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- Mkh - 09-01-1999

I have 1990 Pouilly-Fuisse that has been refrigerated for over a year... I have no intention on drinking this wine any time soon.. Will is damage the wine to remove from the refrigerator.


- tomstevenson - 09-02-1999

I'm afraid that the damage has already been done by leaving it in the refrigerator for a year. You should not leave bottles in a refrigerator for more than a few hours (although a few days will probably not cause irreparable harm) because the refrigeration process extracts moisture from the cork letting air into the wine. Besides, unless it is an exceptional example, 9 years is stretching it a bit for Pouilly-Fuissé anyway. If you could find a well-cellared example of exactly the same wine, you would immediately notice that yours is darker in colour and it would taste as if the fruit had been stripped away. Sorry.


- Thomas - 09-02-1999

The point is, there is no reason to save Pouilly F. It is not much of a wine to begin with, just overpriced.


- tomstevenson - 09-02-1999

That's the sort of unfair thing I say about Muscadet and Beaujolais, but there are some good Muscadet producers and lots of great Beaujolais producers. Foodie, perhaps you're just pissed off by all the crap Pouilly-Fuissé (Pouilly-F can be confused with the other one), as I have been with all the crap Muscadet and Beaujolais, but to be fair - as I've tried to be in criticising myself - there is a great range of style made under the Pouilly-Fuissé appellation, from light and fluffy (most typical and can be deliciously refreshing)through slightly firmer versions to the power-packed, rich oaky-flavoured blockbusters of Michel Forrest and, of course, Vincent's Château Fuissé "Vieilles Vignes". In addition to the two latter wines, which are generally regarded as the best, I've had excellent Pouilly-Fuissé from Auvigue Burrier Revel & Cie, Daniel Barraut, Domaine Cordier, Domaine Corsin, Jean-Michel & B‚atrice Drouhin, Domaine J.A. Ferret, Michel Galley-Golliard, Domaine Guffens-Heynen, Domaine Manciat-Poncet, Domaine René‚ Perraton, Groupement de Producteurs de Prissé, Domaine André‚ Robert, Jacques & Nathalie Saumaize, Domaine Saumaize-Michelin, Domaine de la Soufrandise and Verget.


- tomstevenson - 09-02-1999

That's the sort of unfair thing I say about Muscadet and Beaujolais, but there are some good Muscadet producers and lots of great Beaujolais producers. Foodie, perhaps you're just pissed off by all the crap Pouilly-Fuissé (Pouilly-F can be confused with the other one), as I have been with all the crap Muscadet and Beaujolais, but to be fair - as I've tried to be in criticising myself - there is a great range of style made under the Pouilly-Fuissé appellation, from light and fluffy (most typical and can be deliciously refreshing)through slightly firmer versions to the power-packed, rich oaky-flavoured blockbusters of Michel Forrest and, of course, Vincent's Château Fuissé "Vieilles Vignes". In addition to the two latter wines, which are generally regarded as the best, I've had excellent Pouilly-Fuissé from Auvigue Burrier Revel & Cie, Daniel Barraut, Domaine Cordier, Domaine Corsin, Jean-Michel & B‚atrice Drouhin, Domaine J.A. Ferret, Michel Galley-Golliard, Domaine Guffens-Heynen, Domaine Manciat-Poncet, Domaine René‚ Perraton, Groupement de Producteurs de Prissé, Domaine André‚ Robert, Jacques & Nathalie Saumaize, Domaine Saumaize-Michelin, Domaine de la Soufrandise and Verget.


- Thomas - 09-02-1999

Tom, you are correct, I am likely unduly critical of all Pouilly Fuisse because of my experience with the many, many overpriced ones on the market. The stuff got trendy in the late seventies and somebody told the French we Americans have money to burn on mediocre trendy wines. Sadly, many of us do, supporting the PF crap that arrives on our shores.


- Randy Caparoso - 09-03-1999

Definitely:

1. Don't take that that Pouilly-Fuisse out of the fridge. The cork is all dried up; and whereas the wine may be still good, it will definitely go bad once it's out of the fridge and air gets in the bottle.

2. Drink the wine ASAP. Call in your neighbors to put down their labors (and the doctor said, blah, blah).

3. Good Pouilly-Fuisse has some staying power. Most, of course, don't.

4. There's also a ton of "crap" masquerading as Meursault, Puligny-Montrachet, Chassagne-Montrachet, and even Le Montrachet out there. I don't know who to feel more sorry for -- people who ooh and ah over that stuff, or people who actually realized they're being "had."


- tomstevenson - 09-04-1999

There's air in the fridge too!
However, I would agree that the only time you take it out of the fridge is to throw and you may as well try it before you do. You never know. One of the best 40-year-old Romanee-Conti I've tasted had no cork. The evidence suggested it had rotted away (don't ask me what they put in the wine that could do that!), thus the wine had survived on its (lead!!) capsule. Another exception was a bottle of Moet NV that had been in an attic (hot-cold, hot-cold ...) for at least 14 years, and it was one of the best preserved NVs I've tasted. Defies logic. So try it. You've got nothing to lose, but don't raise your hopes.


