Ponsot and ripeness

[James_Billy]

Added acid can ruin a wine in my experience. Maybe a little, early in the winemaking process might be tolerable. I’m not sure.

[larry_schaffer]

This certainly is an interesting discussion, and the concept of ‘no new oak’ whereas others are using a good percentage of it certainly can make these wines stand out and seem ‘more pure’ to some . . .

Cheers.

[larry_schaffer]

@James Billy

Added acid can ruin a wine in my experience. Maybe a little, early in the winemaking process might be tolerable. I’m not sure.

An honest question - how would you know if it was added and when?

Cheers.

[Joshua_Kates]

On the other side of the spectrum on Friday night I opened a 2013 Geantet-Pansiot Bourgogne Pinot Fin. Respected producer to my knowledge and the bottle shop owner cut me a discount on the bottle to secure my purchase. Man, what a bad wine for my palate. Honestly if I was blinded on it I would have thought it was a new world Pinot and would have probably rolled out California as my pick.

More thread drift, but couldn’t help it, as I had the exact some experience and descriptor:cali Pinot. I posted than on an fb burgundy group, a remark received with much dudgeon by a big drinker there. They were speaking of his higher end stuff, so maybe not the same, but I have my doubts, and now another data point. Thanks, Andrew, for confirming!

[James_Billy]

@larry schaffer

@James Billy

Added acid can ruin a wine in my experience. Maybe a little, early in the winemaking process might be tolerable. I’m not sure.

An honest question - how would you know if it was added and when?

Cheers.

I wouldn’t. I’m just speculating.

[Chris_Seiber]

@Andrew Hamilton

@Sanjay Nandurkar

Andrew
IIRC, Ponsot only uses old oak. So I guess wines are ripe but not oaky and fresh. I have only tasted a few so I have very very limited experience.

Right. That makes more sense then. I suspect new oak is what puts me off most as it tends to mute or mask the more elegant fruit notes Burgundy can produce. Oak seems to be the antithesis of freshness to my palate, at least in youth.

I see this in new world wines as well. Ripe wines with modest oak treatments can still taste pretty fresh and balanced. I’ve been leaning towards the conclusion that oak is much more the culprit in wines that seem overly soulless/modern/international/spoofy than ripeness and late picking.

[Evan_Pontoriero]

@JLee

@Evan Pontoriero

@alan weinberg

stopped buying Ponsot when he switched to his unproven plastic closures.

Curious about this. Anyone else feel the same? Do you feel the same about DIAM? As I understand it he switched after a grand tasting where there was severe bottle variation. The technology is interesting for sure and has been around since the late 90s. Who has tasted Ponsot under the new closure and can lend a verdict?

Thread is well off the rails at this point, but:

I personally would be less likely to buy expensive reds with DIAM or plastic closures. I would like to see reports on if the closures affect the taste.

For white burgundy I generally only buy bottles for ageing from producers that use DIAM or that have a history of little to no premox (with a very few select exceptions), as premox is by far the greater risk.

Maybe I should make a new thread?

So I’ve been told that Ponsot went to great lengths scientifically to test the closures against the best natural corks over a 5 year period and measure o2 ingress. In the end he chose the technology. I don’t know if DIAM, which is conglomerate glued together, is a bette or worse solution based on the acidity of wine. On both there seem to be some movement on the high end towards these closures but I have always run into my aversion to any loss of the romance of pulling natural cork and the inevitable question of customers looking at it as lesser quality.

[alan_weinberg]

yeah, I really trust Ponsot. Not. I put an empty bottle in the oven at 350 for an hour and his temp sensitive dot didn’t change. Great science.

[A_So]

@alan weinberg

yeah, I really trust Ponsot. Not. I put an empty bottle in the oven at 350 for an hour and his temp sensitive dot didn’t change. Great science.

I also repeated this experiment, first by leaving the bottle out in the sun during a Chicago summer for a week, and then baking the bottle similarly for an hour. No change.

Regarding the plastic closures, I think 2008 was the first vintage bottled with those. I thought the 2008 Clos Vougeot VV was one of the best wines I tasted out of that vintage. As to whether or not those closures will stand the test of time, I’ll roll the dice, the wine was that good.

[Evan_Pontoriero]

@A. So

@alan weinberg

yeah, I really trust Ponsot. Not. I put an empty bottle in the oven at 350 for an hour and his temp sensitive dot didn’t change. Great science.

I also repeated this experiment, first by leaving the bottle out in the sun during a Chicago summer for a week, and then baking the bottle similarly for an hour. No change.

Regarding the plastic closures, I think 2008 was the first vintage bottled with those. I thought the 2008 Clos Vougeot VV was one of the best wines I tasted out of that vintage. As to whether or not those closures will stand the test of time, I’ll roll the dice, the wine was that good.

Thx for the datapoint on the closure. AFA the temperature control, I thought they now use EProvenance?