Refrigeration

[tomstevenson]

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).]