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Wine group at A.L's 27/08/2012 (TNB)

The dreaded pox 05/08/2012 (TNB)

The Diary - August 2012

Wine group at A.L's 27/08/2012 (TNB)

Tasting notes added to Fine Wine Diary 01/11/2012   Return to top

The dreaded pox 05/08/2012 (TNB)

So here we are, with 2005s from Burgundy suffering from Pox. (And I don't claim this is a new discovery.) I have very little confidence that the issue has been solved because it only became apparent somewhere between 5 and 9 years after the notoriuous 1996 vintage that there was a widespread, systematic problem with the wines. Is it solved now? I haven't a clue, but I would still regard white Burgundy as a speculative buy for cellaring for even modest times, where I am speaking as a traditionalist who thinks decent vintages of white Burgundy benefit from a decade or more of keeping.

One hears a lot of twaddle from vested interests about how dry white wines have never been keepable beyond a year or two, but the Riesling below gives the lie to that. And before the great Pox crisis starting around 1994-5, white Burgundies do get old and start to get a touch oxidised, but they don't rot in the bottle the way that poxed ones do.

So the story is that I opened the Jobard Burgundy (and by the way, they are one of the less affected producers) because it seemed a better plan than drinking the Riesling that had been opened the day before. But of course it was the Riesling that was in good condition.

Tasting notes added to Fine Wine Diary 05/08/2012   Return to top