The mystery of ageing wine?

Salut/Hi Matija Grozni,

What simple questions. How impossibly hard to answer.

le/on Wed, 06 Oct 2004 09:31:20 +0200, tu disais/you said:-

Aging how long? 1 year, 3, 5 10 20 50 100?

I'm not being flip, because some wines really do age that long and improve.

I'd argue that very, very few wines are released when they're in perfect condition for drinking. Wines for the supermarket trade are often bottles days or even hours before arriving on the shelves, and nealry all would benefit from 2-4 months aging. The _only_ wines I can think of that really need to be drunk immediately are the Beaujolais Nouveau style. "Vins Verts".

Again, it also depends upon where you are and what you like in a wine. If you like a wine that's all fresh juicy fruit, then you should tend to drink young, I prefer them more complex so I prefer them older.

So although not many wines are made for aging for more than 10 years, many, maybe even most, both red and white will age for 1-5 and be much the better for it.

In general, for a white wine to live a long time (it may or may not improve) it needs plenty of acidity and for a sweet wine, enough residual sugar. It will lose some of both in aging and become more subtle and interesting (to me). If it doesn't have lots of fruit flavour, however, it may live a long time, but it won't improve, it'll be tasteless when it's aged.

A red wine needs the same, but usually will need plenty of tannins. However equally, one's criteria are different. "Long" in the context of most dry whites, is >5 years, in the context of sweet whites and reds it's >20. It's the tannins and acidity that let reds be very long lived. The same caveats apply, if the wine doesn't have a lot of fruit when young, it may live long but it will possibly be thin and uninteresting when it's old.

There are very few rules of thumb. I would recommend buying and perusing the Hugh Johnson or Oz Clarhe Pocket wine book and see what they say about the wine you're contemplating buying.

The benefits of aging a wine are on the palette of the beholder. Some appreciate the changes that take place in the wine, while others do not. Wine will change with age - for the better, or the worse. Only the one drinking it can be the judge of whether it is the former, or the latter.

Both reds and whites can improve (to some) with age. For this change to be considered an improvement, the wine needs good structure, i.e. alcohol, tannins (primarily reds), fruit, etc. to start. What usually happens is that the wine, with all of it's components is like a sphere with little points protruding all around. These points are elements that are slightly out of balance to the whole, maybe too stong on the tannins, for example, too much fruit in one taste profile. As the wine ages, these points are worn down, and the surface of our imaginary shpere becomes smoother. I find this true for both reds and whites, but one needs to start with well-crafted wines.

Sweetness (RS) is one element, that can help a wine age well. German TBA's, Port, Sauternes, Tokay, all age well. Whether YOU like them better young, or old is your personal take on it. No right, no wrong.

Alcohol level alone doesn't seem to play that big a role. In the last paragraph, two wines on my very short list are at extreme ends of the alcohol spectrum, TBA's (low), and Port (very high).

I've been impressed at some everyday wines that, when given an extra year, or two, or ... in the cellar improve (to my tastes) very much. Those little points seem to all smooth out and the wine's elements blend.

Only you can decide if the changes are positive, or not. I like my big CA Zins both young and old. They become different wines. I love to purchase a case and drink them along the road to "maturity," comparing how they have changed. This is not a slight on them in their youth, nor an endorsement on them in their age - they just change, and become different wines.

It's difficult, if one doesn't have a cellar and patience, to experience aged wines. The cost at retail, or restaurants can be prohibitive. I'd urge that you try and find a wine that is fairly constant over the vintages, not as subject to the differences in weather, year-to-year, and drink and older one (stored well) beside a new fresh one. Other than mounting a collection, that is the best way to make the choice for yourself. US CA wines are a more likely choice here, as they suffer less in the "bad" years, but, with a few exceptions, don't have those stellar years, that say Bordeaux does. Vintages are closer together, so a 1990 BV GLT will not be THAT different than a 2000.

In short, about all of the elements that you mention, save say alcohol, contribute to a well-crafted wine's ability to age.

