What I Tasted on My Spring Break - SPEC's Liquors

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www.specsonline.com (continued from page 1) inventory to sell off our racks when the vintage is shipped. The other is to offer the best possible prices on rare and expensive wines to our Bordeaux-loving customers. As we get confirmations on our orders, we offer the wines out for sale as futures, a way to buy wines that haven't even been bottled yet. On the wines we've tasted and like and on wines with great track records, we buy as much as we are allocated, often at several different prices. If our customers get hot on a particular wine and we run short or sell out, we go back and buy more, usually at a higher price. We then make a second offering reflecting that higher price. In order to open the futures opportunity to as many customers as possible, Spec's offers Bordeaux futures sales on bottles and three-packs as well as the standard twelve bottle cases. While the price advantage is not as substantial in the smaller lots, there is still an edge over what the wines will sell for on arrival. But far and away the main benefit here is the guarantee of availability. Single-bottle and three-pack pricing is available only on 750ml bottles of dry reds and whites and both on 375ml and 750ml bottles of most Sauternes. So what's all the fuss about Just that the futures market insures the savvy Bordeaux lover a way to buy his favorite wines at the best prices they'll likely ever sell for, and a way to insure himself that he will actually get some of the rarer wines that may never make it onto a rack or shelf in the store. Is my 1996 Margaux in the stage dumb “When will my 2001 Ducru enter the dumb stage When will it emerge” “Will my 1989 Leoville las Cases ever emerge from the dumb stage” “Don’t open that yet, it’s still in the dumb stage.” <strong>What</strong>’s the dumb stage It is a period in a wine’s development where the wine is undergoing reductive changes in the bottle as it sheds some of the fresh fruit of its (continued p. 3) Chateau Margaux Bordeaux Report (continued from p. 1) and Bordeaux Millesimes to name a few. I also taste at many chateaux whose wines are not shown at the UGC tastings. Each year I go to all the first growths and many of the seconds where we taste more than just that wine. There are second and sometimes third wines to taste as well as associated properties. At Mouton, we also taste Clerc Milon and d’Armailhac, and at Lafite we also taste Carruades and Duhart Milon. At Haut Brion, we taste La Chappelle de la Mission (the 2nd vin of Ch. La Mission Haut Brion), Bahans Haut Brion (the 2nd vin of Ch. Haut Brion), Latour Haut Brion, La Mission Haut Brion, and Haut Brion as well as Laville Haut Brion (the white wine of La Mission) and Haut Brion Blanc. All in all at Haut Brion, we taste seven wines from each vintage and we usually taste two vintages. This year, the opportunity to re-taste past vintages served me well. The 2001 Ch. Margaux wine had not shown well in 2002 or 2003 and I was frankly a bit worried that I’d made a mistake in buying it. My purchase was based on Margaux’s superb track record and assurances by Margaux director Paul Pontalier that the wine was just backward and that it would come around. It finally did come around and is now showing very well, just in time for release. At dinners in restaurants and during visits and dinners at chateaux, we always drink older, usually mature wines. The last few years our Bordeaux dinner wines have included many great wines from 1985, 1986, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1993, 1994, and 1995. We have had the odd 1982 and even a couple of 1991s. The 1991s from Ch. Latour, Ch. Parenchere, and Ch. Segur de Cabannac were shockingly good wines from a frankly forgettable, very wet vintage. All this tasting (and drinking) leads to a familiarity with a property that transcends vintage variation as well as to an understanding of each vintage and where its sub-regional strengths and weaknesses are. It also reinforces, for me at least, the notion that I’d usually rather drink the wine from chateau I really like in a merely good or even mediocre vintage than wine from an also ran property in even a great vintage. 1993 and 1994 were lightly regarded, rain affected vintages that still made very nice, elegant, mediumweight clarets. Most from the lesser appellations have already been drunk and that is a good thing as most of them wouldn’t have lasted. The best wines of these vintages (the top classified growths) are very pretty wines that in many cases are drinking very well now. Whenever I see good 1994s on wine lists, I am interested. They are often very good values and are always under appreciated. 