The Grand Cru Debacle

 

I was at a tasting with the "Old Man Burgundy Group" last night.  I'm not sure if the Old Man Burgundy Group has always consisted of older men which are periodically replaced with the death of a member (which happened in my case), or if it was once "The Middle Aged Burgundy Group" and they changed their name willingly after a point of self reflection on their advancing age.  Maybe it was named after some confusion with an "Old Woman Burgundy Group", but I don't think so based on a brief search conducted with advanced digital technology.  Should I be concerned about my own mortality after being let in as a member?  Probably.  Here's what I know though.  The Old Man Burgundy Group has a strict protocol, and I'm way too green to do anything else except stay between the lines and not ask any questions.

The topic last night was "Grand Cru", so participants needed to bring a Grand Cru Red Other Than Corton (which has been rightfully deemed by this institution to be unworthy of Grand Cru status.  So there Corton!).  I was "host" which meant I had the responsibility of bringing two "opener" white wines, bread/cheese/sausage, two dessert "closer" wines with matching dessert.  I really appreciate that the group let me in, so I wanted to bring high quality wines.  I decided on matching a Chablis from Samuel Billaud which I recalled being very crisp/mineral driven with a Grand Cru Corton Charlemagne from Domaine Drouhin hoping to differentiate the two terroirs and quality tiers.  The problem was the Corton-Charlemagne turned out to be totally oxidized and terrible.  

That wine could not have had better provenance.  I had purchased it directly at the winery in Beaune last Spring.  I put it in my suitcase and flew home the next day on a cool March afternoon.  When I got home, I put it in a Eurocave at 50F where it sat until yesterday.  This wine was wrecked by the natural cork closure allowing too much oxygen.  Could it have been too little SO2?  Maybe, but in 2018 I would have a hard time believing that a large $50M+ company like Domaine Drouhin would throw the dice on a super premium white with some tightrope walking low level of sulfur.  That wine is noted on the winery's website as having 25 year aging potential with the optimal consumption window being 10-25 years.  I had actually opened it 3 years too early as per the company website, and it was oxidized as shit.  Let's all agree it was most likely an issue with the cork.

We moved onto the red wines with 6 wines from a variety of producers and villages.  The last wine in the flight was corked, total wet basement sitting on top of what should have been opulent fruit/complexity.  This was a 2005 Domaine Drouhin-Laroze Chapelle-Chambertin.  So out of the seven Grand Cru Burgundy wines we opened, 2 of them had been spoiled due to issues with natural cork closures.  The non Grand Cru, the village level Chablis?  Oh, that was fresh, crisp and gorgeous.  It was also closed with a Diam 10 technical closure.  The absolute peak of fine wine, wines of high cost and limited availability and 2 of 8 were flawed.  

Why do these wineries continue to use natural cork closures?  It's totally insane.  Let's use an example from any other food industry.  The level of taint on corks is estimated to be between as low as 1% and as high as 15%.  I open a LOT of wine and my guess would be with the mostly premium wines I come in contact with it's between 3-5%.  Let's say it's even lower than that due to bias in my memory, and it's 2%.  Fine.  How about this example.  You go to the grocery store and buy some corn flakes.  "Hey, I opened my cornflakes and they were all moldy."  Sometimes the burlap sack they use to package them in spoils the cereal.  Why don't you just go to the store and get another?  You can just drive back across town, argue with one of the store employees and see if they will replace it.  "Why don't they use a plastic bag inside a box?  That will keep the cereal fresh."  Oh, that's not traditional and they are worried people will think the cereal isn't any good because it's not in the usual burlap sack.  "Yeah, but the cereal is moldy."  Yeah... what can you do? 

In what world is that acceptable?  This is a luxury product.  That Corton Charlemagne is available at $699 from someone called CaskCartel.com as the first search option.  How in God's name can you sell something for 700 bucks that has a 2% chance of being worthless?  When I called them out on social media I had a sommelier scold me for public shaming the winery.  Shhhh...  Contact them quietly and ask if they might possibly exchange the defective merchandise.  What?  "Yeah I just bought a new iPhone but it won't connect to the network so I can't use it.  I was going to complain about it but my friend told me I should be super quiet and polite and see if maybe they'll think about helping me out with a new phone.  They only have 2% of their outgoing products that don't work, so I don't want to make a fuss about it.  Their industry is in a hard time right now."   

With these ultra premium wines, the real problem is that you buy them today and don't open them up for a decade.  Let's say I bought a bottle of Bordeaux from the now closed Hinman's Wine Shop.  I open it and it's corked.  What am I going to do?  "Hello?  Mr. Hinman?  Hi, I don't know if you remember me but my name is Greg Miller and I bought a bottle of 1995 Clerc Milon off you around 1998 or so?  I found your contact number from a private detective.  Anyway, I opened that Clerc Milon up and it was corked.  Could you get in touch with whoever owned the now merged distributor that got you that bottle and see if they can get in touch with the importer who could maybe reach the negociant to get in touch with the chateau so I could get a replacement?  Let me give you my contact info so you can keep me up to speed with the progress.  How have you been since you closed the shop in 2002?" 

The bottom line is these wineries have a logical choice to move past cork.  The blah blah blah they'll give you is "we don't know if the oxygen transfer rate will allow our wines to age properly and..."  (Ummm, there are a kazillion studies that show that they will, and natural cork's biggest flaw is the variable OTR because it's a natural piece of bark from a fucking tree.  If you age 10 wines with corks, you'll get 10 different aged results.  I opened up 10 Grand Cru Chablis under Diam.  They were all identical.  Why work so hard on a wine that doesn't deliver consistent consumer experience?  It's illogical.). "Yeah, well we don't know if the Diam closure will maintain the seal over a long period and..."  (It will.  There are a plenty of independent studies to wade through.  People like CH Margaux did the tests already.  They probably know more about aging wine than you do.  And it's got to work better than what?  A cork that you already know can turn crumbly or mealy?). "Well, our customers want a traditional cork because they equate that with quality and..."  (99 out of 100 will never notice if you switch to technical cork.  Those that do notice won't care.  Wineries freak the fuck out all the time, swap out to modern closures and then report no consumer or marketing issues whatsoever.). "Well, we were going to try it out with our entry wines but our high end ones are going to stay with cork."  (Why would you do that?  Do the opposite if anything.  You should place risk on the low end where consumers are less engaged instead of the dream customers that buy your best wines.  THAT is who you need to superserve with the highest quality.  You think I'm filled with fuzzy good feelings about super premium Drouhin Burgundy wines right now?)  

This failure to address closure failure is mystifying.  In an industry that is struggling, why give yourself yet another hurdle.  I'll tell you one thing, I don't ever hear anyone saying "My seltzer was corked" or "This vodka's bottle closure gave it an off flavor".  Wine needs to get their shit together on this.  As a consumer, make noise.  I'll keep tagging these wineries to let them know I'm disappointed as a buyer of their wine.  It's the only way these laggards will join the responsible forward thinking wineries that have already switched to technical cork or screwcap.  It's not a problem if the consumer keeps eating it.  Let 'em know.  Let's get the best product out there.