Marshall - first off I wasn’t trying to “interrogate,” despite what Jonathan said. But so many times people write about style changes and the wines won’t age like they used to with no additional context of what they think has actually changed. You still haven’t. You have tasted the wines over a long period. What do you think is different? Could it perhaps be chalked up to cleaner cellars and perhaps climate change? I am interested in a fuller discussion of your impressions, rather than just a one off comment. That’s all.
Not sure what else I can say that hasn’t been said above by myself and others. The wines are darker, jammier, more polished and new-world in style, and while not as structured, seem heavier, more alcoholic and less balanced. I don’t think it’s just cleaner cellars, but an intentional change in approach by Ravier and the family to make a different style of wine. I don’t have harvest data for the wines, but my guess is that they are picking at higher ripeness and focusing on keeping more fruit in the wines. According to KLWM, the current wines are destemmed and aged for 18-20 months, and while I can’t cite any sources, I seem to remember that the older wines were only partially destemmed and were left for closer to 3 years in foudre.
Like Marshall and Vincent, I also think the style changed in addition to simply cleaning up the cooperage. My own impression is probably closer to Vincent’s, I wouldn’t call them jammy although they are darker and somewhat glossier, and think Ravier may try to manage/reduce the tannins as Vincent suggested. According to Kermit in Adventures on the Wine Route, Tempier has always been 100% destemmed. I think the time in foudre depended on the vintage, the 1971 supposedly took four years to complete fermentation and most of that time was in foudre. They used to start the fermentation in concrete or stainless, but rack to foudres after 6-10 days regardless of the state of the fermentation. The other notable item from Kermit’s book is that they never did SO2 additions, not sure if that’s still true (I would guess it is not).
-Al
Wow, no SO2 when the wines were aged in old foudres? That’s hard to imagine.
To return to the original theme, a friend brought an '01 Pibarnon to dinner last night. It was popped and poured, though we decanted half the bottle after a few minutes. The wine was wonderful, and surprisingly young. Comparing back and forth, the decanted half of the bottle was a little more open. If I had another bottle, I’d decant the whole thing an hour or so ahead. No sign of fading in the glass, even after several hours open.
That wine has at least a decade until it peaks, I think.
I wonder how much of an improvement the scrubbed-up operation (photo shown taken in Feb. 2020) was over the old days?
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Bandol Tempier La Tourtine 1997, tasted a week ago. Opened 4 h in advance, decanted for 20 min:
dark ruby red core, orange-red rim, animalic nose of sour cherries, rose hips, wet leather … and a hint of kind of brett, but integrated after 5 min, palate fully mature, remains of sweet tannins, no dryness, apropriate acidity, still good grip, mouthfilling and very satisfying - helt its own against a good 1990 Bx … worth 93 (conservative) points for me - drank with Styrian fried chicken …
Isn’t this the same as simply ‘fried chicken’?
I don’ t know …skin peeled off and
maybe a different panade …
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Basic: 10 - 25 years.
Vineyards: 15 - 35 years.
Dan Kravitz
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The 17 pour lulu was drinking spectacularly last night.
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Posted in Offlines. Doing a Tempier tasting in NYC this November if any of you are around and still fans!
Interesting to see reports of the 90s being dead. Has not been my experience.