I’ve always thought that the tipping point when Bordeaux changed from its traditional herbaceous style to the modern fruit-driven style was 1982. A series of vintages of Lynch Bages has caused me to revise that conclusion and move the tipping point forward at least to 1990.

Considered by many at the time to have an unprecedented richness that would preclude aging, the 1982 was certainly the first vintage to be instantly delicious on release. It continued to be eminently drinkable in the same style for twenty years, but around 2000 showed the first signs of reversion to type, which is to say showing a delicious touch of herbaceousness to counterpoise the fruits.

My recent experiences with Lynch Bages 1982 show significant bottle variation, with the best bottles showing a generous softness that recalls the original character of the vintage, but others showing an extreme cigar-box like dryness that more resembles the 1975 vintage and suggests the fruits are drying out. At least for the last ten years, it’s been reverting to type, which is say to the pre-1982 tradition, so the change in character was more a matter of style for the first decade than a permanent tipping point.

The lush, rich character of the 1990 far out shadows the 1982, although it also now shows significant bottle variation. The range recently has varied from a bottle showing a touch of classic cigar box to cut the fruit to one that was completely undeveloped, rich and aromatic to the point at which first thoughts might turn to the New World. The latter seems to be the more common experience, and the sheer power of the aromatics makes me feel this may be a Cheshire Cat wine, with nothing left behind as the structure resolves. It seems so completely different in character from traditional Bordeaux as to represent a permanent break with tradition.

In terms of pinning down a tipping point, the 1988 is definitely old school; pleasant enough, losing some fruit now, but in the tradition of restraint rather than extroversion. By comparison with the 1990, the 1989 seems to offer reminiscences of traditional Bordeaux; faintly animal notes might suggest a touch of Brett (a big problem in Bordeaux at the time), making it difficult to judge the force of the fruits, but although they are deep and black, in the end the sense of tannic structure brings a restraint that is lacking from the 1990.

Along with these recent vintages, I have also had the 1961. To my palate, this is unmistakably the real thing: elegant fruits, lacy acidity, a touch of cigar box. A tribute to Bordeaux’s traditional longevity, it seems hardly to have changed in character since I first tasted it in 1982. For all the technical advances in viticulture and vinification, I don’t think any vintage since 1961 has produced its equal. I will accept that there have been great advances, especially in turning vintages that would have been write-offs into good wines, but why can’t we produce anything of the like of 1961 any more?

Dom Pérignon’s cellarmaster, Richard Geoffrey, introduced the P2 Plenitude range in London today with the first-ever tasting of all available vintages. Plenitude takes the concept of late disgorgement to a logical extreme.

Richard Geoffroy explaining the wines

Late disgorgement has been used by many vintage super-cuvées as a means of bringing out Champagne’s maximum aging potential. Vintage Champagne ages in the bottle, of course, but its evolution is oxidative, replacing the initial freshness with notes of nuts, toast, and brioche. The same Champagne kept on the lees ages quite differently.

“The beauty of lees aging is that it is not passive, there is an active aging. The lees feed the wine – or I could say that the wine eats the lees, they are swallowed up to give more viscosity, more intensity. It’s all possible because yeast lees fight off oxidation, there is no better anti-oxidative agent than the lees. We believe that this element of active maturation is part of winemaking as much as terroir,” says Richard Geoffroy.

Four P2 Plenitudes in the typical bottles

Lees aging is a few years for most vintage Champagne, but is extended for top cuvées, where the dissolution of the lees into the wine becomes an important part of their character. Dom Pérignon is first released a minimum 8 years after the vintage. The same wine, released after some years additional lees’ aging, was originally called the Oenothèque, but has now been renamed Plenitude, to reflect the belief that aging is not a linear process, that there are certain discontinuous points in time where the wine reaches a stage of additional complexity that merits disgorgement.

For the P2 Plenitude, this happens around 12 years after the vintage, and we tasted the 1998, 1996, 1995, and 1993 vintages, all disgorged around that point. A second Plenitude occurs at least 18 years after the vintage, and there are P3 Plentitudes from vintages of the seventies and eighties. This takes the wine to its ultimate complexity, says Richard Geoffroy: “The energy of time in a P3 brings all the elements into place to make the wine as elongated as it can be.”

Vintage character comes out as clearly in the Plenitudes as it did in the original releases. 1998 is full, ripe, and generous; 1996 is taut and mineral, with more pronounced salinity than the first release; 1995 is refined and precise; 1993 offers the faintest suggestion of blowsiness. “I keep explaining that we are on a mission to recognize the Champagne years for what they are,” Richard Geoffroy explains. “Many people making vintage Champagne are too shy, they make it like a sort of super nonvintage.” If the aim is to reflect vintage character, even perhaps to intensify it given the nature of late disgorgement, it’s certainly been achieved.

