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Premox


DonRocks

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U R Phuck'd

The problem is very real and still remains. There's even a term for it now: premox (a portmanteau of "premature" and "oxidation").

(P.S. This was possibly the first article ever written about the subject in a mainstream U.S. publication. Give Todd Kliman credit for taking a gamble with this - I really, really wanted to write the piece, but it wasn't your typical Washingtonian fare.)

In the super-duper, ultra-secret, best-in-the-world (no, really) private wine thinktank that I co-founded and co-administer, a new theory is emerging: it may be the bottles themselves, or more precisely, an inconsistency in the manufacture of the bottles (seams, shape, etc.).

This post will, understandably, be meaningless to 99.99% of readers, but there are billions of dollars at stake, and this theory has merit because it nicely accounts for the maddening, seemingly physically impossible, symptoms of the situation (e.g., inexplicable variation within a single case of wine).

It has been quite awhile since a plausible theory has been proffered, and nothing has ever been able to explain everything. This opens up another interesting avenue to pursue.

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Wow, Don, I have not heard this one before. So if this the case, what changed in bottle manufacturing, c. 1995-1996?

This theory was just put forth in the past few days - nobody has done any research into it (and I bet less than 50 people in the world even know it has been advanced, probably 30 of them on this website). Premox is starting to be reported in regions outside of Burgundy (e.g., white Bordeaux from the mid-90s), and, gulp, some anecdotal evidence is beginning to emerge for red wines (do a "find" on doomsday).

I really think that people still don't understand the magnitude of this problem - it's a miniature, insidious version of the devastator, it's happening before our very eyes, and nobody is talking about it.

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I, for one, would love to read more about this premise. I completely understand not wanting to open up a small, serious discussion group to the unwashed masses ( <_< ), but if you could cut and paste some of the relevant comments and points that made you think "this is a possibllity", that would be great.

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I, for one, would love to read more about this premise. I completely understand not wanting to open up a small, serious discussion group to the unwashed masses ( <_< ), but if you could cut and paste some of the relevant comments and points that made you think "this is a possibllity", that would be great.

This is going to make me sound like a pretentious testicle, but I've already said too much. Nobody is supposed to even know this think tank exists (*) - there is a long-standing oath of honor not to reveal any identities or specifics about discussions that take place; it's just that this hypothesis is *so* potentially fruitful, that I wanted to get it out there so the rest of the world can begin looking into it.

(*) Long before I became a restaurant entity, I was a serious student of wine. A friend of mine and I came up with the idea of recruiting the best and brightest minds in the world, some of them quite famous; others, completely unknown, to discuss things privately which cannot be discussed publicly. I've quietly been on the cutting edge of things for well over a decade, not so much in terms of "Don the genius" or "Don the influencer," so much as "Don the organizer" and "Don the observer" - at this point, I'm probably the least knowledgable person in the organization - a peon standing alongside giants - but I do have a knack for harnessing talent to obtain a synergistic effect. I will say that it's not a coincidence you're seeing abusive levels of oak and high alcohol wines beginning to fall out of favor in the general population.

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This is going to make me sound like a pretentious testicle, but I've already said too much. Nobody is supposed to even know this think tank exists (*) - there is a long-standing oath of honor not to reveal any identities or specifics about discussions that take place; it's just that this hypothesis is *so* potentially fruitful, that I wanted to get it out there so the rest of the world can begin looking into it.

(*) Long before I became a restaurant entity, I was a serious student of wine. A friend of mine and I came up with the idea of recruiting the best and brightest minds in the world, some of them quite famous; others, completely unknown, to discuss things privately which cannot be discussed publicly. I've quietly been on the cutting edge of things for well over a decade, not so much in terms of "Don the genius" or "Don the influencer," so much as "Don the organizer" and "Don the observer" - at this point, I'm probably the least knowledgable person in the organization - a peon standing alongside giants - but I do have a knack for harnessing talent to obtain a synergistic effect. I will say that it's not a coincidence you're seeing abusive levels of oak and high alcohol wines beginning to fall out of favor in the general population.

The pretentious testicle bounces to life!

Cool, man, I've been heavily Wikipedia'd on this subject.

This is why, no matter how much you think it's bullshit, you *have* to be published in various places in order to become widely recognized. It sounds obvious when i write it, but it's easy to fall into the trap of thinking the world is waiting to knock your door down, when they're not.

