I've noticed with a lot of expensive single estate sauvignons that the wine becomes more subdued after about an hour. Marlborough wines like Jackson Estate lose a lot of their pungency whilst Loire wines tend to change flavour with the fruit starting to dominate the minerality and minerality is what you want when you buy a Sancerre etc.

Mass produced wines like Montana keep their flavour ( and very nice it is too but not as good as the likes of Jackson Estate )...even overnight but the better wines just evolve quickly in the glass into something well, quite ordinary at times.

Any reason for this and is this commen in reds and other whites too. Or do I need my taste buds examined.

I'll talk to myself then...

Sorry mate, I didn't look in on Friday 13th - like I'm a tad busy just now, Also I'd like to, along with half a billion other folks.... 'shoot the balls off' then hung draw and quarter every gambling Merchant Banker from here to Shanghai.

Also mate, whilst this forum has 50,000 blinking members, most of them write naff all and have bizarre log in names - excluding Shezza of course. There you go, I'm off my soap box now.....Grrrrr.

OK Mr G, i'm confused by many aspects of Malborough SB... Storage ?...Change of flavour ? Racey Acidity ? Minerality ? .
Have you tried the Crossings 2007 yet ? Now I went back to an open bottle 3 days later, it had been in the fridge. The Crossings had gained more minerality, lost any caty notes, had a sweeter length, subdued, had dumped a tiny amount of greeness/stalkiness/pithiness that it hitherto had on the length.
I just dont think we know enough about these Malborough SB's - We need an SB Malbhound whose got years of experience to describe the way and teach us how these evolve.

You said: Any reason for this and is this commen in reds and other whites too. Or do I need my taste buds examined.
Examine your taste buds Sir, but not for all wines. New Zealand is confusing if one applies the old rules ! For instance, proper Cote d'Or village wines, particularly red, open like flowers in the glass, BUT, you need loads of experience.... because if you leave them too long, they also expire in the glass, they become breathless, flat & lifeless, empty, chambreyed out. A 15 year old 1er Cru burgundy should be consumed fairly quickly, whilst a grand Cru or a Cru Classe left bank wine need time to come around.
Mr G, your post is one that invites essays, to even get close to resolving your problem. BTW....My taste buds go AWAL sometimes.

I have found expensive aged Chablis the most fickle of them all. Leave them in the glass for an hour or so in a warm room, go back to them, and they have completely expired, just teppid fairly tastless rubbish in the glass.

There is a champagne that can hold it's own in the glass for a while, oh yes, the charming Taittinger brut or the beautiful and full figured Taittinger demi sec.....but there is a serious price to pay.... I last had the 2002 which was in a Christmas and V.expensive hamper....Yum, Yum, Yum.

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Duncan

Fascinating stuff.

However, you've got me worried. Someone brought a bottle of Jacob's Creek 2008 sauvignon blanc and they insisted that we open it as it was 'wonderful'.

On one hand, the wine tasted the same from beginning to end. Not even a temperature change from about 4c to almost room temperature could change the flavour.

On the other hand, the wine was tasteless to begin with, tasteless at the end and went nowhere inbetween.

Good grief it was lame.

Question is, does this mean that Jacob's Creek are exceptionally good winemakers for making a wine that kept it's flavour or exceptionally bad winemakers for making such a tasteless wine.

Goosegogs ~ talking himself out of a PR job at Pernod Ricard ~

Sir, your dilemma for standard wines is real ! Jacobs whats'it is made to a formular that is standard for any part of a region and for any vintage. The principal Aim of that producer is consistency for the price, nothing more. If you don't think much of it, you never will, because it is consistently ........

Returning to that expensive aged Chablis that expired in the glass, that I talked about last week, I rather think the wine had been laid down for too long and from a light and greener vintage. This, even though it purported to age well, and said premier cru on the label. Shelling out and laying down half decent Chablis is not for the novice. Never-the-less, it was 3 x better than JC when fresh in the glass, but more than 3 x the price !

Talking Chablis, I enjoyed immensly a bottle of Albert Bichot's 2005 Domain Long~Depaquit on Saturday evening as an apperatif, I bought 6 from Laithwaite's last Spring with a bit of discount. My sister and I drunk it quickly because it was so utterly cluggable, but even though it was from the brilliant & lasting 2005 vintage, I will make sure that all of them are enjoyed by Spring 2010 at the latest.

The measure of a good wine is one that is memorablely engaging and enjoyable with an element of flavour discovery and extra dimension. Everyone has different expectations. Your dilemma as posed in the question above, is that you do have taste buds, and you are bored with formular wines.

I suppose you could say that a wine which tastes the same at 4C as it does at 20C two hours later is a jolly good party wine ! But, Is it memorablely engaging and enjoyable with an element of surprise or discovery ?

I don't think your observations and questions as to the correctness of a wine are resolvable

Cheers Mr G, ..... keep exploring the SB's, take back to the store what is rubbish ( it's such a hassle though) . Advise us please on these, so we dont make any stupid purchases, Thanks once again for all the SB info.

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Duncan

Hello boys - sorry to have left you alone for so long, but you seem to be playing nicely without me.

I think evolvement in the glass is a sign of quality, plus perfect maturity in reds and whites for ageing, but Sauvignon isn't meant to age and so has a relatively short "life" in the glass. The beauty of good reds is there evolvement in the bottle, and then glass.

Have any of you read "The Irresistable Inheritance of Wilberforce"?

A five bottles a day of top claret man. Some lovely descriptions of wines drunk, but nicely amusing at the same time. Written by Torday, as in Fishing in the Yemen, or similar.

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mel

Yeah, here is the link:http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2008/feb/16/featuresreviews.guardianreview22 Not for the faint hearted !

"We're also told that Wilberforce is suffering from a disease called Korsakoff's psychosis, which causes "the confusion of invented memory with real memory. Eventually, he loses the ability to distinguish his real-life experiences from his invented ones. In the final stages, just before coma and death, he slips entirely into the delusional world he has constructed." Perhaps nothing in the novel is real; perhaps, as Wilberforce looks back over the events of his life, he's deluding himself about the whole thing, muddling together real and imaginary events"

Yeah, a rather unfortunate side to the connoisseur .........HELP .....help me, I'm feeling down I'm feeling blue [Lennon]

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Duncan

I think temperature has a role to play when serving NZ SB, some of the more intense versions have their aromas shackled by being served too cold, by the time the wine has warmed a touch the aromas have thinned out a little. A good wine will ride out the chill and still have plenty to offer.