New WA - long retrospective on the 96 Medocs

[AKR]

So there is tons of Bordeaux stuff in the new WA, I think all from Neil Martin.

(It all got uploaded today I think)

In addition to lots of notes on 2012, 2013, 2014 there seems to be a 20 year reprise of the 1996 Medocs.

Neil raves about them, in the main.

I have only skimmed it but it looks to be good reading for tonite.

Posted is the first snippet, hopefully not violating "Fair Use"

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Neal Martin
28th Oct 2016 | The Wine Advocate

They say that time flows faster after the vintage that marks your entry into wine, either as a keen amateur or a professional. Preceding years are cloaked in ancient history, compartmentalized into a distant bygone era simply because you enjoyed no direct involvement, interaction or possibly even interest. On the other hand, vintages that follow your entry are entwined with your life: seasons that you tracked, witnessed and consumed first-hand. Time accelerated after that pivotal year. The paradox is that they all feel like yesterday. Marriage is the same.

In my case, 1996 marks the year of this temporal shift. My life never intersected with the 1995s.

Wine and I? We were like trains running down parallel tracks in blissful ignorance until the tracks fatefully converged in 1996.

I vividly recall tasting those wines just after bottling, privileged to taste numerous classified growths among the glitterati of wine writers, the opening chapter of a vinous career. It seems incomprehensible that this was two decades ago, when Bill Clinton was in the White House, Charles and Di were officially divorced, Dolly the sheep was being cloned, The Spice Girls "Wannabe," DVDs were launched in Japan and Ebay appeared on the nascent Internet.

Looking back at 1996 within the context of the nineties, along with 1995 it forms one-half of the central pillars that prop up the decade’s reputation. It is flanked by mediocrity that stretches to the 1988-1990 triumvirate on one side and the millennial coastline on the other. Given the significance of the vintage pertinent to my own career and its reputation, it seems an opportune moment to revisit some of its most famous wines. The Wine Advocate has a long tradition of reappraising Bordeaux after a decade, but why not after 20 years or even 30 years?

I focused on the Left Bank since that is where the 1996s prospered (see growing season report below). Readers should note that nearly all the bottles were tasted in Bordeaux at the respective properties, granted a more time consuming task and yet allowing me to gain insight into the wines speaking to those who might have made them. Some were delivered to a negoçiant in Bordeaux and just a couple from my own stash.

[JonathanP]

The first paragraph is oh so true about many, if not all, things in life.

[stefan]

Who the hell cares? He says nothing about wine.

[JimHow]

Yeah, I thought it was kind of a sophomoric little piece, doesn't say anything.

[Rudi Finkler]

At least, it shows that he is proud to be a member of the glitterati of whatever...

[AlohaArtakaHoundsong]

Verbose. I'm an American, damnit. Just show me the scores.

[AKR]

Who the hell cares? He says nothing about wine.

I only snipped his opening lines.

There's a good chunk of TN in there, and seemingly new/updated scores. I have not read them yet because of the site shittiness. To wit:

The new "improved" WA site really blows for reviewing tasting notes in bulk.

One has to literally click 4 times to get to the point to read the notes and then each note requires two more clicks.

So looking at Neils survey of the 2014 cru bourgoise (a very welcome review, although I don't think our palates line up) takes something like 4clicks to get to the point+175 clicks to open + 175 clicks to close. Its nuts, one of the worst user interfaces imaginable. It is basically impossible to do on a Kindle/iPad kind of viewer. One has to shift to a computer, which also sucks if one has a thumbpad instead of a mouse.

Their old site was nothing like that. One could read the actual notes rather easily.

And on top of it the site seems to be really really slow.