I think we’ve had this discussion before, and I believe you’re talking about LaLas from the 70s. I’m happy to assume those were great wines, but I’ve not had any so can’t comment. The Guigal I’ve had is very oaky, and if you don’t like oak in your wine (which I do not), they’re neither good wines nor can you tell the terroir or the winemaking.
If you’d like to share a 70s LaLa, however, I’d me more than happy to try it.
Not true.
I can acknowledge the high quality of a wine - and still not like to drink it - it´s a question of objectivity, an ability a professional taster should have (I´m no professionalist, but I try to taste as objectively as possible for me).
Ok, not everybody has this attitude … “I like it, so it´s fine, I don´t like it, so it´s rubbish …” - that´s ok as far as personal opinions go, but when you post opinions in public your aspirations should be higher (imho).
I do not love Barolo/Barbaresco - never bought a bottle over the last 20 years, but I get to taste quite a lot in our monthy tasting round - and it would be foolish to deny the high quality of (just for instance) a G.Conterno, Altare, Clerico, Voerzio and many others.
Sorry for the thread drift, but I do not believe the above is true. There are standards of quality in wine, regardless of whether an individual taster likes a given wine or not - standards most of us come to recognize the more experience we have. It’s often very difficult to separate out the objective from the subjective, no question, and there is a lot of room for argument on what exactly constitutes these standards, but they are absolutely there. High production, industrial wine with little to no care taken in the vineyards, and chemicals added is never high quality, even if you like it. The same can be said of food - no matter how much you like McDonald’s, the kitchen is not turning out superb food. While I completely agree that preference is a huge and important part of judging wine, and ultimately what you chose to drink should be heavily dictated by what you like, what one likes personally does not constitute quality, nor vice versa. It is a fundamental aspect of connoisseurship, not to mention criticism, to develop understanding of both and strive to recognize where they overlap and where they don’t.
Guigal makes 4,000,000 bottles of their CdR every year–and that is just one of their many bottlings. If you like 42 months of new oak from someone who makes millions of cases a year, by all means, give your money to Guigal. Just like McDonald’s though, please don’t think that they couldn’t have ‘billions served’ on their sign. I am biased–but at some point, wine switches from being artisan to industrial, passion to commerce. Guigal and Chapoutier are the industrial négociants of the Rhone. I do my best not to support industrial wineries no matter how much lipstick they put on the pig: https://wineimport.discoursehosting.net/t/wine-as-a-veblen-good/151109/1
I don’t taste enough of them to comment on current quality.
Regardless of their style, I think Chapoutier along with Penfolds must be the most impressive wine producers globally over the past 2 or 3 decades. Large holdings across multiple regions and top to bottom make good wine including some at the very top of the chain.
I’ve only bought minor amounts of any Chapoutier wines over the last 10 years but without doubt, some of the very best wines I’ve ever had were the various Chapoutier Hermitage(s) and C.R.'s from the past 4 decades. Some were/are legendary wines which turned me onto the region.
Sorry for the drift.
I’m not sure why you quoted my post here - I said nothing at all about Guigal, in terms of quality or preference. My post was about whether objective standards exist at all, or if it’s all about personal taste.
I generally stay away from such producers, but Guigal’s CdR has sustained high quality for a very long time. I preferred it when it had more grenache, but it’s still good. I opened a bottle of the '03 a couple of weeks ago that I’d cellared since release, and even from that bizarre vintage, the wine was pleasing and showed some evolution. In better vintages, it can acquire some real complexity with 10-15 years of age.
I distinguish (a) producers like Guigal, Jaboulet, Antinori and the old-line Rioja producers who produce inexpensive wines on an industrial scale that are decent drinking even if they’re not exciting from (b) Duboeuf, who uses yeasts to give that bubble gum aroma and whose single-vineyard can taste more like Bojo Nouveau than serious cru Beaujolais.
Producing large quantities of cheap wine doesn’t necessarily mean you can’t make great wines. I think Guigal and Jaboulet on their good days show that, and certainly Rioja producers like CVNE and La Rioja Alta do.
Really? So because Drouhin or Jadot make a sea of bourgogne and are both “industrial”, you avoid their Musigny, Petit Monts or Amoureuses and actively seek out a smaller producer?
As I say to any of my friends who ask me about wine, drink what you like. If you like Chapoutier wines, fantastic. When I started getting into Northern Rhone wines, I bought a bunch of Chapoutier, because it was easy to find/cheap. Since then, I have poured out half empty bottles of 1990 Chapoutier Hermitage because no one at dinner wanted to finish them (and they were no in way corked/spoiled). I just think they’re bad wines.
Most certainly I’d seek a more artisan producer on those two examples. It’s almost impossible to keep track of who owns what, and I’m not sure where the line is, but it’s really pretty easy to find small family owned wineries, with passionate land stewards, making wonderful wine.
While he was the winemaker for Jadot (until recently), not the vineyard manager, I don’t think you could have ever found someone more passionate than Jacques Lardiere.
I’ve long been critical of Guigal, but recent bottles in blind tastings of the 1995, 2000, and 2008 La Landonne and a 2008 La Mouline have ranged from very very good to exceptional. The 2000 La Landonne is particularly interesting, as the last one was quite nice and not showing a lot of wood while a different bottle about a year ago was numbed by the oak.
OTOH, I’ve been consistently disappointed to repulsed by Chateau d’Ampuis bottlings, most recently by a vile 2012. The Vignes de l’Hospice St. Joseph has been more ripe and woody than I prefer, but drinkable.
Chapoutier for me sets the standard for pleasant but generic wines totally devoid of any sense of place, which I find quite worthy of contempt.
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