Wine reviews Storage

[oldwinenut]

Three times in the last 6 months I have seen reviews on Cellar Tracker which made me stop and open a bottle of a wine which was reviewed as if dead. The first was Lafon Rochet '95, the second Pavie Macquin '95 and yesterday Marziano Abbona Barbaresco '97. Each review made me question if the wine was still good and in each case I find just the opposite. The wine are still very much alive and maybe not even in their drinking window. Tonight I opened the Barbaresco. The cork was pristine and barely saturated. The wine, after decanting for about 1 hr, was extremely dark and the nose just oozed from the decanter and filled my kitchen with roses and tar. Like most Nebbilio based wines, as a teenager, it is just starting to come out of its shell and won't be in its optimal drinking window for years. What a beautiful wine. Everything one could ask for in a Barbaresco. I had the same experience with the two Bordeaux. My point is that today with the spread of internet sales, I believe that a lot of people buy wines long after release and have no idea, or never ask, about provenance. What a shame. People receive wines and drink them without ever understanding the necessity of KNOWING when and where the wines have been stored and shipped. Anyone else have this experience. This is why I buy wines from reputable retailers, shortly after release and cellar them.

[Houndsong]

Agreed. Allowance must also be made for unknown/unproven tasters. I see notes there all the time on Bdx < 10 years that say drink up or this wine won't improve. These are hardly credible unless the taster prefers tight, tannic, closed wines. I see tasters commenting that a four year old Bdx was "disappointing" and lacking "wow factor." I often check the tasters' other notes to see if they really have experience in Bdx and what they've said about other Bdx and especially wines I may have had.

On the flip side I will frequently discount a professional note (usually low score, short drinking window) if I see good CT scores closely grouped and suggesting a longer plateau. This usually only happens with unheralded crus bourgeois though.

[JonoB]

I agree, a lot of new drinkers, also don't know what closed wine is and assume it is rubbish. I don't think any wine, unless for academic purposes should be drunk when less than 8 years old.

I buy old wines as one offs, middle aged ones occasionally, and only buy in quantity just released and cellar them. Odd bottles I will take a risk on provenance to a degree. Expensive ones, I want to know what has been done to it for at least the last 10-20 years depending on the age... Why because after 10-15 years in bottle the wine will be more volatile than when in it's youth it will be saved and protected by the tannin and acid... At least that is what I think. Sometimes I also think that critics don't always give young wines enough benefit of the doubt.

[stefan]

Pavie Macquin '95 was called dead? Lucie and I drank a bottle last week; it was wonderful and will hold steady or even improve a bit for five or ten years at least.

[oldwinenut]

I used to buy a few old bottles here and there but since the internet has become so prevalent a source, I don't. Today it is more important than ever to buy futures so that you know the provenance of the wines which you own. I agree that a lot of tasters just don't know that you just have to wait for Bordeaux to come around. When I see young Bordeaux trashed as thin, watery or on the decline I now question if it was a bad bottle or even if the taster would know if it is a bad bottle. Sometimes you see that reviewers put some absurdly short drinking windows on wines based on these reviews. I think that this problem is two fold. Bad storage/shipping before people acquire wines and lack of understanding of how wine is meant to age. Yesterday I was speaking to a retailer who told me of one of his customers who buys very expensive wines, lives in the southern part of the country and demands that what he buys get shipped to him regardless of the temperature. Wonder what he will write as reviews of his wines?

[JonoB]

I tried 95 Pavie-Macquin late last year, and it was downright backward and in need of at least 10 years for my palate.

[stefan]

I gave ours four hours of air, Jonathan, after which it was certainly not backward. Caveat: Being a senior citizen, I keep my cellar at 60 - 62 F.

[JCNorthway]

I am pretty sure that improper storage of wines is a big contributor to this experience. My wine tasting club recently had a vertical tasting of Cos d'Estournel with 5 older vintages - 75, 78, 79, 82, 85 - plus the 2005. My impression, and that of most tasters, was that the older vintages all tasted more tired than they should have. It turns out that all the older vintages had been purchased at auction well after their release. Our conclusion was that they had not seen good storage conditions prior to their being purchased at auction.

I also think that taster experience plays a part in this. And I'm sure there are lots of folks out there drinking young Bordeaux wines that do not know what a closed wine is like. I remember in my early years of learning about wines, I drank some younger Bordeaux bottles that made me think they were going downhill. But those that I saved and drank 10 years later were very nice. Good, but costly, learning experience.

[Houndsong]

People should know better. Still I think it's human nature to think a $50 or $100+ Bdx at age four should give a similar drinking experience as a wine at that price point from Cali, Argentina, or Italy, and this is not going to be the case, unless maybe it's a real modern/new wave right banker.

