Acronyms and greeeeeenies aside - big thanks because this thread has forced me to see what 2000s I still have which has been a nice surprise. I need to find a PLB to see what’s happened to it since release which is the last time I sampled one. Pontet-Canet (P-C) and Smith Haut Lafite (SHL) must be found!
Wait, is it pronounced “Pee Ell Ell”?!? I’ve always gone “PLLLLLLLLL”, extra ululation for a bigger pour.
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Inspired by this thread, I drank a 2000 Leoville Barton. I found it quite tasty, much more relaxed than I was expecting. As the note indicates, I found a recent 2000 Troplong Mondot less pleasant than Otto did; the tannins were utterly impenetrable and made for a trying experience. The Leoville Barton was much more pleasant all together.
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2000 Château Léoville Barton - France, Bordeaux, Médoc, St. Julien (12/11/2020)
Decanted two hours. I tried a small pour upon opening, and it was, unsurprisingly, tight and quite green. After two hours, it had fleshed out, showing sweet blackberry with classic notes of menthol, tobacco and forest floor lingering into a long, dry finish. Medium-bodied, layered, with a firm structure married to a relaxed, yet energetic mouthfeel. It feels quite proper and well put together. It has perhaps more fruit weight and structure than one might expect in a 20 year old Bordeaux, but I didn’t get the sense of sheer size and extraction that critics marked early, and the tannins seemed benign compared to the 2000 Troplong Mondot I had a few months ago.
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Popped a 2000 Clos du Marquis tonight, and a note for a recent Louviere. Both excellent at their respective price points.
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2000 Clos du Marquis - France, Bordeaux, Médoc, St. Julien (12/11/2020)
Pristine cork. Nose - fresh flowers, dry dirt, sour cherries and cigar. Palate shows the full breadth of flavors one would expect from a classic st Julien: rich red and black berries, stone, orange peel, leather, and freshly sharpened pencil. While no one would mistake this for LLC, the frame is surprisingly muscular, with bright acid, teeth coating tannins, good textural depth, and a sappy finish. At a youthful peak, not sure it will get better, but will surely last another 10+ years. (93 pts.) -
2000 Château La Louvière - France, Bordeaux, Graves, Pessac-Léognan (10/18/2020)
Perfect cork. This has a knockout nose - Pessac through and through. On the palate, it’s a bit more four square and not quite as head-turning, but is still classic old school left-bank. Fruit is gently faded, with tertiary notes of savory marinade (soy, Worcestershire), iodine, leather and a bit of scorched earth which mellows after 3 hours in the decanter. Not as complete as the 1990, but still very charming. Seems unlikely to improve, but also not in danger of fading anytime soon. (90 pts.)
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I must live among the type of folks who write the dictionary:
That’s one vote for correct usage (that’s gotta sting, Mrs. Grundy) and one vote for common colloquialism, if you’re keeping score.
Isn’t Webster the one that has allowed irregardless? Shudder.
This.
I preferred how the other dictionary put it: While observing this distinction has some virtue in precision, it may be lost on many people, for whom the term acronym refers to both kinds of abbreviations.
Wrong therefore to call is a colloquialism or at least not so noted by the two dictionaries. Right that it is now an alternative meaning. So the Mrs. Grundy error was mine. As your second sorce notes, however, it is a loss of precision and therefore an unfortunate drift of usage. I will continue to use the first meaning.
And there I was wondering if 2000 was ready yet and when to open…
This grammatical discussion has a very, shall we say, disorderly feel. Bravo!
And thanks for the great notes Otto
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Well, someone has to stand up and be counted as loyal opposition on this issue, and it looks like that’s down to me. For my tastes, “leaving a little greenness in a wine” may make it “more interesting” in the way that plopping some bits of week-old roadkill in your breakfast porridge would make it “more interesting.” “A little greenness” in a wine is another way to say “mistake,” in my view.
Which makes me incredibly difficult to please, I know (just ask my wife). I am not a fan of high alcohol, sweet-fruit-driven wines either. So the band of “correct” ripeness for me is narrow indeed, which explains why the number of bdx producers I even consider buying these days is dramatically falling. Oh well.
What surprises me most about this thread is the proposition implicit in the thread title – that folks are concerned that the 2000s are threatening to go over the hill. This is weird to me. I haven’t drunk many of mine, but I would say that they are just now entering their prime window. Some – even some “minor” wines like Haut Bages Liberal are still a little immature. And some (looking at you Montrose and LLC – abbreviation, not acronym) are a long way away from maturity.
Neal,
I am in your boat. I have no clue why someone loves greenness in a wine even stating it is better to have some. And 2000 is a so called classic vintage where all the better wines will have a long live when well stored. My 2000 left bank Grands Crus are all still young. I see it as you.
