View 2013 Champagne Catalog - Michael Skurnik Wines

Vintages
suggest any adolescent funks or tantrums.
2005 is the geosmin vintage or whatever the hell it is, or
was. Its basic nature is an undisciplined power; it is not
a gracious vintage, even when it’s clean. Often it tastes
like the soapacious side of Pinot Blanc. Yet one finds
exceptions, wines of a certain gracefulness that absorbed
their strength of fruit. And as for the dubious aspects, that
rotten-potato thing so many of them had…all I can say is
let’s get ready to HUM-BLLLE… because we didn’t know
where it came from or why, and now we don’t know where
it’s disappearing to (in some wines) or why.
2004 seems to have become the badge of entry into the
society of True-Champagne-Lovers. It was a huge crop,
and much of its wine was competent and unexciting. But
the best of them were the purest most vivid examples of
green flavors Champagne may ever have shown. Green
like balsam, wintergreen, spearmint, chartreuse, tarragon,
verbena, lime-zest. It isn’t always a fetching vintage, and
some wines need more time, but whew, when you land on
a good one it’ll curl your toes.
2003 gave few vintage wines, not because of the heat
but because of the tiny crop. The wines were sometimes
good and always atypical, as if someone were marooned
in Chablis and tried making sparkling wine there–—in a
hot vintage.
2002 is the Great One, about which the only caveat seems
to be the markedly quick evolution of some examples. Yet
for each `02 I think may be developing hastily, I open
three or four that want to be left alone, as they should
at this stage. In any case, the great wines of this excellent
vintage offer everything the Champagne lover could ask
for; focused aromas with flowers leading a charge including
fruits and spices; textures of restrained power and keen
expressiveness; flavors showing classic parameters, nothing
out-of-the-way. Certainly a marvelous vintage; potentially
a classic.
If you find any older vintages, 2000 is/was a good
year that seems to be aging fast, so drink `em if you got
`em. 1999 is a beauty, or has become one. It’s the closest
thing to the Champagne paradigm, and very tasty now,
though the top Chardonnays will keep and ought to be
kept. 1998 is back from its cave, and showing well again
in a snappy acid-focused manner. Best in Chardonnay.
1997 was an undemanding and entirely decent year,
which I haven’t tasted in eons. 1996 is and will probably
always be a conundrum. Is it finito now, since its fruit
is over-mature and seems to have detached from a stillstinging
acidity? Or is this just a phase? And how could
it be a “phase” when so many wines taste so decadent?
I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know. I suspect the
vintage was misjudged by people who love acidity, and
who often make the mistake of supposing wines age from
acidity. But I also remember how profound those wines
tasted in their youth, when we thought they’d never die,
or even grow old. Then some of them got old before they
were ever young.
Like I said, Champagne will make you humble.
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