Most expensive wine in the world

Hi Bruce,

I will admit that I didn't pick up on your p1 post until I looked back through it all. Maybe you didn't pick up on the tone of my posts above, where I tried to convey my simple enthusiasm, one to another, for what I think is a good vfm red wine. But then, if you don't like wine, why would you?!

Best, Chris

Chris

I appreciated your enthusiasm. I was trying to explain why I was not going to go and try it without seeming rude!

Bruce

^ Understood. Cheers mate!

C.

Days of under £5 wine are numbered according to the department boss of Tesco:

http://www.thedrinksbusiness.c...reasingly-difficult/

Where they go, others will follow.

Good news on some levels though. Cheap wine is made by poorly paid farmers who are consistently shafted by the big retailers, as are all farmers. Just because food is an essential and wine a luxury doesn't make this any easier on the farmer concerned (no EU subsidies for a start).

Rod, I think the difficulty here is that us "ordinary" wine-drinking folk struggle to relate to the difference in quality with such exotic wines. I really think there's a place in your business for someone who's used to drinking average supermarket fare to try and comment on said hugely expensive products of the grape and give their opinion from that perspective.

I freely offer my humble services in this role; I fell that having made the suggestion it's only fair that I step up to the mark.

^ Very dry. 

Chris

Rod,

Your description of the Montrachet was very eloquent and suggestive. We can almost feel what it has been.

Very surprising that the 1990 Romanee Conti tastes as if the wine has not yet reached full maturity and feels still "young".  I do not think many people would have suspected that.

Those two wines in a matter of minutes...it must have been really intense..

I wonder if maybe one day it will be possible to "record" the wine and then recreate it on demand so that anyone interested could try it at home

In the meantime, thank you very much for sharing the recollection of this experience. ...

Hi Alamanka

Yes a very special experience for a wine person indeed.

The RC does taste surprisingly young for its age, but perhaps I have not done it justice, it was an astonishing wine, it just did not have the meaty, savoury, mushroom and forest floor characters of pretty much all old Pinot Noir I have ever experienced before, including earlier last week La Tâche, Richebourg and Echezeaux, all DRC, all 1990. 

Perhaps it never will develop these characters. But the real surprise was that the fruit was still so vibrant - in a 21 year old Pinot. The texture and the length of the finish were amazing. Fabulous. 

The slight disparity in the notes will be I suspect because the RC was really "just" a mouthful or two, whilst we did actually get a glass each of the Montrachet.

Thanks for your comments.

Tony, thanks for your kind offer. It is under consideration.

hahaaa Nice topic !

I would drop my 2 cents as i tend to taste quiet a lot of burgund wines

First of all, to have the opportunity to taste such rarities is a nice feeling for sure. I did not had that chance but could taste all the neighbours in different vintage. So i have an idea of the "style" of this prestigious wineyard.

You are right, generaly the 90's are still young for the moment. In fact, such a cru could wait a lot more. On the other hand,  if i was at your place, i am not sure i could wait longer and 21 years is still a respectable age to open a burgund Grand Cru.

About old wines : I had chance to open some Bonnes Mares 52 and drunk them in 2000 and 2001 and they were still young too (let's say 20 years in blind tasting with burgund winemakers). On the other hand, while opening, we had a truly wonderfull complexity, mixing primary, secondary and third familly of aromas (fruit, jammy fruit and of course mushrooms,...etc). The 90 vintage is really made for aging. The DRC did not made "a miracle" in 1990 because as you explained, the basic quality of the fruits were simply exceptionnal. Not only the DRC made great wines that year . I am not really lucky because i do not have a lot of great souvenir of this wineyard even, the last "La Tache" (1995) i opened with friends on blnd tasting finished in the Kitchen sink ! It was a disaster. Much too woody, overconcentrated and not a pinot noir at all. A huge deception i can say... I think they changed of winemaker(?) after 1996 and the wines are better now but i am not in the mood to make a new experience and find a lot of other wineyard much more interesting. My best souvenir from DRC is an Echezeaux from 1983... small year but... great wine !

By the way, what is your best souvenir in burgund wine ? The greatest pleasure you ever had (in Burgundy of course !) ?

Cheers