WTN: 1998 La Louviere

[Jenise]

1998 La Louviere, Graves
Raspberry and black currant fruit with a dominant though pleasant, Cab Franc-ish herbaceous green edge and lots of chalky minerality. The green note was surprising because it's not a typical Louviere characteristic, and we pretty much presumed this was simply a feature of the vintage (this being our first bottle of this wine) until I read notes from earlier in 2008 and 2007 on Cellar Tracker this morning. The only descriptor that was even close was what Dale Williams called damp earth about a year ago, but it seemed more a background thing than the prominent feature it was in our wine last night. Therefore, much as we enjoyed our bottle, other evidence suggests that it's not in it's rightful balance at the moment and needs further cellaring.

Jenise,

La Louviere is a great value. The 1990 version was terrific! And I read good things about 2000&2005. There exist also a very fine white version.

Take care,
Martin

Strange, damp earth and CFish herbaceousness aren't really close. I have only one left, hoping to save a bit. But don't remember any greenness at all. Most 98 Graves seemed to do well on ripeness, and while I don't know Louviere's cepage, CF is rarely present in Graves to any major degree. Let's hope it was a slightly off-bottle or just an awkward period. I like a little green on occasion, but not dominant.

[Jenise]

Strange, damp earth and CFish herbaceousness aren't really close...But don't remember any greenness at all. Most 98 Graves seemed to do well on ripeness...

Which is why I referred to Cab Franc, trying to make the point that it tasted more like ripe cab franc than underripe Cabernet, while recognizing that this didn't fit with anyone else's impressions. Your damp earth was the closest it got. But I have run into this a time or two with some other Bordeauxs, a green quality that stands out when the wine is asleep that integrates into something riper when the wine is there on all cylinders. I'm pretty sure that's all this was--let yours sleep!

It's funny, Jenise, isn't it, how certain things take on meaning, for no reason that you could apply, they just do? Such is it with me and Bordeaux. I can't remember where I left my keys, or glasses, or the guy's name two doors away, but I seem to remember most bottles of Bordeaux I drink for the first time (maybe not the third bottle from a case), and the circumstances and venues surrounding them. And I just realized that this forum is connected to my first bottle of 1997 Bordeaux, GPL, and might not have stuck with me if that were not so. Such is the sidewalk restaurant in Hotel Condorde Saint Lazare in Paris connected with my first bottle of 2000 Bordeaux, La Louviere. The bottle experience gets integrated with the surroundings so that it is nearly impossible for me to talk about the wine alone. I wouldn't do it, out of respect, or something like that. It would be like mentioning that my daughter just jumped, a simple statement of fact; rather than that she won her junior high broad jumping competition at such and such a school, adding context. It just so happens that my concept of Paris revolves around that bottle, the table it was on, the view from the window, imagining myself geographically in relation to Bordeaux, not that far away, and the delight of discovering the special expression of the vintage. Your experience of La Louviere is quite different.

[Jenise]

It just so happens that my concept of Paris revolves around that bottle, the table it was on, the view from the window, imagining myself geographically in relation to Bordeaux, not that far away, and the delight of discovering the special expression of the vintage. Your experience of La Louviere is quite different.

Someone on this board once called that the en place phenomenon, a term I instantly bonded with out of recognition for just the kind of experience you describe. I've had many of them. But sometimes a bottle of wine is just a bottle of wine with dinner, and that was the case with this one even though we enjoyed it quite a bit and had opened and declined to drink two other bottles of different wines that were deemed unworthy before we opened this one and went "ahhhhh". Unfortunately our enjoyment of it doesn't make it what it should have been or might eventually be.