1995 was a great warm year that made fine wines all over Bordeaux. These were big rich wines somewhat in the style of 1982 and 1990 featuring ample fruit and flavor with good ripeness and a fairly low level of acidity. The 1995s tasted good on release and while they did descend a bit into the “dumb stage” (please see side bar The Dumb Stage at left), it was not a deep descent and the wines were enjoyably drinkable. Many of the age-worthy wines have now emerged and blossomed. While the first growths need a bit more time for optimum drinking, many of the other classified growths from 1995 are drinking beautifully. Even a number of petite chateaux are holding up nicely. 1996 was, if you believe James Suckling of the Wine Spectator, a disappointing vintage. Or, if you follow Robert Parker, 1995 was the greatest Cabernet Sauvignon vintage in Bordeaux since World War II. Parker is correct. While the Merlot-dominated right bank appellations (Pomerol, St. Emilion, etc.) yielded many very good wines in 1996, it was the Cabernet Sauvignon-dominated left bank appellations (Graves, Medoc, Margaux, St. Julien, Pauillac, and St. Estephe) that had the potential to make excellent and even outstanding wines in 1996. I still remember tasting the outstanding 1996 Ch. Margaux in the chateau and being momentarily transported by the wine. The also outstanding 1996 Ch. Latour out of barrel was so intense that it was almost painful to hold it in the mouth. All the better 1996 wines were excellent from the barrel and were excellent on their release in 1998 and 1999. Most of the Cabernet-based wines had enough intensity and acidity that they have slipped firmly into the dumb stage. They are not undrinkable now but will be so much better with a few more years in the bottle that it seems a shame not to hold them. 1997 made pretty wines that emphasized fresh fruit and perfume with a classic weight and structure. They are not blockbusters and there was some unevenness in quality attributable to uneven ripeness due to an extended, uneven flowering period. Some clusters (especially Merlot in St. Emilion) had ripe grapes with some green grapes mixed in so a good triage was important. The 1997s also had the problem of being released as futures at prices too high for the quality, coming immediately after the excellent 1996s. Since there have been no price increases (and in fact some discounting) on the 1997s from the time they were sold as futures, the vintage is now reasonably priced and drinking very well. 1997 was an excellent to outstanding year for the sweet wines from Sauternes and Barsac.
1998 offered a great vintage for the right bank appellations of St. Emilion and Pomerol (as well as Montagne and Lussac St. Emilion Lalande de Pomerol, Fronsac, Cotes de Castillon, and Cotes de Francs) and the left bank Graves red and white wine area (especially wines labeled Pessac-Leognan). These areas benefited from a combination of warm weather and early ripening varieties (a lot of Merlot and Cabernet Franc). 1998 was a fine but not great year for the later ripening left bank Cabernet Sauvignon-based wines. Except for the top Pomerol and St. Emilion Chateaux (especially the over-hyped "garagistas"), the wines were well priced as futures and offered many fine buys. The classically structured 1998s are now mostly in the dumb stage but the Merlot-based wines are not deep into it and still are showing well. The best Cabernet-based wines still need time to emerge. These underrated, well-balanced, classically-styled Margaux, Pauillac, and St. Julien wines will offer excellent drinking beginning in the next couple of years. 1999 is a vintage that was initially underrated by virtually all of the wine press and much of the wine trade. Almost all of them have revised their opinions upward. 1999 is a very even vintage featuring elegant, very well balanced wines with lovely fresh fruit flavors. They are a pure pleasure to drink now but they also are developing nicely and will continue to improve. This is a fine vintage to hold or drink while you are waiting on your 1996s, 1998s and 2000s. 2000 is an excellent vintage with very consistent, very high quality all over Bordeaux. The weather was excellent and everything got ripe. All the improving vineyard practice and winery wizardry via the consulting enologists paid off. Then the hype machine kicked in. It was the vintage of the turn of the millennium. And Parker loved it. And the Spectator loved it. And the prices, especially on the top wines, shot through the roof as greed and speculation took over. It is a great vintage to hold for 5 to 25 years depending on the chateau. The most hyped wines are way over-priced but that is no different from any other great vintage. The 2000s are now mostly in stock and most futures purchases have been delivered (most but not all – we are still waiting on a few wines). 2001 is a very even, very good vintage with fine wines made in all areas of Bordeaux. It was a vintage where properties capable of making balanced, elegant, multi-dimensional wines excelled and wineries depending on only ripeness and manipulation did alright but no better than alright. 