WTN: Good enough for Jehova

[Otto]

I haven't seen halibut here before, but tonight I saw a lightly smoked chunk at my local shop. Having read that it is a lovely fish, I bought it. I agree - truly good enough for Jehova.

William Fèvre Chablis Grand Cru Les Clos 2004 13% abv; many€

Light gold colour. The nose was surprising: a lovely aged Chablis character of minerals and orange and flowers. It smelled as mature (and as lovely) as the '88 Moutonne we had when Wade Hostler was here this January. So certainly not like bad cooking sherry that POxed Burgundies apparently should taste like, but not at all youthful either. Rather it tasted like a Chablis at its optimum age. Needless to say, I really loved the wine and with two of us drinking it, it evaporated in just 1½ hours - quite a fierce rate, a magnum would have been welcome. Lovely, but utterly unexpected.

-Otto

[Keith M]

Blasphemy!

[Robin Garr]

Blasphemy!

And damned tasty blasphemy at that!

[Otto]

Blasphemy!

And damned tasty blasphemy at that!

That's not in the script, Robin!

Are there any women here?

-O

[Robin Garr]

That's not in the script, Robin!

I prefer originality to derivative prose ... <snif>

[Otto]

I prefer originality to derivative prose ... <snif>

MP does it best: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mm2BsjACkuI

But what about the curious prematurely aged character? I thought POx was more like flat, bad cooking sherry character rather than a wonderful wine that tastes 15 years older than it should?

-O

[Jason Hagen]

Thanks for the note. When I bought my 04 Fevres, my plan was to wait on most of them. I am going to dig one of these out real soon.

a magnum would have been welcome. Lovely, but utterly unexpected.

I have 1 of them too. Maybe I'll let that one go for many years.

Jason

[Otto]

Thanks for the note. When I bought my 04 Fevres, my plan was to wait on most of them. I am going to dig one of these out real soon.

a magnum would have been welcome. Lovely, but utterly unexpected.

I have 1 of them too. Maybe I'll let that one go for many years.

Jason

Jason, don't panic quite yet! Like I tried to emphasise before, my experience seemed different to POX in that it wasn't a flat, sherried wine, just very mature. POXed wines to me have been flat and lifeless not fully mature and wonderful.

Reading through several fora it seems that some '02s from Fèvre have had POX problems but no '04s (yet?) have. Hopefully my experience was just a freak bottle rather than a sign of things to come. But even with all these musings, I think I caught this bottle at just the right time - it was a stunning example of what I expect great 20 year old Chablis to be like.

-O

[Sue Courtney]

Blasphemy!

And damned tasty blasphemy at that!

That's not in the script, Robin!

Are there any women here?

-O

No women here. If there were, I know one that would probably say that WIlliam Fevre Grand Cru Les Clos 2002 was one of her favourite Chablis's ever.

No idea what POX means. Sounds like a disease. Please explain in the context.

Edited to change Chevre to Fevre

[Richard M]

We have not started yet!

[Nigel Groundwater]

No women here. If there were, I know one that would probably say that WIlliam Chevre Grand Cru Les Clos 2002 was one of her favourite Chablis's ever.

No idea what POX means. Sounds like a disease. Please explain in the context.

Chevre=Fevre? and Pox= P(remature) Ox(idation); a phenomenon not yet completely understood but apparently becoming prevalent across the board with vintages from the mid 90s - with 1996 receiving most of the votes.

The Pox, or Premox as it is also called, has been hugely debated since it manifests itself primarily in white burgundies [earliest significant reports in 2002/3] without distinction -from the humblest village wines to the best Grand Crus. The problem is that the wines smell, taste and usually look oxidised many years before they used to/should so that e.g. GCs or 1er cru wines that would not usually be broached until they were 10-15 years and older are completely shot very much earlier and in enormously greater numbers than before - dark, flat and most people would say 'sherried' although others describe it differently.

Blame has focused most heavily on the corks used from about the mid 90s [quality of, disinfectant treatments of peroxide v chlorine, other treatments of silicone v paraffin], lower SO2 levels in the winemaking and bottling, modern presses and their effect, other winemaking practices such as increased lees stirring, changed viticulture etc etc but as far as I know there is no consensus yet although many think it is mainly the corks and/or SO2 practices.

There are many, often long, threads on most forums dealing with this issue and one of the main current themes is ‘which vintage is likely to show a significant improvement due to changes made by producers’.

[Sue Courtney]

Chevre=Fevre? and Pox= P(remature) Ox(idation); a phenomenon not yet completely understood but apparently becoming prevalent across the board with vintages from the mid 90s - with 1996 receiving most of the votes.

Oops Fevre, not Chevre.
And thanks for the long explanation Nigel.
If bottles consistently open Poxed at the same time, it must be a winemaking practice. If only some bottles are Poxed and others are pristine, then it is obviously the cork.

[MLawton]

May a pox not be on your house.