[DavidG]

You've all hit on the two major variables that limit the usefulness of individual CT reviews for me: storage conditions and the experience/preferences of the taster. I am leery of looking at just one or two CT notes and coming to any conclusions about when to open a bottle unless I am familiar with the person posting the note. Same as calibrating my palate to a professional critic.

[JEP_62]

I agree, but I think the strength of CT is the vast number of tasting notes you can get for many wines. Even if I don't know the authors, if I see 5 to 10 people all saying a wine is in decline over the last 6 months, I take it as a sign I should pop one open and see for myself.

Same goes if I'm looking at a wine to purchase. If every one is raving about the fruit except 2 or 3 who talk about the alcohol heat, it's probably not a wine for me. If everyone is talking about it's structure and 2 or 3 call it fruitless and acidic, I'm probably a buyer.

Wines with only one or two notes, I usually ignore CT, unless I know the author.

Andy

[Blanquito]

I use CellarTracker, mostly for up-to-date status reports on old wines, but usually you can find an awful review for every good review. Maybe not quite a one-to-one trade off, but pretty often the case...

For non-Bordeaux Wine Lovers, I think classic claret is the hardest wine to taste... because it can take so long to come out from behind its wall of tannin. Nebbiolo can be pretty recalcitrant, but even there, it's not usually as inscrutable as Bordeaux can be...

I still remember my first "miracle in the bottle" experience-- I bought a case of the 1989 Meyney in the early '90's, found it terrific for a couple of years and then it went into a dead-mute-closed phase that lasted until 2004, when it blossomed into the single best cru bourgeois bottling in history. That was an educational experience about the evolution of fine claret.

[Houndsong]

Here's what I like about CT:

"A very pleasant wine, solid effort from [redacted]. I actually liked it, very good everyday drinking wine, although if you're looking for a lot complexity, this wine may not be for you. Dark, inky purple color with good finesse. Oak over the top, with cigar box, cedar and vanilla coffee notes. Blackcurrant and blueberry aromas need a little air to show and slight almond/nutty bouquet needs more time to develop. One dimensional and a little disjointed at first but eventually comes together. Medium to full-bodied with blackberry, licorice and lots of plum on the attack. Very nice and firm structure with almost harsh tannin and good acidity level. Lots of oak factor on the mid-palate. Medium finish, and tannin dominates, which masks other components and throws the finish a little off-balance. Overtime, there are nice dark fruit characters surfacing with a little vanilla and cedar, and again, the oak-monster screams loud in the aftertaste. Best after 2012. Needs a little more time to soften and integrate."

I suppose I might agree, if you're looking for a LOT of complexity, don't buy a wine that ONLY has "cigar box, cedar and vanilla coffee notes", "Blackcurrant and blueberry aromas", "slight almond/nutty bouquet", is "Medium to full-bodied with blackberry, licorice and lots of plum on the attack. Very nice and firm structure with almost harsh tannin and good acidity level. Lots of oak factor on the mid-palate. Medium finish, and tannin dominates, which masks other components"

Emphasis mine.

[Blanquito]

Yes, entertainment CT provides (spoken in my best Yoda cadence)...

[stefan]

Hound, you failed to note that the guy was saving space by reviewing five wines at a time.

[DavidG]

All good points above. I tend to have confidence in the CT community opinion when there is consensus and when I see a note from someone I know. While it is true that you can often find opposite reviews, often they come in runs which seem to be related either to: a) how the wine is developing, or b) a tendency for users to read the most recent reviews and mimic them to some degree. I haven't figured out which process is dominant yet, but I do find CT a lot of fun. I can use it to reinforce/justify almost any position I am inclined to take about almost any wine. Whether it's an open/don't open or a like/dislike opinion. And though I poke fun at some of the community TNs, CT remains hands-down slam-dunk great for cellar mgt, no reservations there.

[Houndsong]

One thing I find interesting is the fairly close correlation between a well-publicized professional score and the CT scores. Is it because the critic, whomever it may be, is spot on (and so are the numerous CT tasters), or is it something else?

[Ramon_NYC]

Correlation between the scores exist because they have "calibrated" their own scores with the professional's. I see that everywhere, even here in our own forum.

[JonoB]

Yes, entertainment CT provides (spoken in my best Yoda cadence)...

I think it would be the yes, after the provides, perhaps as a quasi-rhetorical question. At which point Luke uses the force to tell us exactly what CT users are really thinking and how much they really know about wine.

[DavidG]

Help me fill in the blanks

Luke Skywalker = Jim How
Darth Vader = Robert Parker
Han Solo = ?
Princess Leia = ?
Chewbacca = ?
Obi-Wan Kenobi = ?
Yoda = ?
Lando Calrissian = ?
Jabba the Hutt = ?

[Blanquito]

Yoda = Houndsong