I go back and forth on the worth of vintage generalizations. They have some value, but the exceptions often pile up enough to invalidate the rule. You mean they are good wines from "bad" vintages? Yup. And even some major clunkers in so-called "great" years. See the of the '98 southern Rhones, lauded everywhere but often top heavy with alcohol even for their idiom.
So we have the freakishly hot '03 vintage in the Loire Valley and the damp, cool, more typcial '04 vintage. Check out this post on Wine Therapy by Paris-based contributor Rahsaan, who writes nicely about two top producers of Vouvray, Huet and Foreau.
Pay special attention to SFJoe's reply. He offers as pithy a summation of the two vintages as I've seen, and suggests the kind of nuance you should be able to find in the wines of any year:
"The 2004s reflect the vintage very accurately. You can feel the rain on your neck while you taste them the same way you can feel the sweat on your brow from [the] '03s."
Nicely said.
No comments:
Post a Comment