There’s some concern in the trade that wines that have been disgorged late won’t age as long in the bottle as those disgorged previously, but the P2 Plenitudes seem to me both to have similar aging potential to the original releases (I would say the original 1996 release is just about reaching a limit now, and I think the P2 1996 will last about the same twenty years) and to reflect vintage character (1996 will have the greatest longevity, 1993 or perhaps 1998 will have the shortest).

Do all vintages justify re-release as P2 or P3 Plenitudes? “All vintages are meant to give P2 and P3, it’s built into the criteria… And success with P2 feeds back to P1. It puts the whole thing into perspective. Dom Pérignon has sometimes been criticized for being too tight at first release. I’m very happy now that P1 can be appreciated for what it is, knowing that P2 is to come,” is Richard’s final word.

Tasting Notes

1998: Disgorged 2009/2010. Full ripe impression to nose. Ripe and powerful on palate, good flavor variety and intensity, yet still showing fresh notes of citrus and apple at the end. Some more mature notes of chocolate and coffee come out faintly in the glass. 93 Drink now-2028.

1996: Disgorged 2008. Taut impression of vintage comes straight off nose, following to palate. The most mineral of all the Plenitudes, citric with overtones of salinity. Wide flavor variety but very fresh. The most structured of all, yet also the smoothest texture. Wonderful contradictions. 95 Drink now-2028.

1995: Disgorged 2007. Very pale color. Some sense of development just beginning with touch of toast and brioche. Very finely textured on palate, with great sense of precision to the acidity. Palate less developed than nose suggests, with general impression of citric minerality, and just a hint of toast and brioche at very end. 94 Drink now-2028.

1993: Relatively developed impression increases in glass; disgorged in 2006, this is the oldest of the Plenitudes in the flight, but it feels disproportionately older than the 1995 disgorged a year earlier. Granular impression to palate with greater sense of viscosity than other vintages. Impression of maturity enhanced by hints of coffee and roast on finish. 92 Drink now-2025

Not only is Dr. Loosen one of the top producers in the Mosel, but Ernie Loosen is one of the most interesting people to visit, as he has a wide range of activities and trenchant opinions on many issues. A day spent with Ernie is an insight into trends in wine production in Germany in general and the Mosel specifically.

Ernie’s mother and father were both single children who inherited wine estates. He is the first dedicated winemaker in the family: his grandfather was in business, and his father was a lawyer. The estates were regarded as an investment, although Ernie’s father later became fully involved as a retirement activity. Ernie took over in 1988, and combined the estates under one name (previously they had been separate in Bernkastel and Urzig). Bernkastel is his mother’s estate, which produced only sweet wines. His paternal grandfather thought that sweetness was a fault, and his estate produced only dry wine until 1953 when it changed to fruity-style wines. Ernie introduced dry wines when he took over. Here in a microcosm is the great change in Germany to trocken (dry) wines.

Ernie recollects that sweet wines took over after the war because the technology became widely available. Ernie’s view is practical. “Before the technology the only way to have sweet wines was to do it naturally. The barrels of sweet wines got the higher prices, so this led to a drive to have technology that would make it generally more feasible. After the war, sweet was absolutely big, everybody wanted sweetness. I remember people drinking only Auslese. The demand for dry wines shrank so dramatically there was no market. My father stopped producing them when he took over in 1953. In the 1990s the whole fashion in Germany switched from fruity to dry; now we hardly sell any fruity wines in Germany.”

The ability to make high quality dry wines is relatively recent, and owes much to global warming. “It would have been more difficult for my father or grandfather to make great dry wines in their cooler conditions. We did make some great dry wines when the cellarmaster forgot to stop fermentation – there was some good 1985. But every time I drink it – it’s nice now – I wonder how it was 30 years ago; it must have been sour and not at all attractive. So I don’t see global warming as pessimistic here.”

In fact, Ernie is quite pragmatic about global warming. “The reaction to global warming is a bit fatal – we are not in the hands of global warming, we will not have to plant Syrah here in ten years. We have enough viticultural tools, we can alter yields; you used to have to reduce yields drastically to get ripeness, but we don’t have those really cool vintages like 1984 any more. My father and grandfather had only three ripe vintages per decade. We get our fruit ripe every year, but not over-ripe, that is the difference. We jumped up in the last 30 years from average ripeness at 8.5% alcohol to 10.5% alcohol – but that’s not high.”

A major difference in approach from the past is that now it’s the grapes with greatest potential alcohol that go into the dry wine. “There is selection in the vineyard right from the first day of picking, with different buckets for healthy fruit, partially botrytized (Auslese), and totally botrytized (BA etc). For the healthy grapes, if potential alcohol is less than 10.5% it goes to Kabinett, at 10.5-11.5% it goes to Spätlese, over 11.5% it goes to dry wine. We would never be able to produce only dry wines because being on the river and having moisture, we always have some botrytis.”

