Ageing of White Burgundy - changing views?

Many years ago I was tasting in the cellars of either Clos de Tart or Clos des Lambrays. Actually I am pretty sure it was Lambrays . Premox was very much the topic of the day. I raised the point about the cork being the problem.
"Howard" said the cellar master, " you see that rack over there? None of the bottles in it have a cork closure. Anything but. Choose any bottle you like and I guarantee it will be premoxed". I did choose one and it was indeed poxed!
A cork closure was definitely not the culprit.
 
I also tasted a Puligny once chez Lambrays - with a proper cork - Thierry had to go get another one as it was oxidised. As I pointed out at the time - easy for a domaine to do.
I don't see cork, per se, as the culprit, only that certain alternative closures, presumably due to their 'oxygen-transfer consistency' seem to be adequate sticking-plasters for the issue...
 
If the cork were the only issue we would be seeing prematurely oxidised reds also, and I am now convinced that we are not.
That certainly doesn't mean that corks aren't part of the problem, however.
 
Howard Ripley said:
Many years ago I was tasting in the cellars of either Clos de Tart or Clos des Lambrays. Actually I am pretty sure it was Lambrays . Premox was very much the topic of the day. I raised the point about the cork being the problem.
"Howard" said the cellar master, " you see that rack over there? None of the bottles in it have a cork closure. Anything but. Choose any bottle you like and I guarantee it will be premoxed". I did choose one and it was indeed poxed!
A cork closure was definitely not the culprit.
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That was the 1998 Caillerets if memory serves me well. The "corks" were, as Thierry described them, expensive Italian plastic versions, not unlike the photos earlier in this thread.
 
Toby Morrhall said:
I would be intrigued to know which no/low sulphur wines at 15-20 years of age you have enjoyed with no pox.
High acid white wines such as those with no malo like riesling, white wines with residual sugar etc seem to suffer less from the pox.
Many Burgundian producers have tried Catalan and Sardinian corks as these drier Mediterranean areas have less rain and slower growth, as I think you are suggesting, so possibly denser cork than the wetter Atlantic forests in parts of Portugal. There have still been problems with some of the corks sourced from those regions.
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These were mostly artisanal bottling of Fiano, Greco, Falanghina and Biancolella , but also had some De Conciliis from 1998-2002 that had no premox.
 
simon beatty said:
That was the 1998 Caillerets if memory serves me well. The "corks" were, as Thierry described them, expensive Italian plastic versions, not unlike the photos earlier in this thread.
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If you mismanage the bottling and don't put enough sulphur in a wine under any closure, be it screw cap, diam or Gualaseal as these plastic corks were once known, it will oxidise. Gualaseal were a step up from plastic corks as they were mounted on a chassis which stopped them stretching longitudinally and so kept the width of its diameter stable and so resisted oxygen ingress. Olivier Leflaive amongst others used them successfully. But it involved modifying the closure feed as there was a right and a wrong end to be contact with the wine.
Diam required no change to the bottling line so Gualaseal fell out of favour.
 
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I am sure that I have, on maybe more than one occasion, recounted what Jean-Marie Fourrier told me years ago about the cause of premox. To my knowledge he no longer has any premox problems.
 
Jasper Morris said:
That Black Chardonnay thing was a really irritating article as it was claiming to promote a new idea with a trendy name for something which has been understood for decades. I remember the guys from Listel in the south of France talking us through the technique when they made a presentation to MW students in or around 1984.

Corks - there was a dramatic change in treatment specs in 1996 (possibly some in 1995?). Many 1996 corks are pale grey in colour (hydrogen peroxide) as well as quite spongy. They were not grey before and they soon stopped being. The sponginess fits the poor cork harvesting theory.
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I have pulled quite a lot of spongy corks in the last few years from vintages of this period across various wine regions in Europe, with the wine therein buggered, so that makes sense to me. I was beginning to think it was just bad luck, so I am reassured (to some extent).
 
