i do not understand the point of this comment. I do know and do own a lot of white burgundy that turned to garbage within 5 years of arrival. this stuff was not mishandled.

i do not understand within the white burgundy subsets, the high end ones turned to garbage, and the "cheapies" held up pretty well. we can divided these two groups by louis latour under $25 and over $50.

i lost about 10 cases of various producer single vineyard Puligny and chassagne-Montrachet.

the corks look fine and do not smell bad.

I sure don't understand your comment. Your stuff must have been mishandled or poor to start with. I live in Burgundy and have never heard of such a thing. But I also never buy Louis Latour.

Number of spoiled bottles with screw caps - 0
Number with corks - 4 I can remember in the last 3-4 years

So, no complaints from me.

cheap LL is a nice everyday wine.

the 95-96-97-98 whites from jm boillot, henri boillot, morey,fevre,moreau,sauzet all had problems. i live in the dc area, and the problem was pretty well known and appeared in the wine press(even parker mentioned it somewhere along the line).

i agree it was mishandled or poor to start with. just that $50-80 wines are not supposed to be poor, or mishandled. since it was over so many years, and so many names. it was dead by 2000(tasted something like severely maderized, but different), and i have not purchased any white burgundy since. i bought it upon release to usa.

i don't think you can blame my storage area. i have over 200 cases, many of which date back to the early 80's. i loose very few.

First of all, you shouldn't have to pay more than €20 for really good white Burgundy, and I get it for even less sur place.

As for expensive wines being mishandled, I certainly don't think you can blame the entire Burgundy region if your wine is mishandled. Maybe come here and purchase it yourself and arrange your own shipping? That's much more fun anyways. And you can taste it yourself before you buy to be more certain of the quality. You can even watch the corks being put in the bottle if you like at most places here.

could you please mark a few whites that are available for €20 or less. i assure you that $25 does not buy much in the usa. can you tell me what i can get for less than 30 bucks here in usa?

i'm not saying that the corks went into the bottles incorrectly, i am saying that by four years after they made the wine, put in the cork, put on the label, and shipped it here to the usa, it was garbage, and it is pretty much all the 95-99 vintage of cru classe burgundy.

My point is that many people (not including me) believe that white Burgundy is best when it has a slight tinge of oxidation. To eliminate oxidation entirely might disappoint them.

When I last toured Burgundy (2008) the house Corton at the inn that I was staying at cost EUR 6 a glass and under 20 a bottle. But that was unlabeled (cleanskin). Their labeled "reserve" Corton from the same wineyard was EUR 50 and while better it was about 10% better. US prices are $100+ for anything interesting/worth drinking (sadly).

As for oxidation being part of the wine aging process, that is a myth or misunderstanding of the science which has now been corrected. Consider all the well aged bottles of wine from shipwrecks -- under water with little exposure to oxygen. Any competent winemaker now knows what oxidation is good for (plonk). It is useful for fixing some faults in a badly made wine (or wine made with poor grapes). I try to avoid wines like that :)

Screwtop all the way.

Quick, easy and tidy. Especially useful when you bring a bottle or two back to your hotel only to find out that there is no corkscrew in the rook. Once that happens to you a few times you start looking at bottles from the top down... :)

I'm saying it was likely the shipping that caused the problems somehow. There are no problems with the wines here.

Here are a few wines I am drinking these days...

http://www.hachette-vins.com/le-guid...-20082413.html

http://www.hachette-vins.com/le-guid...-20080455.html

http://www.hachette-vins.com/le-guid...-20086885.html

You can see the prices on these links. But I have no idea what they go for in the US. And there are countless others out there. Just driving around and randomly visiting a couple wineries on a nice Saturday afternoon is half the fun. Maybe more than half. Use your miles to get here!

the leflaive is available in this country. it is the better part of $40 a bottle. it is tough to find a decent st aubin for less. the other two are of too small a production to be imported.

"driving around" one finds maryland and virginia wines. both are pretty lousy wines, and very overpriced, as "driving around, tasting wine, and buying wine" is a big sport in the area.

if i bought in europe, the cost to transport a reasonable amount of wine would be prohibitive. my vendors in italy used to put my wines in my container, but i am no longer in business, and since xraying of containers, my guess is i could not do it even if i wished.

i now just purchase distressed merchandise(stuff that got too old for the shelf), which is all i can afford. i just acquired a couple cases of '06 latour santenay at $10/ bottle.

We have two very different opinions of what really good white Burgundy is. :eek:

OK, I'm willing to be educated. Tell me what you think is a really good wine here and I will drive over to the winery and see how much I can get it for.

Bouchard Père et Fils Corton-Charlemagne. The cheapest I can find the 2005 in the US is $120.

OK, I'll try to swing by there later this week. I'll check both the price and the taste; to see if it is really any better than some of the other excellent wines I have found around here.

On the Hartmann duffel I use when on longer trips that gets checked, there's a corkscrew in a pocket that stays w/ the luggage permanently. Problem solved. The times I don't check luggage & I've needed a corkscrew in the hotel room & one isn't available, a tip to the hotel bartender usually gets me one ;)

Cheers.

I just bought a bottle of screwtop Argyle pinot noir about 10 minutes ago precisely because I realized that I left my corkscrew in the car (which is parked too far away to justify the walk). I went into the store with no intention of buying a stoppered bottle of wine. How's that for screwtops having their place?

Tim - when are we drinking the 78 Chave? Maybe I'll bring one on the 15th...

I will be your bff if you bring that. We're doing a Chave vertical on 10/26 -- I'm really looking forward to it, unfortunately I'd don't think '78 will be making an appearance. :(

whatsa chave verticle. the guy makes stuff from just above 2 buck chuck(sells for 15) up to something that a lot of people doo woopee for. bought a bunch of cornas once, for which he is bige time famous. was no thrill for me, but given my pallet, who cares. done a lot of st. joseph, and found a few white hermitage. \

not my style.

JL Chave Hermitage rouge is what I'm talking about. That's one of my favorite wines and will indicate the style of wine I prefer. I do very much enjoy Cornas -- Clape is probably my favorite but do like them with 10+ years of age. I drink very little St. Joseph and don't really like white Rhones in general.

OK, I went to Bouchard Père et Fils today. It turns out they are just a producer who take some of the best grapes from lots of different areas in Burgundy. So Corton-Charlemagne seems to be what they consider the best of the best Chardonnay grapes. The best current year is 2007 here and that does indeed cost €80. But as Bouchard Père et Fils is the middle-man, you are significantly overpaying. That said, if you don't know which are the good wines to get around here, you can be assured of getting a decent wine from these folks. You just have to pay a bit more. They have a real nice showroom and give you a nice wooden box for your wine (yes I took one for the team and bought a bottle) and they speak perfect English as it is sure that their clients are not local. ;)

I'm currently drinking a 2006 Ladoix Clou d'Orge which cost around €30 (also a bit overpriced) and it's just about as good as the Corton-Charlemagne.

What's the Domain?

Chateau de Beaune. And of course Chateau Pommard for the Ladoix.

bouchard is still serving time, i think. he mixed acid and sugar, and sold it as corton charlemagne(for real). henriot(i think), owns it now. he has 130hectars in burgundy, which is a huge amount of vineyard. he makes everything from 2 buck chuck up to to montrachet.

ladoix is ladoix. is there a domain named chateau pommard in ladoix? or they are buying ladoix grapes? i know there is a moderate amount of ladoix white grapes are sold, as Verget usually bottles one. his is one of the very unique white burgundies, as it is half chard, half pinot blanc.

The Ladoix I mentioned is only bottled at Chateau Pommard.