Friday, September 12, 2008
A few 2005 Bordeaux
Zachys retail had a walkaround tasting of some 2005 Bordeaux Wednesday night, so a few of us went over to promote the upcoming auction and do some tasting. Figeac was a huge disappointment; you could tell how great the juice itself was but it was oaked into absolute submission. A friend who tasted it in barrel said that it was showing far oakier now than it had then, when he loved it, so perhaps it was just a poor sample. Similarly, Mouton Rothschild seemed like a not-great wine but man did that oak taste expensive.
The shocker for me was how much I liked Leoville Las Cases. The wine was balanced, which is a rare commodity these days; Parker's note says the alcohol is 13.1%, quite modest for a modern Bordeaux; it had great fruit but was not heavy or overextracted, just an elegant wine with all of its components in harmony. A truly great wine.
I haven't had the Hermanos Sastre Pesus 2003, but I imagine it's the kind of wine I hate, which is why I'm posting this story. This wine that I'd never heard of prior to doing a google search for "300% new oak" scored 98 points from the Wine Advocate's Jay Miller, who described the 100-case cuvee as "surely one of Spain's greatest wines."
What's 300% new oak, you ask? Well, I was already familiar with 200% new oak, a treatment promoted by, among others, Burgundy negociant Dominique Laurent. The technique involves aging the wine for a while in new oak, and then transferring it into another new oak barrel for further aging. This is the same, only with yet another new oak barrel.
Allow me to set the scene here. The wine has spent a couple of years in two different new oak barrels. The winemaker, property owner, consultant, perhaps people from neighboring estates are in the cave. They draw out samples of the wine from barrel, pass them around, taste. They contemplate the wine for a while. Finally, someone speaks up. "Well...it's pretty oaky..."
The shocker for me was how much I liked Leoville Las Cases. The wine was balanced, which is a rare commodity these days; Parker's note says the alcohol is 13.1%, quite modest for a modern Bordeaux; it had great fruit but was not heavy or overextracted, just an elegant wine with all of its components in harmony. A truly great wine.
I haven't had the Hermanos Sastre Pesus 2003, but I imagine it's the kind of wine I hate, which is why I'm posting this story. This wine that I'd never heard of prior to doing a google search for "300% new oak" scored 98 points from the Wine Advocate's Jay Miller, who described the 100-case cuvee as "surely one of Spain's greatest wines."
What's 300% new oak, you ask? Well, I was already familiar with 200% new oak, a treatment promoted by, among others, Burgundy negociant Dominique Laurent. The technique involves aging the wine for a while in new oak, and then transferring it into another new oak barrel for further aging. This is the same, only with yet another new oak barrel.
Allow me to set the scene here. The wine has spent a couple of years in two different new oak barrels. The winemaker, property owner, consultant, perhaps people from neighboring estates are in the cave. They draw out samples of the wine from barrel, pass them around, taste. They contemplate the wine for a while. Finally, someone speaks up. "Well...it's pretty oaky..."
