Wine Basics
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Burgundy Vintage Chart
Vintage Weather / Style Summary Red Score (/100) White Score (/100) 2023 Warm, generous yields; ripe, approachable, classic balance emerging 92 93 2022 Hot, dry but well-managed; powerful yet fresh, excellent depth 93 94 2021 Cool, difficult, frost-hit; light and elegant, high-acid, perfumed reds 97 90 2020 Warm, low yields; concentrated, structured, ageworthy 94 97 2019 Ideal balance of ripeness & freshness; elegant and long-lived 97 94 2018 Hot, sunny; rich, plush, open-knit 93 92 2017 Clean, fresh, consistent; classic medium-bodied style 96 93 2016 Frost reduced yields; intense, precise, superb terroir expression 96 90 2015 Warm, dry; powerful, ripe, structured 96 93 2014 Cooler, fresh; energetic, transparent, excellent whites…
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100-Point Rating Scale
Wine Score and its Purpose Wine score is essentially a ranking of wines based on comparative assessment of their quality. It is one of the simplest ways to help drinkers / collectors on deciding which wine / producer to buy or to look out for. How Does The Rating Scale Work For those who have read a fair amount of wine reviews would know that most wine critics use the 100-point scale, which confusingly starts from 50 points (and most critics score between 60-100 points). From a mathematically point of view, one might expect the average score to lie close to 75points, as a “central” value (e.g. if one chooses…
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Octavian Vaults – The UK’s Foremost Wine Storage Facility
Octavian Vaults is considered to be the “Rolls Royce” of professional wine storage facility in the UK. Located in Corsham in Wiltshire (about 12 miles from Bath), an area historically known for their building stones, so called “Bath Stone” or “Great Oolite Freestone”. The underground cellar is 100 feet deep (157 steps down as I have counted) and it is as big as 20 football pitches. Getting to Octavian from London wasn’t as tricky I thought it would be. There are frequent trains from London Paddington to Chippenham every 30 minutes, a 69 minutes train journey plus another 15 minutes on the cab from the train station to Octavian. The…
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Premox Issue – Domaine Hubert Lamy Saint Aubin 1er Cru En Remilly 2010
After reading and hearing mixed reviews on the 2010 Hubert Lamy Saint Aubin 1er Cru En Remilly, I decided to test all 12 bottles from the case with Coravin. I purchased this case last year from a UK wine merchant, it has always been stored in a temperature and humidity controlled warehouse since arrival in 2011 (10-12 degrees, c. 80% humidity). I took delivery from the warehouse yesterday (i.e. provenance in theory is great). Test date: 29th July 2020 A 15ml sample was taken out from each bottle with Coravin and all tested straight out from the case at c. 15 degrees (59 Fahrenheit). Results 3 out of 12 bottles…
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Botrytis in Montrachet
Montrachet is the King of White Burgundy, this hallowed vineyard yields some of the finest white wines in the world. From my far and few between experiences with Montrachet, I have noticed some Montrachet Grand Cru wines display a small amount of botrytis flavours, but it varies significantly across vintages and producers. What is Botrytis? Botrytis cinerea (also known as noble rot) is a fungi that causes grapes to become partially ‘raisined‘. This fungi strives at warm and humid climate. The effect of raisined grape concentrates the sugar and acidity of the grape and are very desirable when making sweet wines in regions like Sauternes, Tokaji, etc. Botrytis also introduce…
