So I opened my last bottle of 1998 Fontenil last night and it was worse than the previous bottle which was all band-aid and iodine. This was all barely roasted fruit, if you could actually detect any fruit and a forest of wood tannin. So chewy and not sweet. What I expect at least from a Michel Rolland wine is some sweet fruit, creamy oak and ripe tannin. That is what I got when I purchased six bottles upon release. Drank the first three bottles when my palate was different and loved the wine. Had all the Michel Rolland stuff going on in full gear. My last three bottles have been horrible. There is a pretty big drinking window on this wine on CT from 2006 to 2017. I feel sorry for anyone drinking this now or for god's sake in 2015 less 2017! This is what happens when a wine is propped up by oak in its youth. It will not last. Has happened countless times with Eric Solomon and Jorge Ordonez Spanish wines . . . (yes for full disclosure I used to work for Eric Solomon). A big slutty wine for the first couple years of its life and then the bottom falls out and you have disaster. Cervoles, Artadi and Mas de Masos are three Solomon wines that comes to mind. Less experience with Jorge but remember I bunch of his wines falling apart very quickly too. Also had a horrifying 1998 Certan de May recently. Is that Rolland? This harkens to a heavily censored thread on Mao's Board that debates the whole tannin/fruit thing of the 2005 vintage. 1998 Right Bank Bordeaux was supposed to be the bee's knee's but alot of the spoofed up Rollandized stuff is falling apart. I fret for people who maxed out on 2005 . . .maybe not the top names like Haut Brion, Petrus etc. but for the little spoof wines that dominate the Bordeaux landscape now like Grand Corbin Despagne, Hosanna, Grand Mayne, Barde-Haut, Fontenil, Pipeau, Larcis-Ducasse and Pavie-Decesse (another 1998 that was undrinkable and suffering from Persitis which is related to Rollanditis).
For science's sake here is my note from 10/11/2004 when I thought the wine was drinking well.....
Nose of cocoa, raspberry, red plum, mineral and wet earth. Very pretty. Supple, silky texture with some lip-smackingly delicous red fruits with a hint of seme-sweet chocolate on the finish. Kind of a stony minerality that lingers on the finish. Nice concentration but this is not the firecracker it was in it's youth. It has mellowed out and is a great drink today. Tannins are there but perfectly integrated.
The wine should have been drunk up by around that time or shortly therafter.
To borrow a phrase I've heard somewhere recently...are the chickens coming home to roost?
ReplyDelete"drink 'em now" might be the best advice.
Lyle. You know I'm generally firmly in the anti-spoof camp. With that said, I agree with much of what you say, but only to a certain degree. Some older bottles of Perse's Monbousquet I have enjoyed, among them '94, '95, '96, and '99 have been very very good, and at no stage did I ever think they were over the hill. Now, I don't know if Monbo gets different treatment than other Perse wines, but I actually don't like Monbo in its youth because the oak and jammy fruit are too obtrusive. With 10 years plus, I have had good results. Maybe this is the exception?
ReplyDeleteOn a related note, my favorite three right-bank chateaux are Belair, Magdelaine, and Beausejour Duffau. All three make an old-school style of Bordeaux, especially Belair. I imagine you'd love Belair!
Cheers. SP
'98 Monbousquet is a pretty ugly mess right now. But I've said it before and I'll say it again, anyone can hate Monbousquet and the Perse wines, the true test of character is when you can admit Ausone sucks now, too...
ReplyDeleteAusone sucks!
ReplyDeleteI do love Bel-Air as much as Jeff Leve hates it.
Band-aid - that's not ideal. It suggests a fault.
ReplyDeleteYour questioning of Hosanna is interesting. The 1999 (first vintage,it use to be Certan-Giraud) is actually very good at present. It's improved annually, but now I'm out of supply.