TN: Big dinner, lots of 2000 Bordeaux

Great notes, but no grade for the Figeac? I wondered because I have some and have not tried it.

snipped-for-privacy@aol.comdamnspam (Dale Williams) wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@mb-m20.aol.com:

So what do I have in the way of '00 bordeaux? You guessed it. How is this going to be in the long run or should I drink it and enjoy?

Hey, I wouldn't worry:

1) My notes are amateur, just my impressions 2) I think someone said Parker gave a 94 3) As I said, these wines are somewhat closed right now

I thought this somewhat California-ish/international/Parkerized, pretty fat and fruit forward. Good in its own way. It's always a little bit of a guessing game as to whether the oak will integrate, etc. Personally , just guessing, I would bet against this being a 25-30 year wine, but think that 5 to 7 more years would probably do it good. Dale

Dale Williams Drop "damnspam" to reply

I assume that's for a _case_ of the 2000 Palmer. That puts it at ~$300/bottle - right?

Tom S

Should read Bahans.

I will say after reading other attendees notes' elsewhere, it sounds like my grade of C+ on the Pichon-Lalande was generous. The word "yuck" seems to appear with frequency, no one has admitted liking it (by the way, we were tasting 3-4 bottles of each wine, mostly from more than 1 source, so unlikely an off-bottle). The green notes were also noted by others at the NY VinExpo last year. Hard to reconcile this with the notes of the major critics.

Dale

Dale Williams Drop "damnspam" to reply

I have 3 bottles of the Pinchon-Lalande. Do you think there is any hope for an aging improvement in these wines? Normally I really like Pinchon-Lalande but this is the most disappointing review I've read and it seemed to be uniform across the group tasting and multiple bottles.

Lawrence,

as someone said, this is shaping up to be the biggest debate over a wine since the love-it-or-hate-it '90 Pichon Lalande. In other tastings, several folks said they loved this wine (as did RP & the sucker from WS, who hold more weight than me!). A few theories that were put out:

1) something (the petit verdot component?) is going thru a wierd phase, that time will smooth it out 2)the critics got a "special" barrel , and the wine is horribly vegetal. The winemaker I was talking to during dinner just said "this is green, and there's no excuse for green in 2000!" 3) there's some component of the wine that contains something that people have varied sensitivities or reactions to (like how some folks don't detect TCA) 4) there's some kind of lot variation going on (even if we got from several sources, probably same lot bound for eastern US). Though I think this would have to be lot variation in the assemblage, as this tasted like no damage I've ever experienced (and Mark Golodetz, a contributing editor at WE and one of the organizers of dinner, said he got the same greenness in a barrel sample).

All of those theories but #2 hold out some hope for you. While I'm sure you got these wines with idea of drinking them in 12-30 years, if I were you I'd open one now . Give it plenty of air, then try. If you love it, put others to bed. If you don't like it (in finding an off flavor, not just finding it too young), then I'd sell on winecommune trumpeting the WA/WS scores. Because what's important is how you like it. And personally I have trouble imagining that greeness ever completely integrating.I hope you like it!

Dale

Dale Williams Drop "damnspam" to reply

Thanks for the suggestion. I will try one this weekend.