One of Ernie’s major concerns today is to produce dry wines that age well. “For me a great wine can only be a great wine if it has aging potential. Before 2008 we produced our dry wines mostly in stainless steel with cultured yeasts. They performed beautifully as young wines – the stainless steel really brings out beautiful fruits – but I call them poppy wines because as soon as the fruit lightened after a year they became one dimensional. The driving force (for rethinking) was a 1950 Urzig Würzgarten which was brilliant now. So what did my grandfather do? I wanted to make dry wines that will age again. So we are now making wines with more aging potential – they may not be so charming when young. I have changed many things to make the wines longer aging.”

Now there is a Reserve program for the oldest vineyard in each of the three major terroirs, with 20,000 bottles being set aside each year. In due course, these will become late releases. With lunch we had a Reserve wine from Wehlenner Sonnenuhr (not yet released): just one cask was produced, and the wine spent 24 months on full lees. It shows more depth and body than the Grosses Gewachs Sonnenuhr, with more grip and less delicacy. “This is exactly what I’m looking for,” says Ernie, “it should be closed now or it can’t open out with age.”

Comparing Loosen wines is always an exercise in understanding terroir. In the estate wines, Blue Slate is more precise and fragrant than Red Slate. In the Trocken single vineyard wines, Wehlener Sonnenuhr is delicate and elegant, Urziger Würzgarten has more weight with hints of the famous spice, Erdenner Treppchen shows slightly more herbal aromatics. Moving to Kabinett or Spätlese, the same relative differences show, but the wines are fuller bodied, with more of a delicious sweet/sour edge to the finish. As the Reserve wine program matures, there will be more opportunities to see how these differences play out with age.

Since this photo was taken, a major expansion has been undertaken and new cellars are being constructed to the right of the house.

With Wines of France now published, I’ve been working on an electronic edition. With 350 pages of text discussing the wine regions of France, and 250 pages for profiles of individual producers, it’s really rather big for a single electronic book, but I think it may be useful as a series of seven guides to the individual regions: Bordeaux, Burgundy, Champagne, Rhône, Loire, Alsace, Languedoc & Provence. Each guide will have the information about the region from the book plus the profiles of producers from the region, and maps to show where to find the producers for people who want to plan an itinerary.

It seems blindingly obvious that an electronic format is a good way to go for a guide, as it’s easy to include direct links, e.g. to producers’ web sites, maps of the region, or other information, and also can be updated quickly and easily. But surprisingly the eBook format is not very hospitable. The problem is that the content – like any guide – is heavily dependent on graphics – pictures of the region, maps to show appellations and vineyard locations, maps to show where to find producers, and so on – and these are difficult to handle in the electronic format. One problem is the small size of the screen; but more important is the difficulty of achieving a layout like a print book, where the big effort is always to get the graphics close to the text that relates to them.

It’s possible to do a reasonable job for the generic eBook format, although it will come off better on a tablet than an iPad. But you can see the maps in color, legends can be fixed neatly below or besides them, and text can be wrapped around them. You can’t see a two page spread, of course, but you can move around the text and maps in a pretty workmanlike way, and of course you can go off to ancillary links quite easily. For people who carry iPads or tablets around, I think this will be quite useful.

The big problem comes with the Kindle, which, after all, is more than half of the eBook market. The programming for Kindle is amazingly primitive: Amazon must have made an early decision that the main appeal would be for books which are essentially text only. (This reminds me of the disastrous decision IBM made when it introduced the personal computer, that there would be different formats for black and white screens (no graphics) compared to color screens. And it’s really difficult to see any justification for Kindle using a different format from all other eBooks.)

For the Kindle, this is not just an issue of color, although it’s certainly more difficult to use maps and so on in black and white: it’s really difficult to do any sort of layout for the Kindle, as the software essentially limits the material to flowing in strictly linear order. Many of the commands that work with the generic eBook format have been disabled for the Kindle. That’s why so many books have odd spaces and look weird. The situation is supposed to be better with the latest formats for Fire, closer to the generic eBook format, but that’s not yet a really significant part of the market. I appeal to Amazon to make it possible to integrate graphics with text for the basic Kindle, as this will open the whole market up to guide books and other books that extend beyond simple text.

My first eGuide will be New World Cabernet Sauvignon: The Wines and Guide to Top 100 Vineyards, in a few weeks. I have some tastings to complete so that it will be really up to date, then it will be ready for release. The seven guides to French regions will follow in the New Year. All the guides will be available for both iPads and other devices as well as for Kindle, but it would be great if Amazon improved the Kindle format.