Howard Ripley said:
I read the "Meet Black Chardonnay" with interest. As long ago as 2002 Jean-Marie Fourrier told me that he had asked himself the question "what am I doing today that is different to what my father and grandfather used to do ?". He told me that whereas these days the mantra is to avoid oxygen at all costs; to get fermentation started as soon as possible, his father used to take his time about it. He explained that the must contains easily oxidisable elements. In his father's day, they let this happen. The oxidised elements fell to the bottom of the cask.They then decanted leaving all this behind. Only then did they start the fermentation process. This is the crucial difference . The modern rushed method left these easily oxidisable elements in the wine. The result is premox. He explained that he now follows the old method.
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Howard Ripley said:
Red burgs last exceptionally well even though Jean-Marc Fourrier warned me many years ago that he expected the dreaded premox to eventually affect reds too.
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Found these two on a search for Fourrier & Premox from Howard. Hopefully is the top one?
 
I think it depends on what one means by 'eventually' but Fourrier's reds haven't suffered pox. There seemed to be quite a lot of corked 97s and worry about poor corks in 01, which seems to have been a misdiagnosis.
 
Hi Toby,
As briefly as possible, Jean-Marie Fourrier told me that he asked himself what was he doing that differed from what his father had done when making his wine. He told me that in his father's day , they took their time,there was no rush whereas these days the winemakers are encouraged to make their wine as quickly as possible to avoid oxidation. He now believes this to be a great error as the must contains elements that oxidise easily. In his father's day, they allowed this to happen and any resulting deposits were decanted off before fermentation. These days, he said, the easily oxidisable elements are included in the bottled wine. Sulphur is then used up against these elements, leaving the wine unprotected.
So, he has reverted to his father's relaxed approach to timing. He also weighs all cork deliveries. If the weight is too low (and therefore the density is too low) he sends the corks back. He also seals his corks with wax after bottling.
 
Re vignerons claiming that they have no premox problems, I was having dinner with a very famous vigneron about 15 years ago and premox came up. He told me proudly that he had no problems. I weighed whether to contradict him and inform him that just before leaving for France on that trip, I'd had a bottle of one of his 2001s that was premoxed. I finally decided to mention it. He immediately went down to the cellar and returned with a bottle of that wine. I was thinking that only a certain percentage are premoxed, so what would it prove if this bottle was fine? But as it turned out, the bottle he brought up was premoxed. The vigneron was truly stunned.
 
Howard Ripley said:
Hi Toby,
As briefly as possible, Jean-Marie Fourrier told me that he asked himself what was he doing that differed from what his father had done when making his wine. He told me that in his father's day , they took their time,there was no rush whereas these days the winemakers are encouraged to make their wine as quickly as possible to avoid oxidation. He now believes this to be a great error as the must contains elements that oxidise easily. In his father's day, they allowed this to happen and any resulting deposits were decanted off before fermentation. These days, he said, the easily oxidisable elements are included in the bottled wine. Sulphur is then used up against these elements, leaving the wine unprotected.
So, he has reverted to his father's relaxed approach to timing. He also weighs all cork deliveries. If the weight is too low (and therefore the density is too low) he sends the corks back. He also seals his corks with wax after bottling.
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Thanks Howard. Seems like good practice. Additionally many producers are adding no sulphur in the white winemaking process until after malo which is along the same lines.
 
I've had oxidised reds that have been too old or upon which the cork has failed-is a premoxed red different?
I'm still irritated at having opened three corked bottles this weekend.
 
I have my suspicions about a white Burgundy opened on Friday night - a modest Auxey-Duresses Vielles Vignes 2017. It seemed a touch darker than the previous bottle about 6 - 10 months ago, which was a clean light green in colour. On tasting it, it seemed to be on the turn. Not quite Sherry characteristics, but an intenseness that wasn't there before. It was bottled under natural cork, which slipped out of the bottle rather easily. It serves as a reminder to avoid WBs that are under natural cork, no matter the level.
 
Thom Blach said:
I've had oxidised reds that have been too old or upon which the cork has failed-is a premoxed red different?
I'm still irritated at having opened three corked bottles this weekend.
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I think premox occurs when a porous batch of corks combine with a wine with insufficient sulphur. So its different from a gradual oxidation over many years found in old wines because it can affect young wines. Its part cork failure becuse porosity is high and part insufficient sulphur.
 
Toby Morrhall said:
I think premox occurs when a porous batch of corks combine with a wine with insufficient sulphur. So its different from a gradual oxidation over many years found in old wines because it can affect young wines. Its part cork failure becuse porosity is high and part insufficient sulphur.
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From my experience, low SO2 or a porous cork are only accelerating the unveiling of the root cause, oxidisable phenols in the bottle. These phenols were naturally oxidised at the press with a Vaslin or basket.
 
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