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For the benefit of those of us who might be considered peons to the peons, to take your example above, could you clarify what you mean by things that "cannot be discussed publicly"?

Nothing peonic about it - same reason people post here under a pseudonym: if your boss sees something, you might be in trouble!

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Maybe another angle to go with the possible glass/cork/other theories--late 80s, early 90s is when NZ SB took off. They were early champions of limiting to the utmost degree possible the amount of oxygen hitting their whites in the early stages of winemaking (by using closed presses, stainless steel everything, hoses charged with argon, etc.). The French, seeing their success, may have copied some of their practices/equipment.

It's been shown a little oxygenation in the early stages can actually prep a white for aging. NZ SB is definitely not concerned with aging.

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^ I spoke with a couple of people who belong to one of the Burgundian wine groups, and they both thought it was changes in winemaking practices.  I know zero about it, but it is interesting hearsay. 

There is this theory, but why would every single Burgundian winemaker change their winemaking practices at the same time?

My best guess - and it's only just that, and it has nothing to do with wine knowledge - is that something was "introduced" to the region that affected everyone, right around the same time.

Whether that something is tainted corks from a major supplier (given the variation within a single case, the corks, the capsules, or even the bottles themselves, *must* be a suspect), an aphid, a bacteria, The Blob, impure SO2 from a major supplier, or global warming hitting some type of threshold, I know not. All I know is that it pretty much happened to everyone within a very short period of time, and it's still going on - I probably own less than five bottles of white Burgundy at this point, and that breaks my heart because I loved it so. If it says anything about how label-conscious (and blindly naive) people are, auction values for big-name white Burgundy are still stratospheric.

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There is this theory, but why would every single Burgundian winemaker change their winemaking practices at the same time?

My best guess - and it's only just that, and it has nothing to do with wine knowledge - is that something was "introduced" to the region that affected everyone, right around the same time.

Whether that something is tainted corks from a major supplier (given the variation within a single case, the corks, the capsules, or even the bottles themselves, *must* be a suspect), an aphid, a bacteria, The Blob, impure SO2 from a major supplier, or global warming hitting some type of threshold, I know not. All I know is that it pretty much happened to everyone within a very short period of time, and it's still going on - I probably own less than five bottles of white Burgundy at this point, and that breaks my heart because I loved it so. If it says anything about how label-conscious (and blindly naive) people are, auction values for big-name white Burgundy are still stratospheric.

According to what I learned in the conversation, the style of winemaking changed, and it changed across the board, not all at once, but within a relatively short period of time.  The wines were no longer "made" for aging.  Again, hearsay, but an interesting thought.

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It's only getting worse, friends. Yet, auction prices are at record highs. Fool's Gold.

I sold nearly every single bottle of white Burgundy I owned, many years ago, and while theoretically savvy, it was a financial mistake. Never underestimate the vacuous greed of certain collector mentalities, accompanied by the fickle dreams of quick riches. Just because you're ahead of the game in terms of knowledge, doesn't mean a thing in terms of making the proper financial decisions.

Collectors are literally buying labels; they certainly aren't buying good wine. And they're paying fortunes, too.

But one day, the bottom will drop out.

Yes, one day, the bottom will drop out.

-- Eric Clapton

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On 8/13/2012 at 5:07 PM, DonRocks said:

In the super-duper, ultra-secret, best-in-the-world (no, really) private wine thinktank that I co-founded and co-administer, a new theory is emerging: it may be the bottles themselves, or more precisely, an inconsistency in the manufacture of the bottles (seams, shape, etc.).

This post will, understandably, be meaningless to 99.99% of readers, but there are billions of dollars at stake, and this theory has merit because it nicely accounts for the maddening, seemingly physically impossible, symptoms of the situation (e.g., inexplicable variation within a single case of wine).

It has been quite awhile since a plausible theory has been proffered, and nothing has ever been able to explain everything. This opens up another interesting avenue to pursue.

Six years later, the problem is as bad as it has ever been, and I see no other possible explanation than "global warming."

I thought Steve Tanzer was deranged when he proposed this to me in 2005, but now I think he was right.

Feb 1, 2006 - "Uncorked: Fool's Gold (Oxidized White Burgundies)" by meee! on washingtonian.com

You know what the most painful thing is to me? It's that I fear nobody will ever again know just how sublime White Burgundy was. If you can find a bottle pre-1994 (and are somehow able to pay for it), you still have a chance at the experience.

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