Control

At the same time that I opened Joly's Les Clos Sacrés (see prior 5 posts), I opened another biodynamic Loire Valley wine, a 2006 Vouvray (Le Haut Lieu/sec) from Domaine Huët. In all candor, I did this more out of need for wine than for any regard to the Scientific Method. Let's face it, spreading out a single bottle over five days is less than ideal. Nevertheless, the Vouvray does provide a useful negative control (ed. note: this links to a wikipedia article on "Scientific Control" which has this disclaimer, "All or part of this article may be confusing or unclear." It should be noted that this is also true of this entry). I didn't decant the Huët, recorked the bottle after each pour and only tasted on odd days. I'm also not entirely sure what variables I was testing the Joly for, so this is an imprecise application of control. Probably a good idea to get used to that sort of thing with me.

Huët is one of the most prolific producers in the Loire and this wine is from the original vineyard established by Victor Huët in the 1920s. It was Nicolas Joly himself who convinced Victor's son, Gaston Huët, to convert the winery to biodynamic practices in the late 1980s.

This bottle is also from the Wine House. It was $29.

These are my tasting notes over the same five days.

DAY 1: This is a sprightly Chenin Blanc. Lemon zest, lychee and candlewax on the nose. Lively, honeyed citrus, bright acid and well integrated minerality. Easy and approachable, if nothing fancy.

DAY 3: A more perfumed nose of waxy, white flowers and clover honey. This is still a plain vanilla Chenin, but drinks with somewhat more structure now. A discernible linear progression of citrus on the attack, an unfocused orchard fruit mid-palate and a sweet mineral finish. It's given up some of its racy acid, but is more interesting than when first opened.

DAY 5: Almost smells like Jolly Rancher apple candy with some waxy honeysuckle. Still bright in the mouth, pear and lemon with a sweet limestone kick on the finish.

I wasn't that impressed at first, but on day 5... I'd buy this again. Ironic?

I Feel Fine : Joly, Day 5

Day 5: 4:34PM. Wet concrete and toffee. And still some volatile alcohol smells. On the palate, sweeter than before, with dried apricot and diluted pear. Less disjointed. And again that long, mineral, slightly metallic finish. Still fresh, building in power even. Bigger, rounder mouthfeel today.

Conclusions: I don't think there's any question that this wine changed expression over the course of 5 days. And it certainly held up against oxygenation. I would also make the subjective argument that Les Clos Sacrés improved over the period. And while it requires a level of discipline that I generally lack, I'm convinced enough by the results that I will make every effort to vigorously decant and give ample air time to my small, vertical collection of Clos de la Coulee de Serrant (pictured above) when I open them.

But there remains one, perhaps singular, problem to consider. Sure, this Les Clos Sacrés improved. But it wasn't very good to begin with. It was interesting. But not great. And, I suspect, flawed. To people who don't like them, Joly is often defended as making "Old World" wines. But I love Old World wines. And when they're good, I Iove Joly's wines; they can be sublime. But far too often Joly's wines are flawed. Not massively (though I have had a few that were undrinkable, perhaps even "imbuvable") and not always irredeemably, but flawed enough that the character of the fruit is compromised. And therefore, it seems to me, the expression of terroir that Joly and his fans prize (myself among them) is also compromised.

I had a look at the tasting notes for Les Clos Sacrés on CellarTracker. There were seven notes, commencing in September of 2005 and the most recent coming from April of this year. If you read with a predisposition to find flaws, you could imagine that 3 of the 7 bottles were off. They are variously described as, "tainted by the strong smell of petroleum," "coppery/slight chemical elements" and less ambiguously, "a losing number in the Joly lottery."

As a thought experiment, I think we could try to imagine that Rudolf Steiner might possibly accept the use of a small amount of sulfur dioxide to keep wine free of bacterial taint. It might keep me from looking elsewhere for sublime expression of Loire Valley Chenin Blanc.

All The World Is Joly, Day 4

Okay, so I've noticed with several bottles in the past that Chenin Blancs really hold up over time. And this one is proving no exception. I'm not sure they all improve this way with all this air and time, but it does make you wonder whether there might not be something in the chemical composition of Chenin that allows it to weather sustained oxygen exposure.

Note to self: An advanced degree in chemistry could be helpful.

Day 4: 6:12PM. Nose has gone backward. Less sherry, but still oxidative; can't help but wonder if this volatility is a flaw (from any of a number of species of acetic acid bacteria that survived the sulfur dioxide-free winemaking)? In the mouth, there is real sweetness now, with an interesting metallic undercurrent... canned pears with hints of caramel. In spite of the sensation of sweetness, this remains very dry throughout, particularly on the mineral finish. You could certainly argue this is a strange expression of Chenin Blanc, but you cannot say it's fading. It remains brightly weird.

Day 5 and the end of the experiment coming up...

Still Joly, Day 3

Day 3: 5:58 PM. The sherry notes are fading, giving way to fig, lanolin and toffee. There's still a marked sherry quality on the palate, but it's commingled with caramelized Anjou pear and sharp limestone. This is still fresh and lively. Still weird. The wine really does seem to be changing expression and building force as time passes.

You can see in the photo the color is much deeper, more coppery, than what you'd typically expect from Chenin Blanc. Probably should have used this photo yesterday when I first mentioned the color of the wine...

