2002 Maison Nicholas Coteaux du Languedoc Rose. bought it last year thinking I would drink it quick and see how it went, It made it to the wine rack reserved for quick drinking no storage and sat. Last night I tried it. Apricot more than pink probably tells the story. Actually if you were looking for faults there weren't many, but if you were looking for good things not so many either. The acidity was good for a light summer dinner (I live in Florida OK?) and it did keep the palate fresh, but with no nose and hardly more than a whisper of fruit in the bottle, well this one died young too bad it wasn't an '05.
Reminds me that I have a Tavel, that probably should have been consumed last Summer. I'll crack it open this evening, and see if, it too, has expired. I hate when fresh, young wines get lost in the shuffle. Note to self: do better at drinking that which needs to be drunk!
Story along the same lines... 4 years ago I inherited a small wine cellar with some excellent wines. Mixed in, however, were 4 bottles of Beaujolais Nuuveau - from 1976! I opened one - no one could stand to be in the same room with the awful smell...
Hosted a wine dinner for a group that won the event at a live-auction. One of the guests brought me a bottle of NB from 1996. I opened it last night, and, while it was not rancid, it looked like a very old Rose and had thrown a ton of sediment. To the sink it went.
Some years back, we had a Nov party, and I brought up a few older NB's to sample along side a Fleurie and a Morgon, plus a few NB's of that vintage. I was actually surprised that the NB's were not "over the hill," even though they were 1-3 years old, cellared in good conditions. They did not rate with the Beaujolais Crus, but were drinkable, and some actually were better (to my taste), than were some of the recently released NB's.
I'm hoping to talk the local IW&FS into doing a Beaujolais tasting in the near future, but wonder if they will buy into it.
Gentlemen without a doubt you have hit a bucket of nails on the head. The present glut of wine grapes here in Victoria, (Australia) has a lot of growers considering making preservative free wine with a one year lifespan (drink it damm quick). Of course the lack of maturation leaves you robbed of any oak , on the upside fresh, lite and fruit driven wine will abound. Andrew Buchanan
You are lucky in Oz--except for Nouveau, most wholesalers & importers in North America will not buy a wine until their inventory is depleted---So in most of the US & I suspect Canada, the consumer may want an 2006 Riesling that just been bottled, and all that's available is 2003. The wholesaler wants to move the 2003's out so store owners will be given a samples of the
2003 which if on premise tastings are allowed the retailer opens it for the customer or just gives him the sample bottle. If the wine was meant for early consumption like a moscato, who ever tastes it will give the wine "last rites". We in Maryland are lucky that our Capital , Washington allows direct sales from supplier to retailer. The consumer only commits a misdemeanor if they bring a wine over the Maryland border. The Md comptrollers office has found sending a police car to big wine shops in DC and following anyone with MD plates with a purchase until they reach Maryland and are busted is not very cost effective. Believe me if wholesalers lost considerable revenue from DC sales they'd get the police to reinstate strict enforcement.
Only Wal-Mart in this State is as rapacious as a Nationally operated wholesaler in getting their cut of sale of any alcoholic beverage. Florida is even worse as there are few independent wholesalers there. Account are discouraged buying anything from an independent---all the big outfits have to do is cut off a stores access to Yellowtail to get their message across. I'm sure similar situations occur in many states. Being an independent is a Catch 22 situation, if a brand is successful, the bigger wholesaler goes after it. Sometimes they don't even try to sell the brand, they just want to deny a small company successful products. Most wineries get the message if they don't place their wines with a large wholesaler, their brand will be dead after the first shipment to an independent is gone. Of course besides economic warfare, the large houses know other means of intimidation. I only ran into that once with some wines from the Czech Republic I was looking to sell in the NYC market. As one small wholesaler told me"I don't need the tsurris(trouble), I like my kneecaps where they are." He pretended that was a joke, but I told the person who was the importer to forget that market unless she could get the wine into a big house.
State Police in Maine and Massachusetts have discovered that if they stake out the state liqour stores near the borders in New Hampshire, the New Hampshire state police will arrest them for loitering. So basically, it's never done anymore, much to the joy of Maine and Massachusetts residents, though some people still exercise caution. The only way to get caught now is to get pulled over for something else after coming back into your home state, and having your cases of wine visible in the back seat or some such thing.
This is also true for the New Hampshire fireworks stores.
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