I don’t pretend to be sophisticated enough on this topic to know the cause or the solution. But empirically, it does seem that Diam makes a big difference. Jadot, for instance, was one of the worst affected, and now I don’t know if I’ve read about a single premoxed Jadot under Diam. Same with Fevre. Is this anecdotal? Sure. Could Jadot and Fevre see problems down the line? I suppose so. But for now, Diam seems like perhaps the best option for combating premox. So I’m 100% on board.
I had just the 2015 Monthélie Les Duresses. I was quite surprised to see the 30 used for this. Hopefully they’ve converted to use this across all their wines. Cheers to the Montrachet when it’s ready!
No, the general sense now is that something/many things changed (less lees stirring, less sulphur, etc.) which made the wines more susceptible to premox. The natural variability of cork then took over with the wines under corks that allowed greater oxygen ingress failing and the ones under corks allowing lesser oxygen ingress remaining fine thus explaining why some bottles in a case fail and others don’t. What the Diam does is eliminate the variability of the second factor without addressing the first. Which seems to work, at least anecdotally.
For example, if the “something” is, at least in part less sulphur, and and there are independent reasons why it would be better to make wines with less sulphur (I am not saying there is or is not, but a lot of people believe there is), then it actually would be a big deal if finishing a wine with DIAM allows one to make wine with less sulphur without reducing agability. Similarly, if lees stirring makes a wine taste better younger or whatever, and DIAM reduces or eliminates the harmful effect of this on aging of the wine, so much the better.
Currently drinking a 2016 Marc Colin Chassange-Montrachet Les Caillerets that was bottled under DIAM30. The closure is solid as a rock and was significantly more difficult to get out of bottle than a regular cork. The wine is drinking very well - there is some slight reduction that seems to be blowing off. The palate is terrifc. If it helps reduce premature oxidation, which anecdotally it seems to, I’m all for more producers using DIAM closures.
The O2 transfer rate for the Diam 30 is very, very low. The Diam 10 evolves a bit slower, and much, much, much more consistently than a natural cork. I used the Diam 30 in one wine, and for our style it’s a bit slow to evolve, although I like the results after 7 years. I currently use a combination of Diam 5(AVA based wines) and Diam 10(vineyard based wines) and would never consider a return to natural corks.
If your pH is creeping up over the years, and it’s my belief this is the case and you have lower sulfur levels then using a consistent product with a low oxygen transfer makes a ton of sense. If you’re also doing batonnage for texture, then unless you have a very low pH wine, it seems like a very dense closure would start to be almost mandatory for the wine to age.
I like your commentary about independent reasons for using less sulfur. At this point the belief that there is reason to use less sulfur is making the exploration of minimizing sulfur use desirable. One wonders when prevention of over the hill $50-$500 bottles of wine will become an independent reason for using more sulfur.
Yes, they are! Unless the producer specifies otherwise. There’s also a DIAM “Grand Cru”, which is AFAIK identical with DIAM 30.
I think DIAM made a bit of a mistake in going with 5, 10 and 30 as the names, as it creates the perception of a “use by date”. In fact, it’s mostly about different OTRs, and lower OTRs may be a better choice for a producer who makes very reductive wines.
But corks are part of the problem. It’s pretty clear that several necessary conditions that cause white Burgundies to oxidize sooner than they had in the past, though none alone explains the problem of the last 25 years:
(1) changes in winemaking (less sulfur, riper/lower pH fruit, more gentle pressing) and
(2) the variability in oxygen transmission of natural corks.
There was always variability in the aging of older wines under cork (red and white). Some bottles in a case might be more advanced than others because of differences in how good the seal is of the cork. The changes in winemaking in Burgundy and other regions (premox was also a problem in the Loire) simply made the wines more vulnerable to less secure corks.
Diam or other synthetic closures will help slow oxidation because they are consistently better seals than the least perfect natural corks. So, in that sense, they may solve the problem. But it shouldn’t stop the search for an explanation of why the wines became so much more vulnerable.
Red wines are much less vulnerable because the skins and other solids act as natural anti-oxidants.