Okay, spent some more time surfing the web between drinks. And today discovered that Jamie Goode, a noted British wine journalist, has already done a version of this experiment. I suppose I'm now reduced to an exercise in scientific peer review. But with half a decanter of freaky Chenin Blanc still to drink, I will definitely kick on to see if we can replicate Jamie Goode's results.

Already, it is interesting to note that my day 2 (yesterday) looks remarkably like Goode's day 3. It should be noted that he is drinking better wine than I am, the Coulee de Serrant (the top of the line Joly wine), from the remarkable 2002 vintage. I also find it worth noting that both wines went through a "fino sherry" chapter in their decanted evolution.

By the way, "imbuvable" means poisonous (from yesterday). I looked it up.

Day 4 still to come (can you feel the suspense?)...

Joly, Day 2

Day 2: 5:49 PM. Oxidative nose with distinct sherry overtones. And weird. There's a faint caramelized fruit smell, maybe quince? In the mouth, fino sherry and waxy, unripe pear with an arresting mineral finish, silvery and long. By the way, it's worth noting the color of this wine. It has a rich coppery hue, looks like a reduction of Sauternes.

To pass the long stretches between drinks, I was poking around on Nicolas Joly's website, looking for some metaphysical proof of the existence of Les Clos Sacre (pictured here in reality). While there, I found this bit of rough instruction from the man himself:

To be sure that this color is not oxidation drink glass per day during several days without giving the bottle to the refrigerator, just by stopping it and you will see the wine improving the first days, sometimes even more than one week. If it were oxidized it would be imbuvable.

I'm not sure what "imbuvable" means, but there's no way I'm going to leave this sitting on my kitchen counter for the next three days. Any number of calamities might arrive. The housekeeper could pour it down the sink. My wife might put flowers in it. It would be one thing if I had an underground cellar and could leave the decanter on a table in a cool, climate controlled environment. But I live in Los Angeles, and it's June. It's going to be 80 degrees today. So I'm going to "give the bottle to the refrigerator." And hope it gives it back.

Day 3 tomorrow!

5 Days In Joly

Out of the gate, I thought we'd test Nicolas Joly's claim that his wines require vigorous decanting (it says so on the back label) and are better after several days. Joly makes funky, complex, and sometimes extraordinary Chenin Blanc's in the Savennières region of the Loire Valley. He's a noted proponent of biodynamic farming, a New Agey, organic approach to viticulture advocated at the turn of the 19th century by occult philosopher and all-around weirdo, Rudolf Steiner (pictured). You can say what you want about Steiner, but biodynamic wines are better. Period. Perhaps this is something we'll try to prove in later trials. But for now, I think it's enough to know that wine made from grapes that weren't sprayed with chemical herbicides and dosed with petroleum-based fertilizers are preferable to the industrial wines that are (here's a very helpful list of biodynamic wineries from Fork & Bottle). Some would argue that Joly has taken biodynamics too far, as he apparently stopped using sulfer dioxide in 2003 (sulfer dioxide is an important anti-microbial agent and kills a lot of little funky things that want to mangle your wine; I've had a couple post '03 Joly's that were off. But I digress...).

Joly's most famous wine is the monopole appellation, La Coulée de Serrant, a vineyard that has its own AOC and is one of the best patches of terroir in France. His website claims he makes this and two other wines. And neither of the other two are the bottle we're using for this test? Bit of a mystery...

But I have photographic proof that the bottle exists (see my next post). It's called Les Clos Sacrés, and we're drinking the 2004 vintage. I bought it at the Wine House in L.A. for $29.99.

Day 1: bottle opened, 3:34 PM. Decanted into a Riedel Decanter (from Target! If you don't already know, Riedel makes a specialty line for Target which is the same science at half the price!). Tasted immediately after decanting to establish a baseline. Beautiful nose, with aromas suggesting off-dry. Honey, apricot and lanolin. In the mouth, not so beautiful. Thick with overbearing limestone minerality, almost bitter, nearly non-existant fruit...

First taste: 7:30 PM. After 4 hours in the decanter in the fridge, I poured a glass and let it come back towards the recommended 55 degrees (again, the back label). The nose has receded noticeably, but there are still hints of honeyed marzipan. In the mouth, utterly different than 4 hours prior. The fruit is showing and the minerality is better integrated. But it all feels a bit closed.

Stay tuned...

Inaugeral Days at the Rational Denial Lab

I like to think about the wine I drink. Knowing what's in the glass somehow makes it taste better. The cerebral potential inherent in enjoying wine is an important, self-reflexive safeguard against abuse. Or maybe this is just something I tell myself in a failing attempt to delay my inevitable stay at a rehab clinic in the Utah desert. I guess time will tell.

In the meanwhile, I have founded a cutting-edge, scientific laboratory. The lab is devoted to wine science almost as much as I am devoted to wine drinking. It's a place to conduct the wankery experiments I always seem to be running. These experiments -- and I use the term loosely -- range from the practical to the esoteric. They can be conservationist ("Is preserving an open bottle with inert gas worth the hassle?"). They can be educational ("What can we learn from a side-by-side tasting of neighboring vineyards?"). They can be absurd justifications for drinking on a Sunday morning ("What wine pairs with eggs?"). Wherever our oenological curiosity leads us, the Rational Denial Lab will serve as the venue for these experimental efforts...


(image: © Icefields | Dreamstime.com)