Ch. d'Yquem...Is It Really A Great Wine????

So...it is pretty much a given that for a wine to be characterized as "great" it must:
1. Show its individual terroir where it was grown.
2. Show the varietal character of the grape from which it was made.

To whit:
1. Terroir: RedBurg afficianados argue, ad naseaum, the subtle differences in the terroir of Richebourg and Romanee-Conti.
I was reading PaulGregutt's 2'nd edition (BTW, an outstanding read it is) and he trots out the standard shibboleth that when you allow
the grapes to become very ripe, 15%-16%+ potential alcohol, that that is the death knell for any wine to display terroir. (Is that known truth
really the "truth"?? I've had plenty of Lodi Zin and Syrah at 16% that shows the classic earthy/mushroomy Lodi terroir). I've had plenty of
passitos de Pantelleria that taste like nothing but super-ripe grapes and have never/ever been able to detect even the slightest hint
of their volcanic soils...their terroir.
So...any wine made from very ripe grapes cannot possibly display terroir we are repeatedly told.
2. Varietal character: We are also repeatedly scolded by the authorities that if a wine does not taste like the grape from which it is made,
or blended, it cannot possibly be good. This is why StaRitaHills Pinots will never be regarded as a "great" PinotNoir....they all have such long hang times
and are all harvested at such high sugar levels that they taste like Syrahs. This is why a Peay or a Dehlinger or a Radio-Coteau Syrah will never be regarded
as a "great" Syrah....they are delicate & elegant and taste like a Syrah made by a Pinot producer. So....any wine that does not show varietal typicity
can never have any hopes for greatness we are told.
3. Botrytis: I have long maintained that high levels of botrytis obliterate varietal character in those wines. Any number of times, I've tried Navarro
BA & TBA GWTs and Rieslings, side by side, and get nothing but that peachy/apricotty botrytis character. I defy anybody to taste these two TBAs side by
side and reliably identify which is GWT and which is Riesling. And if you can't get that perfumed/lychee varietal character in GWT...then something is the matter.
I've tasted plenty of Sauternes over the yrs and I've never once got that green-olive/figgy character of Semillon or that herbal/cat-pee character of SauvBlanc
in any of those wines...just that peachy/apricotty character of botrytis and often that caramel/buterscotch of new oak.

So....given these three "truths"...how the heck can anyone possibly characterize Ch.d'Yquem as a "great" wine??? You never hear anyone arguing the nuances
of the terroir in Ch.d'Yquem vs. the terroir in Climens or Suduiraut. You can't possibly identify any varietal SauvBlanc or Semillon character in d'Yquem.
So....when we call d'Yquem a "great" wine, are we really just cutting it a lot of slack because we have been assured by the "authorities", be they
Monktown attourneys or some pompous twit of a British writer, that it is "great". Or is Ch.d'Yquem really a "great" wine even though it violates the above truths.

Curious minds want to know. [pot-stirring/rabble-rousing/trouble-making/authority-questioning.gif]

Tom

Congrats, Tom. There's an inordinate amount of bs and mis-direction and outright contentiousness in your post (which, after all, was your intent.)

Don't have time right now, alas and alack, for a long response (and I'm so good at long responses too). So I'll just say Yes to your query, and add

1. Balderdash. Since when does the ripeness of a grape totally eliminate terroir?

2. Balderdash and a rafter of assumptions of assertions. Bucket doesn't hold water and is oh so arguably arguable.

3. Okay, at least there's something there in this one. At least debatable.

Hopefully you'll get some good outraged response to this; bout time we had some winegeek stretching around here.

time to muck out the stalls...

One taste and you will be able to answer your own question, Tom.

Watching this one unfold .....

Great troll, Tom (is it Friday already?). FWIW, I'm with you on the botrytis question: to me, botrytis trumps all when it comes to character. While I'm not a huge fan of sweet wines in general, I far prefer Riesling Auslese to BA or TBA because it tastes like Riesling to me. Regarding your other two points: are you sure that you've set up enough strawmen there?

Mark Lipton

One taste and you will be able to answer your own question, Tom.

What Sam said! Furthermore, we're talking about a chateau with a reputation established over 300 years ago, which produces one of the worlds most long-lived wines. That would seem to be evidence of greatness.

In response to 1, is not the terroir and microclimate also reflected in what the estate can achieve in quality and depth? Even working extra-hard and producing a super-cuvee doesn't generally allow the other Sauternes estates to acheive d'Yquem-like heights. And in response to 3, the reputation of d'Yquem was already established before the use of botrytis was introduced to Sauternes.

And of course, those "truths" are generalizations - tendancies, not rules. It isn't the ruling of some authority or other that makes a wine great.