2001 required some quality in terroir for the best wines. The wines that are now coming into the market are well balanced with good fruit and some of 1999s evenness and elegance. They are drinking well now on release and should continue to drink very well as young wines over the next year or so. They mostly likely then will go dumb and require some patience before they blossom at the end of the dumb stage. As they are balanced and not too extracted, they should not go too dumb and most will remain drinkable as they develop. 2001 was reasonably priced and bought with strong dollars so, like the 1999s these wines represent fine values. In addition to its many fine and excellent dry red and white wines, 2001 was an excellent Sauternes vintage 2002 is a vintage where the terroir shone like few others. If you taste and consider only the top 80 to 100 wines (mostly - but not exclusively - from the left bank) that are the product of great terroir, 2002 is an excellent to outstanding vintage. If you consider only the other several hundred chateaux that do not possess great terroir or were not in the right weather patterns, 2002 could be a mediocre to poor vintage. It really is a vintage of haves and have-nots where it was very important to taste before buying. Spec’s offered fewer 2002s as futures than any vintage since 1994 but those 2002s that we bought and offered we can endorse unequivically. The 2002s, still available as futures, were bought with strong dollars and the hype machine never really kicked in so they are excellent values, especially when compared to the 2003s now being offered as futures. The 2003 vintage was one of the hottest on record. It was so hot that some areas where the early ripening Merlot is the dominant grape variety suffered severe heat stress and could not make good wines. Ch. Le Pin was unable to even produce a crop and Vieux Ch. Certan produced only 800 cases instead of its usual 4000 (although that 800 cases is excellent). However, those properties with the right terroir and the right grapes planted made excellent wines that were very easy to taste and evaluate. The top Cabernet Sauvignon-based wines show a stylistic similarity to 1990 and 1982. For these (mostly left bank) wines, 2003 is an excellent to outstanding vintage where even wines from the northern, cooler areas of the Medoc had fine to excellent potential. The bad news is that the Bordeaux wine press hype machine has kicked in and some wineries took ridiculous price increases. The worse news is that the dollar is as weak as it has ever been against the Euro which has caused prices in dollars to rise even further. These wines are not cheap but like 1990 and 1982, they will provide consistently pleasurable drinking for many years to come. View from St. Julien; Ch. Pichon Baron on left and Pichon Lalande on right 713-526-8787 Dumb Stage (continued from p. 2) youth and gains the complexity of a bottle-developed bouquet. Most wines do not go discernibly dumb but the dumb stage is a factor with most red Bordeaux wines. However good they may taste on release (and many are incredibly good on release), fine red Bordeaux is intended to develop with age. In most vintages, the wine closes down for a period as it changes in the bottle. In some vintages, the wine goes more dumb and stays dumb longer. In other vintages, the wines are much less affected and/or are affected for a shorter period of time. Really hot Bordeaux vintages (1982, 1990, 2003) tend to produce wines with lower acidity. The lower acid wines don’t go as dumb and may stay in the dumb stage for a relatively shorter period. Great classic Bordeaux vintages (1986, 1989, 1996) tend to have more acidity and so, go more deeply into the dumb stage. Medium-weight, well-balanced vintages like 1999 go dumb but don’t go deeply into it and the wines don’t stay dumb as long. Generally speaking, the most expensive wines - the biggest, most intense, most extracted wines - go dumb for the longest time and the least expensive Bordeaux reds may not go dumb at all (because the least expensive wines often have all the development they will ever need by the time they are released). Almost all the 1990s have emerged but many of the best 1989s could use a couple of more years to fully emerge. Even some 1986s are still finishing up. On the other hand, many 1995s have already emerged. <strong>What</strong> happens if you drink a wine during the dumb stage A lot depends on where the wine is in its development but most of them actually taste pretty good – just not as good as they did or will. You can help them taste better by splashing the wine into a decanter (as opposed to gently decanting it). I like to use a cheap one-liter glass carafe for this so I can turn the bottle upside down with its neck in the carafe and let the wine glug out. Unless you are holding a treasure for optimum aging, don’t be too concerned about the dumb stage. It is a factor but you must also remember that you can’t enjoy your wines unless you drink them. If you are going to drink a wine too late or too soon, it is always better to err on the side of too soon. The most important thing is to drink your wine.
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What I Tasted on My Spring Break - SPEC's Liquors

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