WTN: Premox, premox, roly-poly premox

[David M. Bueker]

Struck twice in two days:

2002 Domaine William Fèvre Chablis Grand Cru Bougros Cote de Bouguerots
This hurt because the wine is special to me. Looked ok, but smelled & tasted of caramel, butterscotch and dried out nut husks.

2002 Domaine des Baumard Savennières Clos du Papillon
The color of honey and with a flavor profile that matched the Fèvre. Sad, as I have a lot more of this.

A bottle of 2001 Louis Jadot Meursault 1er Cru Les Genevrières was quite young & good, so at least it wasn't 3 for 3.

2002 Domaine des Baumard Savennières Clos du Papillon
The color of honey and with a flavor profile that matched the Fèvre. Sad, as I have a lot more of this.

David,
Those more knowledgeable of Chenin than I -- you know who -- speak of Savennières going through oxidized phases, then regaining freshness later. Indeed, this very wine may once have been the subject of such a discussion. Whether any of this has any relevance to your wine I cannot say, as I am still puzzling over how oxidation can be reversed in a wine.

Mark Lipton

Well, at least you have two more bottles out of the way that were ticking time bombs of displeasure.

My issues with premox are more a function of bottles having been badly treated somewhere in their lifetime. So when I come across a purchase source that has some suspicious bottles, I find myself compelled to drink all of the bottles from that source as quickly as possible (and then of course never buy from that source again). Sometimes it is a pretty small percentage of the wines from that source that are damaged, and the others could have aged longer. But I can't rest with those ticking time bombs! (Of course I realize that the source where I got the wines was not necessarily the source of the damage for each one).

Building on Mark's point, there does seem to be some debates about chenin having an oxidised character that it eventually sheds. But those debates seem to be getting as far as the premox ones in Burgundy!

That's a shame. I've got all three of those wines and will try them to see if there are any issues. Baumard has now switched to all caps, I wonder if they new bottles have shown themselves to be better from premox and from TCA taint.

[David M. Bueker]

I've had closed up/seemingly oxidative Chenin. This was far worse. I was probably too kind in my description, thus leading to the confusion. The honey color was the first tip.

[
Those more knowledgeable of Chenin than I -- you know who -- speak of Savennières going through oxidized phases, then regaining freshness later. I am still puzzling over how oxidation can be reversed in a wine.

Mark Lipton

The same is said of white Hermitage and white CndP. It is impossible to prove because impossible to re-open an intact previously oxidised bottle several years down the road. It may just be bottle variation. A lot of the Burgundy premox notes give evidence of differently performing bottles from the same batch.