Hell, I've never been convinced exactly what the definition of terroir is.? I've heard so many different descriptions that when I hear the word I just wince and try not to lose my train of thought. The rest of your inquiry, I'll leave the answer to the same people who figured out how many angels on the head of a pin?

it is pretty much a given//the standard shibboleth// we are repeatedly told //We are also repeatedly scolded by the authorities//never be regarded// we are told//given these three "truths"//we have been assured by the "authorities",// the above truths.

Hell, I've never been convinced exactly what the definition of terroir is.? I've heard so many different descriptions that when I hear the word I just wince and try not to lose my train of thought. The rest of your inquiry, I'll leave the answer to the same people who figured out how many angels on the head of a pin?

Well....that be the problem, Lou. No good definition of terroir. Back in our younger days, iit was "gout de terroir", the taste of earth/loam in a wine,
and a wine was deprecated if it showed "gout de terroir". But the term "terroir" has morphed into something that is to be worshiped, to be put
up on a pedestal. If a wine displays "terroir", then that makes it something special. The French have milked that concept for all it's worth, because
they have French "terroir" and nobody else does, so their wines are superior. And we be seeing that same sort of concept in Calif wines these days.
"Terroir" is like pornography....damned if I can define it, but I sure can recognize it when I see it. I think I can recognize "terroir" in some wines,
like the Lodi terroir in their Zins & Syrahs, maybe the "terroir" in the SantaLuciaHighlands Syrahs. But danged if I can put my finger on anything
I find in a Hirsch PinotNoir that I can identify as "terroir". But there are some that claim they can & do find it. I'm a bit skeptical.
Tom

But the term "terroir" has morphed into something that is to be worshiped, to be put up on a pedestal. If a wine displays "terroir", then that makes it something special. The French have milked that concept for all it's worth, because they have French "terroir" and nobody else does, so their wines are superior.

That's a bit unfair.

Obviously everyplace has terroir. The question is what kind of wine the terroir produces and whether you like it. Then another question is how different winemakers interpret the terroir, but that's a different issue.

The advantage the French (and Italians and Germans) have is that they have been exploring their terroir for a lot longer than people in the US. So they have a better idea of what works well where.

The US will get there, although we'll all be gone.

So...it is pretty much a given that for a wine to be characterized as "great" it must:
1. Show its individual terroir where it was grown.
2. Show the varietal character of the grape from which it was made.

Is it a given?

[James Roscoe]

Vintage Port?

Hell, I've never been convinced exactly what the definition of terroir is.? I've heard so many different descriptions that when I hear the word I just wince and try not to lose my train of thought. The rest of your inquiry, I'll leave the answer to the same people who figured out how many angels on the head of a pin?

Well....that be the problem, Lou. No good definition of terroir. Back in our younger days, iit was "gout de terroir", the taste of earth/loam in a wine,
and a wine was deprecated if it showed "gout de terroir". But the term "terroir" has morphed into something that is to be worshiped, to be put
up on a pedestal. If a wine displays "terroir", then that makes it something special. The French have milked that concept for all it's worth, because
they have French "terroir" and nobody else does, so their wines are superior. And we be seeing that same sort of concept in Calif wines these days.
"Terroir" is like pornography....damned if I can define it, but I sure can recognize it when I see it. I think I can recognize "terroir" in some wines,
like the Lodi terroir in their Zins & Syrahs, maybe the "terroir" in the SantaLuciaHighlands Syrahs. But danged if I can put my finger on anything
I find in a Hirsch PinotNoir that I can identify as "terroir". But there are some that claim they can & do find it. I'm a bit skeptical.
Tom[/quote
I appreciate someone agreeing with me who I know has a long & substantial background in the world of wine. I remember an interview, I think it was in Decanter about a year ago with an owner of one of the known chateaus saying the garage site wines in Bordeaux couldn't have terroir because they or their family hadn't been making wine long enough. In essence what he was saying is you must have a history and your family must go back for generations of making wine from that parcel of ground. He said terroir was only made possible if the people working the land had the proper family background. I'll let other people deal with that concept, I can't.

What Dale said

I always had a problem with “typicity”.

Salute

I always had a problem with “typicity”.

Salute

As long as it is contextualized in historical and cultural terms, it doesn't seem that difficult.

1) The greatest are always criticized. Château d'Yquem will prevail. It is outstanding and doesn't deserve to be knocked.

2) I do, however, have a problem with "typicity". I'll tell you why . The French credo of terroir - one I mostly agree with, by the way - extends to considering that reflecting that terroir in the flavour profile a virtue. BUT what far more interests ME, and I think many other non-French consumers, is that a wine tastes GOOD. That it is typical is, to some extent, beside the point.
In other words, a Morey Saint Denis that really tastes like a Morey Saint Denis deserves notice IF, coupled with that typicity, it tickles your fancy.

