Tiring out the wines: a growing trend?
Re: Tiring out the wines: a growing trend?
Ver mensaje de WaltZalenskiWalt, it’s a pity that my English is so bad so I can’t argue extensively in this thread. So I must limit to make some telegraphic comments.
I think the new Spanish wines have changed from a classic Rioja approach (that is, wines released when they are ready to drink) to a Bordeaux-like approach: to sell them soon, to avoid inventory costs. The only difference is that Bordeaux sell mostly to negociants and connoiseurs and Spanish cellars sell to final customers (most of them new to this world)
To sell soon and to sell well requires wines accesible when young in spite of being concentrated and with a lot of tannins to tame. I don’t think these concentrated wines are the easiest to drink when young. Usually are easier to drink young wines from mediocre vintages for the lighter structure.
I want to drink relatively young wines but not at the cost of losing too much potential complexity or ageability potential. This is like cuisine. You can cook a slow stew or a quick stew (through a steam pot). For the sake of convenience (lack of time) sometimes you are forced to go to the last option. But you never can compare the quality of a quick stew with that from a slow cooking stew. I believe something simmilar happens with wines. So I prefer to invest some time in the development of wines at my Chambrair cave that to get a quick-cooking formula of wines to decay in less than 3 years (I am experimenting this at home with many wines from new Spanish producers).
Glad to read you again Manuel :))
Ver mensaje de MCamblorHope everything with your mather and any other issue is ok right now.
Kind regards,
Jose
Correcting a misconception...
Ver mensaje de Juan SuchJuan,
You say that ";Bordeaux sell mostly to negociants and connoiseurs and Spanish cellars sell to final customers (most of them new to this world).";
While this holds true for the premier châteaux in Bordeaux, a vast number of other properties do carry out cellar-door sales, as far as I can tell, just like in every wine-producing region in Spain. Of course, those wines tend to be of a lesser designation (";cru bourgeois or below) than those that sell through the protocolar marketplace.
Just thought I’d let you know. You can take the car and fill the trunk with all sorts of tasty claret for relatively cheap prices. The only thing you’ll sacrifice are the fancy names.
M.
Re: Tiring out the wines: a growing trend?
Ver mensaje de Juan SuchJuan, your English is great. Perhaps you don’t easily produce the verbal fireworks of Manuel, but who else can?
I want to focus on this sentence that you wrote: ";I want to drink relatively young wines but not at the cost of losing too much potential complexity or ageability potential.";
I think that is precisely the point. Even among participants of wine boards like this, perhaps a few more than my estimated 1% -- but not much more -- anticipate ever getting to a stage when, perhaps 20 years in the future, they will mostly be drinking well matured wines. Certainly fewer still are at that point now, even if we do own Eurocaves and similar storage units. As a matter of history, I doubt that percentage was ever any bigger. In fact, from what I can surmise from historical literature, these life-long and inter-generational wine accumulation/consumption schemes about which Manuel speaks are anything but ";normal"; -- least of all in France where most of the wine collected in this manner is produced and where even first growths, then and now, typically are drunk very young. More to the point, even if it was normal before, it is not the way we live now. Therefore, the fact that your grandchildren might be able to enjoy a wine that you buy today should not be the single most important criteria in assessing quality. Otherwise, we would have very little to talk about.
If I’m not mistaken, all these tasting notes on verema.com are a real-time assessment of the wine at the time it is tasted. Assuming we cannot spend many thousands of dollars/euros on rare and mature first growth Bordeaux, we generally try to drink the best younger wines we can. Among the wines that are available now, and among wines that will be drinking well in perhaps as little as 5-6 years, there are a host of criteria that help us choose. We try to find the ones with personality, complexity, no flaws, etc. Some of the wines we choose based on the criteria of tastings today may or may not develop well for decades, but for every bottle of wine you and I have ever consumed, that is an academic question.
I’m almost scared ...
Ver mensaje de WaltZalenski... to enthusiastically agree with you!!!! :-)) and you put it beautifully too!
MaJesus
Zind-what???
Ver mensaje de MCamblorHi, Manuel, glad to see you back. You know I’m well beyond remedy by now concerning many regions, but lemme just add a minor note on the pricing of Zind-Humbrecht over here: there’s no way whatsoever you can buy (walking into a shop, that is) Trimbach’s Fred for under 30€, which is rougly the price of most ZHs up to Windsbuhl more or less (30-40€).
Otherwise, I myself would prefer a good Fred (95 made an indelible impression) over a just-marginally-oversized ZH.
Alsace is one of Spain’s weakest points in the market (believe it or not there seems to be comparatively even more Loire or Mosel available) and the ";natural"; option to fill in that gap was not surprisingly (cf. RP) Z-H and now increasingly Weinbach (which is far more outrageously priced than ZH over here).
I’ll be one of those dancing out there in the streeet the day somebody decides to run Trimbach and price it sensibly. Meanwhile I’m pretty glad I can have ZH for an average of 35€...
Pricing...
Ver mensaje de GastronautaOh well, I guess I was using as a guide the pricing here in NYC, not whatever happens in Spain... As far as I know, Trimbach’s ";Fréderic Emile"; retails for between $23 and $28 here (the former price being an approximation of the case price I usually pay, since what sense is there in buying otherwise than by the case?). Admittedly, I haven’t paid so close attention to the prices of the :premium"; Z-H bottlesm but plenty of them seem to feel too comfy in the $50 range.
Again, I may have exxagerated a bit just to prove a point, but not enough to stray from the truth.
And shame on all those Spanish importers who simply MUST take the path of least resistance and bring in whatever some highly questionable ";critic"; indeirectly tells them to bring...
M.
Re: Pricing...
Ver mensaje de MCamblorSure there are too many bottlings in the 50+ (€, not just $) range, but they’re specially VT (and I guess almost nobody’s VT retail for twentyodd). But you’re pretty well set with Freds at $25. I wouldn’t stop buying some ZHs but sure my priority would be the half case of CFE almost every vintage...
OTOH I know what you mean by Shame-on-lazy-importers and partly agree, but Alsace is a black hole for Spanish consumers and perhaps these are going to buy-by-the-book anyway, so I guess there’s only a minor sin in trying to anticipate what they will demand. The Terry Theises of the world are all working on your side of the Atlantic.
Here, even the adventurous Pecados Originales (who are now carrying Loosen and Selbach, not that there’s a great risk in the choice but certainly some balls in the decision to bring Germans to Spain) run only a small choice of Weinbach top cuvées (imposed by some importer, same choice as El Corte Inglés)... So you see that assuming all the risks and educating the public is a tough job, and there’s nothing sadder than being right but out of business too...