half bottles

[Dave Poppons]

Hi Jeff,

Do you have any rules/guidance on figuring out the drinking windows for half bottles of Bordeaux as compared to 750's? I am specifically interested in cheval blanc, leoville poyferre, latour, angelus, cos, LMHB, HB, Mouton, Lafite, SHL. Am planning on buying half bottles for drinking with dinner and my wife doesn't really drink much, maybe half a glass. I usually drink a glass. Hence the half bottle idea. The full bottles I am accumulating will probably only be consumed when we go out to dinner with other people or have others to our home, both of which are not that often. I have come to realize that full bottles are probably better to collect but, at this point I might not live to drink them and as I have mentioned, full bottles are just too much wine for dinner and the next day the wine, for the most part has gone bad. I have gone to white burgundy/Chablis/sauternes as my daily drinkers so far because they keep very well in the fridge, even up to two weeks, depending on the quality of the wine. But I want to experience Bordeaux as a daily drinker and so am looking to a half bottle subcollection as a solution.

[Dave Poppons]

After I wrote that I wanted to mention that I own a coravin but have not really used it. The coravin could be used for full bottles but I want to buy a number of different wine names and years of half bottles as I can buy more of the half bottles than full bottles.

[Jeff Leve]

Hey Dave

Personally, I do not buy half bottles. As they age, most of the bottles do not evolve with the same complexities as the standard sized bottles. You are probably better off using the Coravin. But that is just my opinion.

Feel free to bring some of those bottles up this way, and you, I, Bonnie and Joe, as well as David P can always find a time to get together.

[Dave Poppons]

That makes sense Jeff. Do you use the Coravin?
If so do you have a system? After you Coravin a bottle do you keep that bottle in the cellar or upstairs in the fridge or at room temperature? Do you coravin a limited number of bottles ? If you don’t use it I would like to hear how others are integrating the Coravin into their cellar practices. Thanks

[Jeff Leve]

Honest, I never use the Coravin. Most of the time, it is one bottle with dinner with 2 people. We usually finish it. If it is a group of folks, most of the good bottles get finished as well.

I understand why wine bars or restaurants use it. And if you wanted to check out several wines at a time, I get while you would do that. But for me, it is more interesting to see and enjoy how a bottle develops over the course of an evening.

I go to enough wine tastings that lets me compare wines, vintages, etc. I really enjoy a night with a bottle, it lets you get to know what it is and what it will become.

[Dave Poppons]

Those are some very good ideas. I will try to incorporate them into my cellar style!