David M. Bueker wrote:Insufficient SO2 in bottling. And yes racking could contribute as your a million other things. I doubt we will ever know the true cause, and so I for one will only buy White Burgundy (or Chablis) for near term consumption.
Firstly Oswaldo commiserations over such a lousy pox experience
And David, as you suggest reduction in SO2 usage and other winemaking procedures such as increased racking and batonnage are logical, probably prime, suspects. However from a more general perspective the truth is presumably tied up with changes made by producers on a pretty widespread basis from the mid 90s when the pox seemed to expand enormously as a phenomenon and was possibly connected with contemporaneous general drives to reduce sulphur and produce wines that were based on riper grapes and required less ageing.
Changes in corks: the quality of the raw material, chemical washes [in favour of peroxide to exclude halogenated products], surface treatments [silicone replacing paraffin wax or used over it] have also been mooted as a contributory factor. Some have argued that it has been
the major problem basing their conclusion on the often random nature of the pox in a case of wine.
Changes in bottle manufacture, particularly in the neck of the bottle and in bottling lines and how these have interacted with the corks - particularly oxygen entrainment and the effect of head pressures on wine development.
And the effect of new presses and gentler pressing changing the phenolic content and reducing the natural anti-oxidants in the wine coupled with changes in winemaking practices such as batonnage which would also affect the oxidation potential of the wine.
Plus the use of wood in the elevage versus stainless steel, short versus longer settling times prior to bottling, the timing of the malolactic and on and on.
However I can always recall
some degree of pox in white burgundies even in the 60s but the incidence was orders of magnitude less than its acceleration in the early noughties [2002 onwards] with the mid 90s vintages - and basically everything since although the incidence has appeared to vary by vintage. 2002 is the one that seems to be deteriorating fastest these days although probably because it is the latest to be exposed. Some are even saying that 2004 has started to show although I haven’t seen any that young.
IMO the pox is just old fashioned oxidation [white burgundy always ultimately oxidised] brought forward and made more random. It seems feasible that changes in winemaking has played a major role in the former making the wine going into the bottle more prone to oxidation while changes in cork treatments, bottle manufacture/finish and bottling processes are likely to have played a role in the latter.
We may, as you say, never know the true cause but I suspect that is because there is no one cause although I do believe the producers and oenologists who have been studying the problem are closing in on the most important factors. And certain producers have already taken steps to deal with what they believe has been behind problems with their wines.
Like you I don’t buy white burgundy for long keeping but the truth is I never did and I have only bought mature wines infrequently and usually for immediate consumption. I have hardly ever bought Grand Cru Burgundy [only Chablis] and even with young Chablis GCs it is rare for us to wait beyond 10 years and a case will always have been sampled as early as year 6. Even earlier for 1er cru white burgundies, starting at 4 and not usually lasting beyond 8 but in any event putting us in a situation where we are able to observe the development on a regular basis and choose our rate of consumption accordingly.
All of which might explain why our experience of the pox has been lighter than many. Drinking early and having a higher than average consumption of Chablis [not that it has been exempt], Maconnais and Cote Chalonnaise wines probably explains more too.
All of which is a long-winded way of saying that I am more hopeful of a way out of this problem although I won’t be buying white burgundies requiring significant aging just yet either.