As someone who is both sensitive to green flavors and often finds them unpleasant, I will say it is difficult to find good, particularly left bank cabernet-driven, Bordeaux that doesn’t have at least a little green. If you read my note on the 2000 Leoville Barton earlier in this thread, you will see that I picked up quite a bit of green (menthol, tobacco, forest floor; although after having looked up “menthol,” it seems that the menthol compound from mint has no flavor or odor, so I really meant “mint.” I wouldn’t want John Morris making fun of me, would I?)
Merriam-Webster claims the alternative meaning, American Heritage still has it as a colloquialism. There is logic behind the colloquial usage. “Initialism” just didn’t take. It failed to pass the usage test, from which there is no appeal. “Abbreviation” is imprecise as many abbreviations are neither acronyms nor initialisms. Meanwhile, there are precious few circumstances in which there is an actual need to express the difference in meaning between an acronym and an initialism.
Thank you for sending me your Sociando Mallet cache a few years ago! Your dislike for a little green was to my advantage for sure.
We all have our tastes, and they are what they are. I like many expressions of green in my Cabs and Cab-based wines. I think many of you know I love Loire Cab Franc, which often comes across as herbaceous or show distinct bell pepper. I love classic old school Napa Cabs with mint/eucalpytus notes, think Heitz. Or Togni with its bell pepper notes. Had a 1971 Chilean Cab served blind to me at Bern’s this year, It had lovely notes of green in it. Bordeaux like Sociando, BAMA, Magdelaine, are wines I chase for that very reason. They are ripe for my palate, perhaps underripe for others, and show lovely traces of green, which can manifest as herbs, herbaceousness, mint, bell pepper, etc. I do not like when it ventures into asparagus. Yuk.
And unlike Neal, I like roadkill and game in my wine! Loaded up on 2017 Beaucastel for its healthy Mourvedre cut.
I’m going with Keith, but on different grounds. Granting that it is a made-up term, neither the etymology nor the original use distinguished between “initialism” and “acronyms,” e.g., FBI and NATO. The oldest entry in an older edition of the Oxford English Dictionary cited “DDT” as an acronym. “Initialism” in the sense of an abbreviation like “FBI” was not used until later. On etymological grounds, Keith’s “PLL” has more right to be called an acronym than common examples such as sonar or radar, which are really clippings, analogous to “Stasi” or “Gestapo.”
After reading this thread I opened a 2000 Brane Cantenac last evening. Perfect fill, perfect cork. Nice aromas but not giving any flamboyant Margaux character-somewhat restrained floral, cherry, earthy-very nice. No browning at the edge yet, throwing just a little bit of sediment. Medium weight, medium length…tannins pretty much resolved. Typical Margaux red fruits on the palate…about an hour in a picked up a streak of coolness, mint. I don’t seem to find this in other notes, but it was there. Some notes mention some greenness, but I didn’t get that, but maybe that’s just me. Really nice wine-not going downhill any time soon. No need to rush to open them. I’ve got 1 left.
Neal, what do you think of ‘85 Lynch Bages? To me, that wine has an almost perfect streak of green, needs a good decant. Similarly (though lesser) the ‘90 PFLFL is now a beautiful wine after spending most of its life “too green”.
Don’t remember.
I will say that there is a continuum here; “mint” isn’t really green to me, or at least objectionable if in check. Asparagus and bell pepper are right out. I prefer my tobacco cured, thank you very much.
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On colloquialism, I do not know how Keith comes to the conclusion that the American Heritage claims it to be a colloquialism, Neither does the definition he cites use the term (as dictionaries typically do to describe the status of a definition) nor does its definition fit the meaning. The American Heritage entry under colloquialism offers no examples, but their definition, not to my mind a precise one, specifies that it describes conversational speech or writing meant to imitate that.hardly, descriptive of its definition of acronym as a usage synonym for initialism. The Mirriam Webster does offer an example and it makes the distinction clearer:
a colloquial expression “Chicken out” is a colloquialism for “to lose one’s nerve.” -
The contemporary online OED does accept acronym as a synonym for initialism. But I find Crikey’s claim that older editions show initialism to be a newer usage to be odd. First, the word acronym does not even show up in the OED until the 1982 edition. The 1933 does not have it. The 1982 edition defines the alternative use of the word as initialism and specifies that it is an American usage. Meanwhile, the word initialism goes back to the 19th century. Again, in the 1933 edition, the DDT entry is listed as D.D.T. and it is not described as an acronym, nor could it have been. In other words, acronym originated to describe words made up of initial letters, evidently around 1940, although it quickly became synonymous with initialism in the U.S. Etymology is not meaning, however. Keith’s usage has been correct for 70 years, in this country at least, to judge from the OED. For what its worth, the OED’s definition of colloquialism does not support Keith’s claim either. Meaning 1 refers to it as a style, but the examples indicate that the “style” is always specialized and, in some sense, less than formal. Meaning 2 makes the conversational element clear.