24-07-2022, 12:00 PM
William Kelley, de jonge reviewer van Bourgogne (hij woont daar) en Bordeaux voor robertparker.com postte dit onlangs op Instagram:
"What exactly is an ‘off vintage’? I recently read an article that contended that it was simply inconceivable for a wine from a more challenging year to ever equal a wine from a ‘great’ year. But as a critic who also farms vineyards and makes wine, I have a rather different perspective. Of course, rotten, unripe grapes don’t make great wine, and some meteorological challenges are indeed insurmountable; but plenty of the greatest wines I’ve enjoyed have derived from producers who achieved full maturity and selected rigorously in years of (what today) would be considered marginal maturity. After all, pretty much all grape varieties’ most celebrated expressions derive from marginal climates, the most northerly limit where their cultivation is viable, for a reason: it’s the sort of slow maturity such climates impose that delivers the most complexity. I’m seeing this first-hand, as the wines I made in 2021 in Burgundy—after fighting frost, mildew and botrytis, and struggling to choose a picking date in rainy weather—are emerging as some of my personal favorites to date. So to me, judging a wine by its vintage is no better than judging it by its label or appellation. Just like those other a priori, vintages’ reputations never get adjusted, even if the wines evolve a lot better than expected. Yet today, the best producers’ agronomic and technical prowess means they are no longer obliged to simply submit to the vagaries of the vintage; and so challenging years, as opposed to homogenizing a region, only lengthen the gap between the best and the rest. A case in point is the 2002 Latour, one of my favorite Bordeaux (surely the region most liable to be judged by the vintage, incidentally). I’ve also drunk the 2000 and 2005 this year, and I’m convinced that the 2002 would surpass both in a blind tasting. And while it’s widely acknowledged as one of the wines of the vintage, has the extent of its greatness ever been truly recognized? Certainly not by the market! And that, at least, is the sliver lining…"
reactie:
"Dear William, you have risen in my esteem with this post..but please do not publish such things anymore. Let the point chasers have their wines and let us enjoy these kind of vintages..."
"What exactly is an ‘off vintage’? I recently read an article that contended that it was simply inconceivable for a wine from a more challenging year to ever equal a wine from a ‘great’ year. But as a critic who also farms vineyards and makes wine, I have a rather different perspective. Of course, rotten, unripe grapes don’t make great wine, and some meteorological challenges are indeed insurmountable; but plenty of the greatest wines I’ve enjoyed have derived from producers who achieved full maturity and selected rigorously in years of (what today) would be considered marginal maturity. After all, pretty much all grape varieties’ most celebrated expressions derive from marginal climates, the most northerly limit where their cultivation is viable, for a reason: it’s the sort of slow maturity such climates impose that delivers the most complexity. I’m seeing this first-hand, as the wines I made in 2021 in Burgundy—after fighting frost, mildew and botrytis, and struggling to choose a picking date in rainy weather—are emerging as some of my personal favorites to date. So to me, judging a wine by its vintage is no better than judging it by its label or appellation. Just like those other a priori, vintages’ reputations never get adjusted, even if the wines evolve a lot better than expected. Yet today, the best producers’ agronomic and technical prowess means they are no longer obliged to simply submit to the vagaries of the vintage; and so challenging years, as opposed to homogenizing a region, only lengthen the gap between the best and the rest. A case in point is the 2002 Latour, one of my favorite Bordeaux (surely the region most liable to be judged by the vintage, incidentally). I’ve also drunk the 2000 and 2005 this year, and I’m convinced that the 2002 would surpass both in a blind tasting. And while it’s widely acknowledged as one of the wines of the vintage, has the extent of its greatness ever been truly recognized? Certainly not by the market! And that, at least, is the sliver lining…"
reactie:
"Dear William, you have risen in my esteem with this post..but please do not publish such things anymore. Let the point chasers have their wines and let us enjoy these kind of vintages..."