In Reply to: Parent, Wood, Tasting 98 Red Bugundies and Dogheadian Bunk posted by Joe Dressner on September 28, 2000 at 08:57:43:
Maybe you had a different bottle of Vissoux than I did. Mine wasn't the least bit reductive, and I'm a reduction hound. Hate reduction.The Legros '97s didn't do much for me, but the '98 Cras and to a lesser extent the Perrières tasted good on a second pass. Obviously they needed to breathe.
The only whites I truly hated were Weygandt's. The Chablis producer (Boileau) is especially horrifying, though he had a completely incompetent Puligny as well. BTW, Gilbert Picq ferments and raises the wines in tank. Nothing tasted woody at all there. The Vaucoupin was particularly lovely, and the Carrière was exactly like the basic Chablis only a little richer.
I thought the Valettes were perfectly nice, but the Guillemot-Michel had sauerkrauty sulfur compounds, something like Talbott's Monterey chardonnays about six to ten years ago.
If I want sauerkraut I'll go to a hot-dog stand where I can have it cheaper.
On a related topic, Derain gets oxidation from time to time ('94 and '98 Remilly, though not '96 or '95) not on account of the nature of the barrels but on account of avoidance of sulfur and and a failure to top up promptly enough. He needs to have a chat with Overnoy. And I'll still drink his whites any time, thanks, including the oxidative ones.
On the red '98s we tried - or I tried, I don't know if you got everything - there were quite a few good wines. More stank. The main problem wasn't so much the wood as the combination of the wood and the rough tannins and slight dilution of the fruit that mark too many red '98s - especially in the Nuits. Too many abrasive tannins, not enough healthy raw material to support it.
Apologists for '98 Nuits wines - like the Burghound - suggest they're like '93s. And given that this is a meaningless line of discussion, I'm perfectly happy to grant there are a few wines like some '93s. There are also some wines like some '90s. There are a few wines like some wines from ANY vintage. But the issue is this: there was a nasty rain that caught the Nuits badly, and crop levels were usually too high (unlike in '93) to survive the problem with any grace. Of course, rain is usually variable, and so it was here. Some sites are obviously less affected than others, and it shows in the results. So at Rebourseau, the Gevreys look diluted and overwooded, while the wildly overpriced Clos Vougeot - from old, early ripening vines - seems much more harmonious, in spite of a similarly overenthusiastic wood treatment. In the Côte de Beaune (which in many cases, especially among whites, came in before the nasty storms), at Pavelot, the relatively precocious and sheltered Dominodes did well, while the well-draining but late-ripening Guettes shows dilution and mean tannins.
I should also note for the Asylum record that the CDN Chaillots from Gachot-Monot and the Lignier-Michelot Morey-St-Denis Rue de Vergy were also perfectly nice and semireasonably priced '98s.
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