What wine were you most wrong about?

WINE TALK
21

This.

22

Wrong about Bordeaux - letting the relatively strong anti-Bordeaux fever of this forum (perhaps fueled by the departures from eRP/Squires forum, which was obviously Bordeaux-centric) influence me away from it. I enjoyed Bordeaux early on, then went astray for a while, avoiding it as much as I could, but I find it really hits a sweet spot for me, balancing the rustic quality with substantive grip and fruit - the same reasons I like Barolo and Northern Rhone. I never really got the Burgundy bug, but when I diverted from Bordeaux that’s what I bought…I’m just headed back to Bordeaux!

23

While I never really had misgivings about Marcarini, I started getting into B&B’s around the time that Scavino was transcendent (the 89-90 vintages). I thought this is how nebbiolo was supposed to taste. Man, was I wrong and those wines never aged well, like badly applied makeup on someone who was never pretty and would have been more beautiful had they left their face alone.

24

Nothing wrong with Bordeaux, Todd. Only I wish I had the horse sense (well, money too) to have bought more late-80’s and mid 90’s vintages when I could have cheaply.

25

Well, most are still cheaper than current releases [pwn.gif]

26

I have been really surprised to see some Red Burgs integrate their oak even when it was quite problematic in their youth. Of course this doesn’t always happen but I have been quite wrong about some.

27

You just need to come to more BerserkerFests. This is the perfect place to share a 3L (or in Leo’s case, a 12L)! [berserker.gif]

28

I never saw the price increases that occurred in 2003-2005 on older (and some younger) Champagnes coming. Just about everything post 1959 in Champagne was available for under $400 back then with many vintage wines going back to the 1970s being no more expensive than current releases. Looking back, the prices back then are now silly, but almost no one thought it at the time. 1964 late disgorged DP for $275, 1973 DP Oeno for $250, 1976 Salon and Krug for $290, 1971 Krug Collection for $350, 1988 Krug Clos du Mesnil for $250, Just about any 1970s or later grower Champagnes was under $50- the list goes on and on. Heck Selosse’s wines topped out around $60. I should have bought more rather than assuming it would always be this way.

29

Just because you can’t taste the plague in 1983 doesn’t mean it isn’t there.

30

I was only wrong once and that was when I thought I was wrong about a wine.

31

[rofl.gif] touche!!

If a tree falls in the forest…and no one hears it… blahblah


has anyone posting actually experienced what they are sure is/was “rot” in a 1983 red? I’m not sure I’ve ever even met any such person…certainly no winery I’ve ever visited regularly believes that their '83s were affected…and have often sought to prove it to me by opening one…

32

Zinfandel. I initially thought it shallow and countrified. Then after I’d had been following wine perhaps half a dozen years tasted Geyserville and Joseph Swann; eyes opened. For more than twenty years now a partisan of this national treasure.

33

Certainly not me, but then again I have only had a handful.

34

[shock.gif]

35

I thought some 1983 Ponsots had rot problems when I tasted them upon arrival.
Those and some others kind of prejudiced me against the vintage so I thought it wise to back fill for a couple of years until the 1985s came out. There was an abundance of great old Burgundy to be had so I figured why take a chance?
And boy, did I splurge on those luscious 1985s!!! [wow.gif]

TTT

36

I was visiting Burgundy in '83, and I remember looking at vineyards with Dominique Lafon, who was working for Becky Wasserman at the time; he did not look happy. There was a lot of rot in that vintage. The premature browning is a sign of that, the botrytis produces laccase which changes the color of the wine. There may be some good examples out there, but I’ve tasted a lot of bad wine from that vintage.

37

I was most wrong about orange wine. I was entirely sceptical until I tasted a really good one and really thought about it. (There are too many bad ones, though.)

38

I have little experience with the wines, but I was in Burgundy and Champagne the third week of September in 1983 and it rained the whole time. Not auspicious.

39

There is no question that there was a decent amount of rot in the vineyards in that vintage. The color has always been misleading, almost irrelevant, though it is not easy to get beyond.

Many people thought they had “bad” wines in 1983, me included. I think that was mainly a result of their taking a full 25 years to show how good they were…drinking them much earlier was not fair to them. But, I’ve never experience, and don’t know anyone who has experienced, actual “rot” in the red wines.

Rot is pretty specific in a wine. Maybe it’s a Darwinian thing, where the “fittest” wines have survived for our tasting, but the vintage, to me, for the last 6-7 years is a very consistently terrific vintage…I haven’t even experienced a “bad” wine, though some are a bit rustic, as was more the norm with the domaine practices that existed then.

If you actually tasted “rot” in any wines…can you say which ones/which domaines…?

We got married in 1983 and visited Burgundy as part of our honeymoon…essentially clueless of it charms, though that is why we spent a few days there…and in Alsace. Since then, we have tasted many 1983s at various domaines we’ve visited, as when given a chance, we ask for that vintage…and…at no domaine have we ever experienced rot, per se. (Though at Ampeau, they had a bizzare problem with sediment being in suspension in the Volnay Santenots and one other wine, rendering them largely unsellable, despite their great fruit and long finishes.)

This all still leads me to believe it’s “urban myth”.

I’d be happy to hear from someone who actually experienced, ie, tasted rot in 1983 reds…as most people who claim that it exists , when pressed, cannot point to any such wines…or domaines. Clearly, the weather was conducive to rot in the vineyards, particularly in Gevrey, as Jasper Morris writes about the vintage. Learn About Wine: 1983 Red Burgundy | Vintages | Berry Bros. & Rudd. Hard and tannic wines early on, for sure…which is when most people had their “bad” ones. But, even he mentions no rot in the wines, just in the vineyards. He also opines that the reason the colors faded early is not clear, which is my understanding after asking many many winemakers. (And, I have experienced just what he has with Patrice Rion’s Clos Vougeot from 1983…surly and tannic forever; now a beauty; I’m holding my last two bottles, as they have only recently gotten “there”, IMO).
many wines lost their colour, leaving it in sediment at the bottom of the bottle – unstable anthocyanins, caused by either the drought, hail or rot. Wines which retained their colour still showed in their early years as hard, surly and with aggressive tannins.

40

I think orange wines are just like other wines in that respect. Some are outstanding, some are good, quite a number are average or bad. Sometimes, though, I have the impression that a whole lot of fledgling winemakers everywhere jumped on this bandwagon without ever giving themselves enough time to really learn to make any kind of wine at all, orange or not. :slight_smile: