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Best evah!
Jun. 28th, 2006 03:59 pmI have just received my first futures(1) offer for the 2005 clarets. For the 20th year running the 2005's are "possibly the best vintage ever"(2). Now, one of the (few) advantages of creeping senility to the wine drinker is not, as one might suspect, having had the opportunity to sample fine wines at various ages and thus to form one's own views on how much time in the cellar makes sense. Rather it is the deep skepticism produced by decades of hype from growers, negociants, merchants and puffsters(3) that greets every vintage. It's the only constant apart from the inevitable price hike.
Now, I'm old enough to remember 1972 which as possibly one other person on LJ will recall broke through all previous records for opening prices amid hype that was excessive even by Gascon standards. I also recall that by five years or so after the wines first went on sale the auction houses were full of them as merchants tried to offload wines whose meager fruit would never balance truly world class levels of acid and tannin.(4) I speak with authority as the wine buyer at my club bought a bunch of classed growths at knock down prices and I can remember a couple of evenings when he, the club assistant manager and a couple of my colleagues managed to 'sample' half a dozen bottles after dinner just to be sure. Now, not every year has been as big a bust as '72 but the number that have 'underachieved' is not inconsiderable.
I can't say it's always wrong to buy futures. It's one of the few (relatively) affordable ways of sustaining a claret habit but one does have to be damn careful. It's especially tough here where one is effectively restricted to buying through the government monopoly but even in England there are only a couple of wine merchants that I would actually trust. I'm slowly allowing experience to triumph over hope and largely refusing to buy wines for laying down unless I can taste them first. That's not possible for me for claret so I am taking Hugh Johnson's advice from his classic book on the wines of Bordeaux and concentrating on patronising two or three local petit fournisseurs whose skills I admire, who will let me taste and who will share their expertise with a valued repeat customer. Besides it's more fun.
Notes:
(1) For some reason the English render 'futures' as en primeur. The French probably have some apposite phrase in Swahili.
(2) There are variants of which "vintage of the century" is the most egregious.
(3) They call themselves journalists but they are so beholden to the industry for freebies that they daren't rock the boat ever.
(4) While I think that Robert Parker's California besotted palate should be consigned to the outer darkness, man cannot live by tannin alone.
Now, I'm old enough to remember 1972 which as possibly one other person on LJ will recall broke through all previous records for opening prices amid hype that was excessive even by Gascon standards. I also recall that by five years or so after the wines first went on sale the auction houses were full of them as merchants tried to offload wines whose meager fruit would never balance truly world class levels of acid and tannin.(4) I speak with authority as the wine buyer at my club bought a bunch of classed growths at knock down prices and I can remember a couple of evenings when he, the club assistant manager and a couple of my colleagues managed to 'sample' half a dozen bottles after dinner just to be sure. Now, not every year has been as big a bust as '72 but the number that have 'underachieved' is not inconsiderable.
I can't say it's always wrong to buy futures. It's one of the few (relatively) affordable ways of sustaining a claret habit but one does have to be damn careful. It's especially tough here where one is effectively restricted to buying through the government monopoly but even in England there are only a couple of wine merchants that I would actually trust. I'm slowly allowing experience to triumph over hope and largely refusing to buy wines for laying down unless I can taste them first. That's not possible for me for claret so I am taking Hugh Johnson's advice from his classic book on the wines of Bordeaux and concentrating on patronising two or three local petit fournisseurs whose skills I admire, who will let me taste and who will share their expertise with a valued repeat customer. Besides it's more fun.
Notes:
(1) For some reason the English render 'futures' as en primeur. The French probably have some apposite phrase in Swahili.
(2) There are variants of which "vintage of the century" is the most egregious.
(3) They call themselves journalists but they are so beholden to the industry for freebies that they daren't rock the boat ever.
(4) While I think that Robert Parker's California besotted palate should be consigned to the outer darkness, man cannot live by tannin alone.
