A couple of nice wines and a(nother) bit of a rant about screwcaps

I was at my wine store the other day, putting together some orders, one of which included a couple of bottles of Domaine La Colombette Chardonnay Demi-Muid 2006 Vin de Pays des Coteaux du Libron. There was a box already open, with three of the six bottles left in the bottom of the box. I took a couple out, only to find that one of them had (for want of a better expression) sprung a leak. What you see in the picture on the left is how the bottle looked. You can see from the level that there was a good 2 or 3 centimetres of ullage - not something you expect to see in a 3 year-old screwcapped bottle of wine. More importantly, some of the wine that had leaked out was still trapped inbetween the metal and the plastic "tamper-proof" covering. The dark brown colour, the sticky texture and the burnt toffee smell would suggest that the wine had been seeping out of the bottle for a good while - possibly since bottling, but certainly since it was shipped (around a year ago). Suffice to say that such a bottle was unsaleable, so I had little option but to take it home and drink it myself - or more likely, I thought, use it in cooking or pour it down the sink. Which was more than a little annoying, because this is a situation I have been faced with on several occasions in the past. Not just with this particular wine, but others, too.

The picture on the right was taken after I had removed the plastic covering and removed and cleaned the cap. There were actually three dints on the top of the cap (you can see two on the photo) and these were obviously more than enough enough to break the seal between the glass and the cap. I'm not sure how there came to be three dints, but the bottle had obviously been subjected to a some knocks. The fact that this particular wine is shipped in "laying down" boxes probably doesn't help, since the sides of the boxes are much more prone to knocks than the top. And as screwcapped wines (even those designed for extended ageing) don't actually need to be laid down, then why not just box them in the upright position? Frankly, I'm a bit fed up with having to write-off so many bottles of wine in this way - I'm trying to make money selling the stuff! Suffice to say that I will be having words with the growers when I meet up with them in just over a week's time. Since the alternative closures they offer are those bloody awful, rock-hard plastic "corks", I will be asking them to either consider DIAM closures (see my 29/12/2008 entry below) or to ship their screwcapped wines upright.

Anyway, this particular story had an unusually happy ending. Far form being spoilt (as was my experience on couple of previous occasions) the wine was in remarkably good condition - in fact, it was absolutely delicious, and probably still with a few years of ageworthiness left in it. Mid-gold and very clear and bright, it was full of ripe stone fruit aromas and flavours, with notes of honey, lemon and beautifully-judged oak. And beautifully poised, too, combining a certain richness with fresh mineral flavours, ample acidity and a fair length on the finish. I still haven't changed my opinion that this wine (and not just based on the evidence of this vintage, but earlier ones, too) is the best Chardonnay I have tasted from the Languedoc. I think I shall set a few bottles aside, to enjoy over the next 5 or so years, as it will be interesting to see how it develops. It really is cracking stuff, and I'm actually quite pleased that I was "forced" to drink it!

I have just taken delivery of a top-up order from Domaine Treloar (same wines as before, but new vintages will be arriving in a month or two) and now have Domaine Treloar Motus 2006 Cotes du Roussillon back in stock, so I thought I'd take the opportunity to enjoy a bottle to see how it is developing. And the answer is..... very nicely indeed. Although still quite primary on opening (sweet bramble and blackcurrant fruit, juicy acidity and firm but fine tannins) it is starting to shed some of its puppy fat and is developing some interesting secondary aromas. The notes of volatile acidity have receded and the fruit has started to eat away at the charred oak, with some nice earthy/undergrowth and cedarwood notes developing. It is very concentrated, but balanced and elegant at the same time - in fact, it is becoming more and more like a great Bandol, though somewhat easier to drink at this relatively early stage in its development. If you have some, don't be afraid to crack a bottle or two now - but then again, don't be afraid to tuck some away for another 5 or 10 years. It is a real stunner!

    

Another minor chapter in the cork/screwcap debate

I didn’t mention in my post below about our pre-Christmas tasting, but a bottle of Chateau d’Estoublon Red 2006 also went down very well. A bottle of 2007 white from the same grower, however, was strangely muted, and certainly not a patch on the bottle I drank whilst preparing the tasting note for my website (see my 14 December entry below). Turns out that it was mildly corked – but corked, nevertheless. Which got me thinking that I’ve had a bit of a bad run with corked or faulty bottles at tastings, in the last couple of months.

Natural corks - good ones, of course!

I should state here and now that I hate screwcaps on wine - I really hate them. Admittedly, it is partly a romantic/traditional thing, but it is also down to the fact that screwcaps (a) have a long way to go before their long-term usefulness is proven and (b) are prone to their own set of problems. But that is a whole different debate. It has to be said, of course, that the problems with cork are well-documented and manifold. Chateau d’Estoublon clearly buy the most expensive (and supposedly the best) corks, as do their neighbours, Domaine de Trévallon – indeed, I believe that these corks are priced not in cents, but Euros (2 or 3 per cork, actually!) and therefore add considerably to the basic cost of the bottled wine. But in my experience, that doesn't seem to give them a significant advantage over other (usually much less expensive) corks used by many of my other growers. I've been in the business long enough now to gather a good deal of anecdotal evidence about which growers have the least problems with corked wines - and, unfortunately, neither of these growers are top of the list, expensive corks or not.

I had cause to contact Domaine de Trévallon recently (a bottle of 1999 without a label, would you believe!) and I took the opportunity to tell them about a couple of problem bottles I'd had some time ago. I visited in August 2007 (before I started to sell their wines) and bought one bottle each of the 1999, 2000 and 2001 red, which were put into a 3-bottle wood presentation box. In 2008, when I was preparing for a spectacular Trévallon vertical tasting in Nottingham, I opened the 2001 and 2000 and both were badly affected by TCA (I haven't yet opened the 1999 from the same box). I mentioned that it is very unusual for 2 out of 3 bottles of wine to be "corked" and maybe it was just a very unfortunate coincidence. Or, I wondered, is it possible for TCA to be transmitted from the pine box (or for the other bottles to be affected by 1 bad bottle in the box)? This is, to a certain extent, a rhetorical question and I guess there is not much more a grower can do than to use the most expensive (best?) corks available to them – other than move to an alternative closure method. That said, a good bottle of Trévallon (or Estoublon, for that matter) is still one of the world’s great wine experiences. And (as a friend of mine recently remarked) every single one of my greatest and most sublime wine experiences have come from bottles sealed under cork. However, as long as natural cork closures are still around, TCA will remain a problem for the wine drinker. But there may be a happy medium…………….

DIAM corks - are these the answer?

Personally, I think the answer to the TCA problem lies with DIAM (pictured above) each one of which is made up of thousands of tiny granules of natural cork. During the manufacturing process, the granules are treated and cleaned, which ensures that any traces of TCA (and any other undesirable compounds the cork may be harbouring) are eradicated. The granules are then bound together to form a closure that is as close as possible to the shape, feel and texture of a single-piece natural cork - and they are guaranteed TCA-free.  A couple of my growers already use DIAM corks for all of their wines, notably Domaine de Montesquiou in Jurancon. And the results seem to be very promising indeed - i.e. I have no faulty or corked bottles to report so far. And these are wines which certainly rely on their vitality and fruit to show their best and every bottle I have tasted since they moved to DIAM has been spot-on and fresh as can be. The only thing that has still to be proven with DIAM closures is how well the wines will age over the longer term. Are they good for 5 years, 10 years, 20, more? Only time will tell. But one thing is for sure – unless the producers of natural, single-piece corks eradicate the TCA problem pretty damn quick, their days are numbered.