Steen,
I agree with you.
Aubert de Villaine wrote to me after reading my report (in French) of the dinner with RC 1954 which I published in my 840th bulletin only this Week, and as he explained, better than I did, the phenomenon which makes that RC from young vines make complex wines, I find interesting to give you his explanation, if you are interested in such questions :
Dear François,
What a shock to see this picture of the label that lived the Romanée-Conti 1954 that you drank with your friend Tomo! What a shock especially because the impression she made you seems to me to have been as strong as the one she made us when we tasted it in the 70s or 80s!
It is wonderful that you followed him with a Yquem 1954, a year that must have been as difficult in Bordeaux as it has been in Burgundy.
I still have a little criticism to make of you, that of having truncated the explanation that I gave you about the strange and even almost implausible complexity of the Romanée-Conti 1954. Explication certainly not scientific, but all of which the meaning comes from the fact that the vine had been carried on all its life until 1945 in provignage, that is to say that a vine to provign was curved in a small pit and gave one, two or three new vines by the eyes of one, two or three of his branches, and that he rotted in the soil at the same time as his roots. Too bad to have skipped this explanation because it is not the rooted roots but even more the decaying vines that have enriched the young roots.
In any case, I am happy for you that you had this experience.
(Since my science of the vine is very weak or even nil, I had poorly memorized the words of Aubert de Villaine, so it is useful to publish his message, which specifies his thoughts).
So his theory is basically that the old dead vines made for good compost - would seem feasible to replicate if so!
Francois,
What a tremendous evening. Thank you for sharing.
one of the best writeups i’ve read. I love when folks that get exposure to this type of quality take the time to share it like this, with not only tasting notes but context/environment.
Please read above the message of Aubert de Villaine. Reading my note he said : I am happy that you had the same reaction as I had.
So my notes are not a dream.
Cheers,
Thank you for the nice comment.