I translate back labels all the time, and "typicité" is a tough one. I really don't think that the housewife in Des Moines cares about that.
And neither do I.
And I'm not even a housewife!

Best regards,
Alex R.

I'm not exactly sure why there is this apparent dislike of...distrust of? confusion about? whatever...the use of typicity.

Typicity and terroir go comfortably hand in hand. As an (French) expert on the subject of taste said once, "Terroir comes only through time", meaning of course that it takes at the very least several vintages from a single site and at best multiple generations from the same site before either terroir or typicity can be clearly understood and in any way clarified.

Typicity, after all, is the reflection of an established parameter of expectations based on the consistent production of a single site over a span of years. It is easiest to determine that with single variety/small vineyard or small "batch" (and with as few winemakers as possible so as not to confabulate individual style with the terroir).

So with Burgundy and Mosel Riesling say, or Gruner Veltiner in Austria, it is fairly easy to define. More difficult in...oh, Cahors...because of the differing soil terraces and the addition of other grapes to the Malbec base. Extremely difficult in Bordeaux, because of both the multiplicity of varieties and the estate system which allows theoretically unlimited expansion within an AOC, along with the strong imposition of a house style, and the ability to change direction at whim of owner if so desired.

In the instance of a property like d'Yquem, where there is such a long, rich history, with very little in the way of stylistic changes by the owner/operators, there is a profound history of vintages (especially because d'Yquems quite fortunately lives long lives and provide us with an awesome library for definition and research---would that I could research it more). That defines the terroir and the style and the typicity and the terroir.

In doubt? Easy to prove: simply go to that area of Bordeaux and intensively taste through the various and sundry "sweet Bordeaux" AOCs, then focus only on Sauterne and taste intensively within that, comparing one property to another.

At that point the "commonly known," "widely accepted, "shibboleths" tend to disappear in the face of experience. Put up a d'Yquem next to a Rieussec, and tell me there's not a definable difference. Keep the d'Yquem and Rieussec on the table, and put up a Coutet a Barsac.

Of course, about that time diabetic shock kicks in and you keel over in a coma, tongue glazed with sugar as it lolls out of your mouth.

On another topic: what does typicity and "tastes good to me" have to do with each other? They are two different concepts entirely. We shouldn't encourage people to conflate the two.

Tom,

I don't agree with your assertion that a "great" wine has to exhibit terroir and varietal character.

Chateau d'Yquem is a great wine because, vintage after vintage, it stands above all the other wines of Sauternes and Barsac in just about every quality dimension you can think of.

-Paul W.

Thanks Hoke!
Quick question- Could “house-style” wine posses’ typicity for that given “house-style”?

Salute

Thanks Hoke!
Quick question- Could “house-style” wine posses’ typicity for that given “house-style”?

Salute

Typicity, sure. Typical of what it is, a wine selected to consistently show the same characteristics.

A bulk-produced 'fighting varietal' brand could show typicity too: the typicity of producing large volumes of wines so they consistently show the same characteristics from one release to another.

In spirits, such a bourbon, or scotch, or tellingly in Cognac and Armagnac, almost always blended or "mingled" from different barrels or lots, typicity is most apparent.

But we're talking about a different angle of typicity here, a typicity largely separated from terroir.

I appreciate someone agreeing with me who I know has a long & substantial background in the world of wine. I remember an interview, I think it was in Decanter about a year ago with an owner of one of the known chateaus saying the garage site wines in Bordeaux couldn't have terroir because they or their family hadn't been making wine long enough. In essence what he was saying is you must have a history and your family must go back for generations of making wine from that parcel of ground. He said terroir was only made possible if the people working the land had the proper family background. I'll let other people deal with that concept, I can't.

Back in Kansas, Lou, we have a saying: "Whatta crock".
Probably applies here.
Tom

1) The greatest are always criticized. Château d'Yquem will prevail. It is outstanding and doesn't deserve to be knocked.

Alex,
I don't see anybody here in this thread criticizing Ch.d'Yquem. Certainly not me. I've never had one that was less than outstanding.

2) I do, however, have a problem with "typicity". I'll tell you why . The French credo of terroir - one I mostly agree with, by the way - extends to considering that reflecting that terroir in the flavour profile a virtue. BUT what far more interests ME, and I think many other non-French consumers, is that a wine tastes GOOD. That it is typical is, to some extent, beside the point.
In other words, a Morey Saint Denis that really tastes like a Morey Saint Denis deserves notice IF, coupled with that typicity, it tickles your fancy.
Best regards,
Alex R.

At one time (mid-late-'70's); Cabernet from the SalinasVlly was characterized almost universally by canned aspargras/bell pepper. That was (then) "typicity" for the SalinasVlly...the "Monterey veggies".
I don't think anyone, then or now, considers that a virtue. Virtue is in the eye of the beholder.
Tom