WTN: 3 Syrah/Shiraz 1997

Dinner with Christian and Remo on Monday night. Served these blind but not double blind, needless to say, they had no problem guessing which is which.

Chapoutier Ermitage Le Pavillon 1997
Healthy purple-ruby-black. Soft multiple types of pepper, fresh meat as well as cured, spices, fresh prune, cherry, soft red beet, forest berries, blackberry, minerals. Sound alcohol. Relatively tight tannin, faintly grainy, not noticeably oak-induced, and yet, sweet pink marzipan flavoured. Nice metal note to the acidity. Surprisingly fresh, very racy. Balanced. Elegant, but I could hardly believe it when Remo called it “light”. Sweeter and fruitier with airing. Holding up much better with airing after 12 hours in the open bottle than the Chave, fuller-bodied, ageworthier, but also a bit warmer with alcohol. Nice for the vintage, but I had expected this to be as good or better than the (in hindsight more structured and intense, if less fruity-youthful, round and smooth) 1994. Rating: 93+/94

Jean-Louis Chave Hermitage 1997
Medium ruby-black, soft orange at the rim. Sweet undergrowth and tree bark, wet forest floor shortly after the rain. Horsey sweat. A touch of ginger to softer, initially sweeter, more Burgundian/expressive red fruit subtlety. Very complex, the most character of the three, as Remo noted. Top notes of olive and curry spice mix, faint hazelnut. Rustier iron to the minerality. Tea-like tannin. The most finesseful and longest on the finish and aftertaste. As much as I have always liked the 1997, but exceptionally for Chave, it was at its finest in its approachable youth. Seemingly bound to become sweatier and drier with bottle age, it should still continue to age well enough in bottle, most likely keep for many more years – but I do not believe it will improve. The most oxidized of the three after 12 hours in the open bottle (which I kept in the cool cellar over night), a bit disappointingly so, but the terroir expression remained the most impressive. Rating: 93-

Jasper Hill Shiraz Heathcote Georgia's Paddock 1997
A wine I had not had in ten years, and whose artificial acidity spike I have always disliked, but of which I was recently told it was drinking well now. I guess it is, still youthful yet with minor tertiary characteristics. Nearly opaque plummy ruby-black – the colour alone would have given away its provenance. Minor CO2 bubbles and flavour, which took some time to blow off. The jammy-sweet fruit came across as rubbery-petrolly and slightly heavy in direct comparison to the Northern Rhônes. Attractive, lightly gamy beef top note. Softly dark chocolatey tannin, not too oaky. The artificial-flavoured acidity is not awful, but remains a problem – Christian, who initially liked this wine best of the three became increasingly convinced, about when he was halfway through his second glass, it would cause an upset stomach if he drank any more of it. The 15.5% alcohol adds to the stodginess. While I had to save a glass each of the two Northern Rhônes so I could retaste them the following day, we hardly finished half of the bottle of the Georgia’s Paddock. It showed rather better after 12 hours in the open bottle, with more integrated sweetness, and most of the CO2 blown off. When I poured the remaining small samples to Patrick, Eddie and Ralph 24 hours after the cork was pulled: glyceric, lightly viscous sweet chestnut, dark chocolate, heavy (violet?) florality and grape peel, and a top note of cherry coke (verging on artificial, but adding a little freshness to the slight overall heavy-handedness). Nutmeg and cinnamon oak. “A bit one-dimensional and short”, Patrick said, who liked the wine’s fruit. Rating: 90-/89(-?)

Greetings from Switzerland, David.
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„J'ai gâché vingt ans de mes plus belles années au billard. Si c'était à refaire, je recommencerais.“ – Roger Conti

[David M. Bueker]

1997 is one of those vintages that has been overlooked, and because of that I was able to drink a good many wines that I can no longer afford (e.g. Chave, some top end Burgundies, etc). Most gave so much early pleasure that I drank through nearly all of them. The only '97s I still have around are some German Riesling Auslese a few Alsatians & some Austrians (a truly spectacular vintage there).

The shiraz definitely sounds acidified.

At the time of the 03 vintage in Burgundy, Allen Meadows wrote some interesting comments about how winemakers can choose to acidify the must or the wine.

Acid in the must is capable of integrating properly, and can be justified because if pH is too high, secondary (malolactic) fermentation can happen at the same time as primary (alcoholic), and malolactic bacteria will feed on the unfermented sugar as well as the malic acid. But the added acid will often precipitate as crystals in the tank or barrel, so it's unpredictable whether it will take.

It is much more reliable and controllable to acidify the wine itself, but that will likely taste as you describe.

The shiraz definitely sounds acidified.

At the time of the 03 vintage in Burgundy, Allen Meadows wrote some interesting comments about how winemakers can choose to acidify the must or the wine.

Acid in the must is capable of integrating properly, and can be justified because if pH is too high, secondary (malolactic) fermentation can happen at the same time as primary (alcoholic), and malolactic bacteria will feed on the unfermented sugar as well as the malic acid. But the added acid will often precipitate as crystals in the tank or barrel, so it's unpredictable whether it will take.

It is much more reliable and controllable to acidify the wine itself, but that will likely taste as you describe.

Judging from what Australian winemakers (unfortunately most rarely travel this far) have told me at trade tastings, that is, on average alone, I have little doubt this may have been acidified. I remember endless discussions on wine boards in which Aussies "accused" me as a Swiss to keep griping about acidification when "everyone knows you Swiss chaptalize almost any wine you make". What transpired in those discussions was mainly this: that they figure they would notice (smell, taste, whatever) chaptalization the way we Europeans taste acidification, and that the fact that we notice at all is merely a cultural/contextual thing (some claimed prejudice on our side). I beg to differ, but at some point decided not go on about this anymore. In fact, I do not remember when I last wrote about a wine "I believe this was acidified". Suffice to say, the wine's acidity tastes artificial - can't argue with that.

Greetings from Switzerland, David.
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„J'ai gâché vingt ans de mes plus belles années au billard. Si c'était à refaire, je recommencerais.“ – Roger Conti

Sounds like I should adopt the same wording. My beef is with the Argentines and Chileans, and have got into some tussles of a similar nature.