David M. Bueker wrote:While I have seen some oxidized Alsatians, I have not had enough outside of the '96 vintage to reach any thought that it is anything like what is happening with Burgundy. I have seen more problematic reports on Loire Chenin.
I tend to regard wax-like flavours as a normal part of the Loire Chenin profile. I mainly associate sherry type oxidised Chenin with Savennières and I don't recall having had one from Vouvray or Montlouis. Additionally old style Savennières producers used to consider oxidative touches as desirable rather in the same way as in old style Jura Chardonnay and Savagnin. However, in the Jura, the
voile (flor) technique is used deliberately in some wines to produce an oxidative result and that may have encouraged local tolerance of oxidative hints in "normal" wines; no such excuse applies at Savennières.
Victorwine wrote: Tim would you consider “Sherry-like” to be a “normal oxidized wine”?
"Sherry-like" is one of the most obvious traits of oxidization IMO, both "prem..." and "normal". In determining which (an inexact judgement), I consider the age or the bottle and whether other bottles of the same wine are similar or not. In about 2008, a bottle of Chablis Fourchaume 1996 from Boudin was dark brown and smelled like "off" sherry; another about a year ago was much less dark and combined freshness and complexity - a real delight. I consider the first an obvious case of premox. The line between nutty complexity and sherry-like oxidation is blurred and near the borderline some no doubt call the former as oxidization.
There are all sorts of theories around that bottles appearing oxidized on first opening are not really so. This was a remark from another site where I made the same post -
"And that's if it is oxidised at all. I've got some Cour-Cheverny which tastes initially like your description, but on vigorous airing (shaking in a decanter 4 hours before serving) sorts itself out nicely. You didn't by any chance keep back the half-bottle your other half didn't drink, did you? It maybe worth trying if you have any more bottles." Unfortunately for experiments, this was my last bottle.
Going one step further, I have even read an "expert", Clive Coates?, suggesting that premox is a passing phase in a bottle of white Burg and that all would come right with more time. There is a similar belief held by local vignerons that certain wine types, e.g. white Hermitage and CndP, mature in a saw edge fashion into and out of oxidative phases. This is ,of course, unprovable

because offending bottles usually go down the sink and cannot be tried again down the road.