- Randy Caparoso - 09-04-1999

Of course, I know there's air in the fridge. It's just that there's more air outside. In other words, there's a good chance that no oxidation occurred at all while the bottle was in the fridge; but if you take it out, then you're looking for trouble.

Besides, your comment on wine shouldn't be left in the fridge more than few hours is way too wine geeky advice. I didn't want to say it earlier, but what the heck: most corks do just fine in refrigeration for days, weeks and even months at a time. I know this from practical experience. You see, in the restaurant business we often have wines under such conditions, which are opened and enjoyed while showing absolutely no deleterious effects. This may shock you, but what can I say? It's true. And it's not nearly so surprising as that 40 year old Romanee-Conti.


- tomstevenson - 09-07-1999

Admittedly the 40-year-old Romanée-Conti is very surprising and no one was more surprised than the half-dozen of us who had this experience, but it happened. What else can I say other than it's an anomaly? Anomalies happen; the Champagne in the attic is another one, but I don't go around recommendinding anyone should keep Champagne in the attic.

It's the first time I've been called a wine geek, let alone "far too wine geeky", thanks. If offering good advice is being a geek in your eyes, then I'll accept it as a compliment.

And no, it does not shock me that some restaurants keep their wines refrigerated for months, and I know this from experience too, having had too many bad experiences, particularly in third world countries. It's not something I would expect in Honolulu, so thanks for the warning. If you cannot taste any "deleterious effects" after "even months" then, with respect, I suggest you have developed a "refrigerated cellar palate". It's understable: the differences tasted on a day-to-day, week-by-week and month-by-month basis must be almost subliminal and you would be conditioned by this constant experience.

I accept that such hypothesis is purely conjecture. For all I know you visit Europe, the West Coast, Chile, Australia, New Zealand et al on a sufficiently frequent basis to marginalise this conditioning.

However, it is fact, not conjecture, that after more than one year in a fridge, Mkh's Pouilly-Fuissé is significantly more oxidised than the same bottle stored under ideal conditions. That's not geeky - you're just plain wrong. The odds are that he is also going to have a devil of a time extracting the cork, which would have lost much of its elasticity and it is likely to crumble under the corkscrew.

[This message has been edited by tomstevenson (edited 09-07-99).]

[This message has been edited by tomstevenson (edited 09-07-99).]

[This message has been edited by tomstevenson (edited 09-07-99).]


- Randy Caparoso - 09-09-1999

Well, of course, the only real way to demonstrate the effect, or non-effect, of wines stored in the refrigerator is to actually put it to the test. I don't think I'm wrong because I always wager that I'm just as good at telling a good tasting wine from a bad as any other wine professional, and frankly I haven't made the observation that wines given middle term refrigeration (which I would put as anywhere from 1 week to 1 year) suffer for it. Call it what you will (re "refrigerated cellar palate"), but my suspicion is that this fear of refrigerators would be dispelled just as quickly as many other common wine myths -- like "breathing," or vacuvin-ing -- if put under actual scrutiny.

Then again, quality -- as we all know -- is definitely in the mind. It's what makes the world go round; and far be it for me to begrudge other wine nuts for the the pleasures of their knowledge. Lord knows, we've all probably experienced situations in which entire rooms of wine lovers are oohing and ahing over stuff that, in your heart and on your palate, you know is really awful.

But before you undertake the test for yourself, consider this:

1. Extended refrigeration of white, sparkling and pink wines (again, anywhere from 1 week to 1 year) is practiced in virtually every restaurant in every American town; including, I dare say, many of your own favorites. Restaurateurs don't do it on purpose, of course. We like to sell them within 15 minutes! But unfortunately, some bottles take longer to sell than others.

2. Zillions of serious wine collectors keep refrigerated whites and sparklers handy for drinking at a moment's notice -- which could be next week, or at the end of a 6 month cruise. Who cares? Sure tastes good.

3. As long as a cork holds, it's always a safe bet that the wine is holding also. In fact, in my studied opinion there is far more to fear in a refrigerated bottle of wine NOT being able to evolve due to LACK of moderate temperature, rather than oxidizing too soon.
And wines that are nicely evolved are, after all, another of life's pleasures.

So in other words, I certainly am not suggesting to anyone that they should store wine long term in refrigerators. As a rule, you shouldn't -- it is simply an unnecessary risk. Insofar as home advice, it only takes 3 hours in the box for a wine to get cold (or about 45 minutes in the freezer), and so that's all you really need.

However, I am saying that if you should happen to forget a bottle sitting in the back of the refrigerator for, say, two, four, or even six months, don't sweat it -- chances are that not only has it somehow found a way to survive, but it could very well give you even more pleasure than if it had never gotten into the fridge (especially considering the average wine lover's up-and-down, warm "room termperature" storage).

[This message has been edited by Randy Caparoso (edited 09-09-99).]