Yes, exactly. Even if DIAM isn’t the perfect solution, I’d much rather have a partial solution than none at all. We shouldn’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Until bottles with DIAM show premox in significant numbers, this is good.
As another data point, a Dancer 18 Chassagne village opened on Sunday was under DIAM 10.
It’s on the cork. It’s great branding from DIAM - what’s funny is that having read this thread before, once I opened this wine and saw the DIAM30, I thought to myself “oh it’s great that Marc Colin really wants to protect his premier crus and is buying the DIAM30 vs. the 5 and 10 even”. This is despite the fact both that, I have no clue if there is a price difference (I would assume there is) or, more importantly as William points out, if a DIAM30 is really the best option as it’s probably not for more reductive producers even if they don’t care about a price difference.
These were some of my larger points. Are the newer techniques better? Why not go back to what was working prior to premox and are those not experiencing it seeing other issues that need to be addressed?
Jumping on the synthetic enclosure horse always brings up the debate in my mind between preservation and transformation. I’m completely sold on artificial enclosures preserving wine better than cork. I’ve seen the photos. I just don’t care. That’s fine for wines that are meant to be drank within a year or three. What I am interested in is how the wines transform and become what I really like. Diam might have that answer but it seems way too soon to tell.
I keep wondering why methods are not being rolled back and reevaluated using the enclosure as a fallback versus hoping the enclosures are the real solution. The ‘why’ premox is happening should be the important thing. Not the fix that seems to hide the problem right now.
Way too early to tell? DIAM has been used now for some wineries for over double digit years. Have you tasted any wines that are 10 years old or more that are finished with DIAM? If so, how did they taste? Did the wines transform and become what you really like. Please post tasting notes. If you have not tasted wines finished with DIAM that are 8-12 years old or so, forgive me if I trust better the tasting notes from the people who have and really like the wines they have tasted more than the theoretical concerns of people who have no tasting notes. For an example of such notes (and search under Don’s annual tastings for many, many more) 2011 White Burgundy Vintage Assessment Dinners – Night Two – March 14, 2019 at Drago Centro - WINE TALK - WineBerserkers where wines finished with DIAM did very well in blind tastings.
It is fine to have these types of concerns about a new type of “cork” when wines are young, but after some point we need to see your evidence.
From what I understand, Diam was created to eliminate cork taint, not premox (which just happens to be a pleasant by-product of the corks’ consistency). For those asking for more data, it may not be as difinitive or complete in regards to premox, given the intended purpose.
I will say that Cris’s point is an interesting one - and one that will continually be ‘debated’ - the concept of ‘preservation’ vs ‘transformation’.
There are many that believe that wines bottled with anything other than natural corks will never ‘transform’ the way that they do under natural cork. They will continue to point to the fact that there are not enough examples of wines bottled under other closures that ‘prove’ that wines do transform the way they do under natural cork. They will continue to say ‘show me the research’ that they ‘transform’ rather than just ‘preserve’.
I do believe at this point, there are enough ‘examples’ of wines under other closures producing wines that do ‘transform’ rather than just ‘preserve’. Yes, some of the tasting comments about these wines may lead some to believe that this is not the case - for instance, when many open a bottle that has been under screw cap for 10 plus years, they may note a ‘freshness’ in the wine that makes one believe it is ‘stuck in place’. Perhaps that’s because they are simply ‘surprised’ at how well a wine can age under screw cap and that it’s ‘unexpected’ that the wine is neither reductive nor completely shot? And the same can be said about wines under DIAM.
I continue to run into folks who believe that wines under screw cap do not breathe, even though there is so much out there to show that they do, including the use of different liners for different types of wines. But some people just do not want to listen, nor do they have a desire ‘to change’ - and to me, that is sad but there is nothing that can be done with these folks.
I do believe that the premox battle will go on for some time, but there is no doubt in my mind that the variability of natural corks has something to do with the seemingly ‘random’ number of premox bottles that there are. I will agree that it also probably has to do with changes in winemaking techniques, but my guess is that many of these are now ‘standard practice’ with no desire to go backwards.
I’m hopeful some folks will pull their heads out of the sand to realize that ‘the tried and tested’ way is not necessarily the ‘best’ way in all cases . . .
