as well. 2003 recently was perfect for instance, while the 2010 was advanced?! Pape Clement Blanc sort of the same…
SHL BLanc is great.
Aîle d’ Argent can age effortlessly. Have 1992’s that are still drinking well and cost me next to nothing. Nowadays still good value, but allocation wines so difficult to source.
HB Blanc & LMHB only have experience with young vintages, which were amazing but very pricey. Just bought some of the 2019’s as well. The HB looks like it just 600 bottles, divided over all the négociants leading to around 36 bottles per. Very happy with my OWC/03 of this. Not so happy with the buying price, which is Montrachet money!
Both Haut-Brion Blanc and Laville with some age can be wonderful, dull or oxidized by age 10-15. Most of my bottles of 1990 Haut-Brion Blanc were oxidized. Yet a ‘71 just a couple of years ago was amazingly fresh and complex. Aging white Bordeaux can be rewarding but fraught with risk.
Do Rieslings premox?
yes, been a problem w Trimbach Clos Ste Hune and FE, others I’m sure.
I’d been thinking of tracking down some Domaine de Chevalier blancs with a little age on them but this makes me cautious.
My limited experience is that well-stored white Bordeaux used to age beautifully- I have '83 & 89 DDC that have been drinking well and continue to- but that changed in mid-90s. Just like with white Burgundy, one can have a single batch that can show wide variation. 2001 Carbonnieux and La Louviere drunk at the 8-12 year mark both had good bottles, somewhat advanced bottles, and totally shot bottles. Also had some advanced bottles of DDC from late 90s and mid-aughts, though no totally dead ones. I did have some 2006 La Louviere that were fine for 10 years- screwcap!
My luck in Loire has generally been good except for a few outliers (2002 Closel, Huet Pet) . In Alsace I had some Trimbach pox in late 90s, but none since (except for 375mls, not sure I’ve ever had a Trimbach dry half that could last 3 years!). No pox in Germany or Austria. Don’t really drink white Rhone, or age any other areas for whites,
I think if one is going to try aging white Rhones, they better have a high tolerance for nutty/sherry like notes. I remember an 89 Chapoutier Chante Alouette Hermitage blanc some years ago that I’d set aside for a lobster dinner…what a disaster…I gamely had a glass or two because I’d been patient with it. Mrs AKR, with more sense than I, and less preconceptions, cleverly traded me her glass for my crustacean.
(I suppose this is where Dale can throw rocks by noting that starting with a Chapoutier was flawed to begin with!)
I have read claims of this for a long time too, but in retrospect I find wondering whether this indeed reflects a real phenomenon or whether the Rhone was just patient zero for premox. Monsieur X drinks a lovely white Rhone… another bottle a few years later is oxidized… and another bottle a few years after that is lovely… Monsieur X concludes the oxidation is just a phase. The same pattern elsewhere, 10 years later on, now that everybody knows premox is a thing, gets attributed to premox. Either conclusion can flow from the same facts. An interesting epistemological problem.
Go pre 1994 and you should be good.
That has been exactly what I’ve been thinking over the last decade. It is never the same oxidised bottle that is retasted 10 years later and turns out fine. It is always another bottle and nobody can check if that fine bottle was oxidised 10 years earlier.
It has been a great marketing job from especially Beaucastel who have been able to convince many people that their faulty product in fact was not faulty but that the customer who had paid top-dollar for the product had just made a silly and unfortunate decision to open the bottle either too late or too soon.
I love Northern Rhone whites but unfortunately have also experienced quite a lot of premox. No way that the bottles that were severely oxidised would have turned out fine 5 to 15 years later.
I’ve also experienced a relatively high percentage of premox with whites from Bordeaux.
Did a big white bordeaux tasting a couple of years ago. Drinking HB Blanc, LMHB Blanc and DDC blanc. Going back to 1945. It was pretty striking to see how much fresher the pre-1990s stuff to the post 1990s stuff, which was largely oxidised or on the way there. The 1950s wines were super fresh, which made us wonder how much sulfite went into them at the time…