Serge, I have had the 1999 Prieur Greves twice and have 2 bottles remaining, and while not otherworldly, for me it was an excellent example of yet another of the 1999’s stepping up and displaying pure fruit. A fine value at $35 about 5 years ago. For me, there have been very few 1999 disappointments from good producers, and I’ve dipped even lower to village level on the hope that 2005 will provide pleasure without pricepoint pain.
This all seems too good to be true. And that means it’s a trap. But I will go along with it anyway. Sort of. One off bottle doesn’t prove anything really. And I know that YOU know this. It is but one bottle of many. Can happen to any wine in any region. But I will say that far too often people give off bottles of Burgudy a pass. And that pass it not extended to other regions. One constant in Bugundy is it’s inconsistancy. That and it’s high price. Unless you are going to live most of your life in you favorite producers cellar, wines must perform in the real world. I am all for setting a wine up as much as possible(glasses, temp, air etc), but in the end we don’t live under perfect conditions. And most of the wine consumed is also consumed how we live. If you have a good record with this producer I would bet that your next bottle is on. Sorry you had an off bottle. I am going to order a couple of bots of burgundy myself this afternoon. 2-3 Rossignol-Trapet Gevrey Cham and 2-3 Noellat Bourgogne. Anyone that likes RT would do themselves a favor to pick up a few bottles.
By off I was talking about that the bottle failed to meet your expectations. You might adopt my policy for Burgs. Assume most will suck that way when one is good you are pleasantly surprised. Just kidding. Mostly.
I try to be civil as much as possible. I doubt others will be able to do this. I have my finger on the F key.
Amen.
I read somewhere that one of the reasons Danes are considered the happiest people in the world is their low expectations.
My offer to trade some wines from the Brunello threads was a serious one, by the way. I had fun doing that with Mike D. If you’re not interested swapping wines you really like for wines you’re not particularly interested in, I understand.
Trying to think of what might be fair. Maybe 1 bottle of Brunello for 5 of burgundy. That way I have a chance of 1 of them being good. PM me what you would like to do.
Aw, man! What about my odds! Based on that Brunello QPR thread, I have to get the right vintage, age it properly, serve it with the right food, wait for close-outs to get the “real” price. It’s like Burgundy, only you like the minefield, and I don’t! (okay, I probably like Brunello more than you like Burg).
My proposal - I’ll ship you an 05 Grand Cru HdB Corton ($80-$100 price). You pick something good and Brunello (would love to catch something off the radar). We open and post notes. If you hate the wine, you hate it. I’ll ask you to guide me on proper service of whatever you send.
Let me see what I have.
Any more info on the wine?
I don’t know, I rarely find Burg that sucks though I do find wines that aren’t as profound as I would have anticipated. They’re disappointing in the way Serge uses the term here - if you have high expectations and the wine’d merely very good, eh. I’ve never understood the Burg bashing - if someone doesn’t like the wines and has tried a few, fine, don’t drink them. To extrapolate from one person’s dislike of a region to ‘that region produces crap’ has always seemed self-centered - my dislike for a region just means I dont like it, not that the wines are crap. For example, I’ve had Loring Pinots - very much not my style. I could definitely see the appeal, but it isn’t what I’d do with Pinot Noir and it’s not what I look for from the grape. Doesn’t mean Brian is a bad guy or that people who do like that style are idiots… it just means they want a different thing that I. This is why there’s a lot of wine out there.
Serge - in, um, 2000 I think it was I spend a lovely morning in Prieur’s cellars tasting everything including the Montrachet. I remember liking all of the wines and thinking the grand crus were up to their pedigree. A 71 grand cru (the Clos Vougeot I think) was a lovely wine when drunk a few years ago. Too bad your bottle didn’t measure up to what you expected.
BTW, one bad bottle does not, of course, put the lie to the ‘producer, producers’ mantra in Burg. Producer is still, and always will be, the thing to look for. That doesn’t mean every wine from every producer will rock - but it improves your odds, especially in less than stellar vintages.
Serge,
Ah ha! Pop and poured, eh? I never do Burgs that way. I used to decant them, but now I’m a convert to the slow-O approach championed by Monsieur Francois Audouze. So I’ll plan ahead and pull the cork 5 hours ahead of time if I can, and take out a small taste to enlarge the surface area a bit. Or, if I don’t have that much time, I will decant off about 1/5 of the bottle and then let both portions breathe for an hour or more. After the decanted part is finished, what’s in the bottle is usually excellent. Burgs just develop much better depth and complexity this way… Give it a try!
Serge,
It’s also interesting to decant half a bottle and let the other half “slow-O”. Invariably I prefer the half left in the bottle. And if there is not enough time to use the “pure” method, I have found that 4/5ths of a bottle will achieve “slow-O-” perfection much faster than a full bottle will, even if I have enlarged the surface area of the full bottle.
Especially with Burgs, I think that it’s very important to experiment and use the best presentation approach possible… With Bordeaux, the slow-O approach takes a LOT longer (unless the wine is quite old!), but the 4/5ths full bottle approach usually works well in a reasonable amount of time.
Really. Come on people. Maybe only open it when the moon is just right. And after forming a ring of cow horn powder around each glass.
Wine searcher is showing it around $50. Do you know the importer?
And I don’t even have an avatar.
For any of you nice fellows who only have seen the kinder, gentler side of Serge I can DEFINATELY attest to his assertation that he was indeed the scourge of many wine boards. He was barred from so many that he finally set up his own and derned near got banned from it. vb
Hey, it’s worth noting that in the Brunello QPR thread the pro-Brunello made these claims:
- QPR is not relevant to Brunello.
- You need to age them properly.
- You need to serve them with the right food.
Sounds sort of familiar… ![[wink.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/0/04707e6a7bbb03e0153e349d8a9270d30e1e9525.gif "wink"){kind=small}
Twice as many excuses would have been offered up if it was Burgundy. If you don’t see the problems with QPR in Brunello you aren’t looking very closely. Sure the wine can shine with food, but a bottle that underperforms is just a nice meal ruined.