I don’t think you’ll find them on this Board but wine civilians want wine to be a beverage rather that an agricultural product. I was recently flummoxed when told “I only buy wins from CA. They’re the same every year. The European wines vary year-to-year and I don’t have time to study that.” Where do you even start?
I was thinking of people on this board, too, who don’t seem to have the same attitude towards vintage variations.
I think you need to have overall consumption in mind. If you open one bottle a week, and you drink more than Chablis, every vintage of your favorite producers is too many.
I don’t want my high acid Chablis vintages to taste the same. But I don’t want the ones without racy acidity, I’ll drink something else.
I don’t disagree. If there’s something you specifically know about the vintage that you don’t like after tasting it yourself, that’s different. That’s why I said “unless there’s a real problem, or a dominating characteristic I know I don’t like, like aggressive raisiny notes in nebbiolo.”
I’ll admit that I’d be tempted for some wines, and particularly with an eye towards continued or increased effects of climate change. The wine that came to mind is Briords. If I could lock in '14 or '17 and just buy that each year I’d be very tempted. I enjoy the experience of that wine more than I enjoy any variation between that vintage and other years. For me there is a line of ripeness in Briords (and other muscadet) which creates a stark divide: leaner and I love the wine, rounder and I don’t like it at all. While I’d rather have the vintage variation amongst the racier years, I can also easily see a scenario where those vintages come 1 out of 5 or 1 out of 7, with the remainder being just too ripe. Beaujolais has also been worrying in recent years. Some of the roses that I enjoy are much the same. Easy enough to find alternatives in the riper years right now, but it would certainly suck to have, for instance, one vintage a decade that wasn’t over the top for my tastes.
Overall, I am finding the idea of embracing vintage variation becomes more difficult as climate change makes for an overall hotter and riper paradigm.
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I get the discussion about buying across most all vintages, but I have to admit I’ve become a bit of a skipper, but usually only one or two a decade (not unhappy that I skipped 2004 Burg, or 2009 in the Piedmont. Wish I had skipped 2006 in Chablis). I seem to have a particular sensitivity in chablis (which I love). A fat, flabby chablis is much like a raisiny Piedmont wine for me, and unfortunately there are more years with climate change that don’t quite make the grade. I can get fooled a little still with red burg (I thought 2009 was flat and too ripe), but I don’t feel like Chablis often fools me. If I’m not happy with the wine on release, I’m not often finding that 10 years later I have a gem.
I think with Chablis in particular, I would trade all the other vintages I have for 2014 if that was an option. Have found the 2014s to be so good especially the last year or two. Chablis in particular but really all WB
I can see that as an appealing option for some. It’s not something I would wish for, despite wanting to be heavier (but not exclusive) with years like 2014.
That’s probably right for me too. Maybe 75% 2014!!!
Butteaux is really good too…a little fleshier than 2017.
Thanks. I have that one as well.
I have the '18 Butteaux VV - fleshy but not as much raciness of the '17. Still a great QPR.
Yes, that’s what I meant when I said this was good for people who think they don’t like Chablis (but I can definitely drink myself with pleasure).