Decanter World Wine AwardsOxidation problem makes white Burgundy 'unreliable'
- Monday 4 July 2011
Meursault: cellaring risk?
Burgundy aficionados have long been aware of what Stephen Brook calls ‘random oxidation’ of wines mainly from vintages of the 1990s.
Despite strenuous efforts of winemakers, no conclusive cause has been found, and prominent Burgundy collectors give damning testimonies of the devastating effects or premature oxidation on their cellars.
‘At least a dozen vintages…have a propensity to self-destruct’, Bill Nanson of burgundy-report.com says, and views are echoed by several others in the article, including an anonymous UK wine merchant who tells Brook white Burgundy is still ‘unreliable’.
Various theories have been put forward: Jacques Seysses of Domaine Dujac, for example, says corks – treated with ‘known oxidants’ such as bleach and hydrogen dioxide – are in large part responsible, but not wholly so.
At the same time, Meursault producer Patrick Javillier suggests modern pneumatic presses, which allowed less exposure to oxygen than old-style horizontal presses, might be a cause of later oxidation.
His theory, Brook says, was that basket presses ‘gave the must early exposure to oxygen which…protected the wine from subsequent oxidation’, just as a child is inoculated by early exposure to a disease.
Many experts believe the problem is not nearly as prevalent with the vintages from 2000 onwards.
Veteran Burgundy merchant Jasper Morris MW, for example, believes it was due to lowered sulphur levels in the 1990s, and it is now ‘hugely reduced’.
But Brook ends on a warning note: winemakers have done all they can to reduce the risks, he says, but ‘it’s impossible to give a blanket assurance that all is now well.’
If consumers continue to find off wines, ‘then the only recourse’, he says, ‘is to press for a refund or replacement’ from your wine merchant.
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Have your say!
John Casey
July 06 02:27
The sporadic or "random" nature of post-bottling oxidation can be caused by one or more of the following. Layering in the supply tank, vortexing as the tank empties, intermittent air leaks in the delivery line, prolonged stoppages of the filling machine, emulsification with air by rogue filling tubes and malfunction of individual heads on the corking machine. All these make a slight but cumulative contribution to the oxygen content of individual bottles.
Scott Rich, Talisman Wines
July 05 18:55
I believe the biggest cause is reductive winemaking. Intentionally oxidizing the juice prior to fermentation eliminates most of the compounds that can be oxidized at the wine stage. As noted in the article, the move away from traditional presses to modern presses may be a big factor, as modern presses create a much more protective environment for the juice. I've done the oxidative vs. reductive winemaking experiment numerous times and the wines made from oxidized juice always last much longer than wines made from juice that was protected from oxygen. Winemaking techniques need to evolve alongside the evolution in processing equipment.
billn
July 05 14:20
"hugely reduced" - may reflect some people's empirical experience, but not others. There's certainly no public data to support that contention.
Dermot Nolan MW
July 05 11:10
Oh dear, it seems that your comment box does not fully display what is written. My original comment referenced a recent paper which shows that premox is caused by a number of factors, many relating to the vineyard. While I'd love to see more Stelvin used the closure is not a major factor.