Echo一下小胖，也是关于90年代的BY白的氧化问题

In 2004 rumours began to circulate. Many of

the top 1996 white Burgundies seemed to have

suddenly oxidised. A couple of professional

friends of mine telephoned me to ask if I had

encountered any bad bottles. I hadn’t, but I

opened a few from my cellar: no problems. I

was lucky.

At fi rst it seemed to be only the 1996 vintage

which was causing concern. As time went on,

it became increasingly obvious that there was

a problem, and it was widespread. A professional

colleague had to withdraw both a stock

of quality 1996 Chablis and another bin of

top Corton-Charlemagne. I later found I had

diffi culties with some fi rst-division Puligny-

Montrachet, Les Combettes. Others reported

similar disappointments.

As the months progressed, a number of factors

became apparent.

? It was not just the 1996 vintage, but others:

1997, 1998 and even 1999 were oxidising.

? It was not a grower problem, nor even a

wine problem. There were good and bad

bottles even within the same case of wine.

? It also did not seem to be a question of bad

storage or of transportation at excessively

high temperatures. There were as many

bad bottles in the cellars of the growers in

Burgundy as elsewhere.

The Mystery of Bad White Burgundy has

now been much discussed, within the profession

as well as outside it, on, for instance, Mark

Squires Wine Forum on the US Internet. A

large number of absurd and mistaken explanations

have been put forward. Let us eliminate

the most stupid of these:

“The dominating acidity of the 1996 white

Burgundies is the cause of their premature oxidation.”

This is idiotic, as any oenologue will

tell you.

“The wines were under-sulphured.” It is

suggested that because of the high acidities,

the 1996s were considered to need less sulphur

protection than other vintages. I have not found

a single grower who will admit to having sulphured

his/her 1996s less than usual.

“White Burgundy is lees-stirred (batonnage)

excessively these days.” An arguable point. But

there is no obvious connection between this and

premature oxidation.

“With the widespread move to pneumatic

presses, wines are more fragile today.” They are

certainly cleaner, as are the lees, which means

there can be longer lees contact in cask without

the onset of mercaptan. All in all this would give

more, not less, concentrated wines.

“The size of the crops today produces weaker

wines which age faster.” An arguable point. But

why then do the wines of the fi rst-division producers,

who do not over-crop, vary as much as

the rest? And while 1996 and 1999 were plentiful

years, 1997 and 1998 were not.

A number of other possibilities can also be

eliminated by a bit of diligent research: the date

of the bottling (many Burgundians are now

bottling at 18 months rather than 12); the use

of much or little new oak; the fact that a few

producers regularly block the malos to ensure

high levels of freshness; the use of enzymes;

etc., etc. There is no pattern. All these are

blind alleys.

Having exhausted all the possible viticultural

and vinicultural explanations, we are left with

one fi nal cause. Yes, the problem lies with the

corks. Some have suggested that it has been the

move from chlorine-treated corks to peroxidetreated

corks—peroxide being oxidative—that

is the reason. I suggest it is more fundamental

than that. The quality of corks has declined

over the last generation or two (why do we have

three or four times more bottles that are corky

than we used to have?) The trees are stripped

more often. There is less assiduous selection of

the bark. And the result, quite simply, is that

there is too much oxygen permeation through

much of today’s cork material. This leads to a

collapse of the free and total sulphur levels in

the wine and, therefore, to their premature oxidation.

This is a scandalous situation, and we

have no guarantee that it will not be repeated

in subsequent vintages. So far, the delicious

2002s seem to be unaffected. I am keeping my

fi ngers crossed.

One of the very few growers/merchants

whose wines no one cited as problematic during

the period I have been investigating this subject

is Raveneau in Chablis. Is it a mere coincidence

that Raveneau waxes the top of his bottles?