Hunt

As good of an explanation that I have seen is in the introductory pages to Parker. I'll defer to him.

YES.

Varies.

No, not really any one of these. Some might make reference to tannins, and tannins are one thing that changes with age.

Certainly not.

It has nothing to do with it being "good enough." It has to do with whether the wine will benefit from aging. Many wines that are excellent won't get any better with aging. Many wines are exellent drank now, that will be improved with aging.

Yes, with a few exceptions.

Dry. Sweet wines do not age that well.

Not necessarily.

Not necessarily. Most wines are between 12-14% alcohol.

No.

No.

No.

No.

It has nothing to do with quality. Wines that are suitable for ageing are generally ones that REQUIRE ageing. No wine that I know of is equally good after a little OR a lot of ageing. There is a 'peak' of perfection (though this point may be amatter of opinion or taste.) In other words, the person who likes young Barbera is not generally fond of old Barbera. How long one should age one's Barbera then is seen as a matter of taste and nothing else.

Some wines should not be drunk young at all, simply because the tannis are too strong. If you drink a wine that should be aged too young, you won't like it at all. If you drink a wine that has aged too long, it will be nasty and stale.

What you should try to do is to find some older bottles of 'big' wines such as Brunello di Montalcino or Barolo from one of the better wineries and compare them to younger bottles from the same wineries. The difficulty will be that each year is unique. You will, however, be able to detect a tendency, a character that the type of wine achieves with ageing. Very few wines benefit from more than 10 years of additional ageing. The average is about 3-4.

'Riserva' wines in Italy are made with somewhat riper grapes and more stringent grape selection. Riserva wines have a somewhat higher alcoholic content and are aged longer before release. In some cases the difference between a 'Riserva' and a 'Normale' of the same wine is staggering, but in others it is almost negligible. Chianti is the commonest wine that is made in 'Riserva'. I can't recall seeing Barolo or Barbaresco Riservas, though I am sure they exist.

To me the best guide of how well a wine might age is based on the past history of wines from a certain property, both young and after age. Of course if the winemaking methods are greatly changed at a property, all bets are off. For instance I can taste a young Ch. Latour and find it extremely tannic and harsh. However, from past experience of others and myself, I know that if it has good balance of fruit, acid, etc when young, it is likely to age very well, develop an interesting bottle bouquet, and become a well balanced, smooth drink. The world is also full of reds that are harsh and tannic when young and lose fruit and become astringent when aged. If you are given a young harsh red wine to taste with no information about what it might be, it is very difficult to predict how the wine might age unless you can guess what region the wine came from. Of course if the wine is defective, you know it will be unlikely to improve with age. But will the tannins soften, enough fruit remain, and an interesting bouquet develop with age? That question may be very difficult for even a Master of Wine to answer if absolutely no information is available about the wine.

Although some dry reds can last many decades before they decline too much to be interesting, the most long lived wines in the world are white. The legendary Tokaji Essencia from Hungary can last well for several hundred years. I have tasted it from the 1800s, and no end was in sight. This is a very rich sweet wine, but has very little alcohol, but plenty of acid to balance the sweetness. Louis XIV, who could have any wine of France, called Tokaji Essencia the king of wines. Catherine the Great of Russia sent a large numbers of troops to protect her Essencia for the long trip from Hungary to Russia.

Vintage Madeira, usually made from white grapes in the better grades, can easily improve and last for up to at least 200 years in some cases. There are types that are dry that can still show well after 100 years, and there are some very sweet ones that also last well. Vintage Madeira, like Vintage Oporto, is somewhat fortified. However the Vintage Madeira, although usually made from white grapes, on the average greatly outlast Vintage Oporto that is made from red grapes.

The great late harvest Riesling wines of Germany at the BA and TBA levels can improve and last for decades - sometimes over 100 years. These white wines have a very high residual sugar content, but plenty of acid to balance. They often are very low in alcohol.

Some of the great late harvest white wines from the Loire can be quite harsh when young, but develop into very fine wines with enough age and can last many decades - even over 100 years in a few cases.

While it may be true that if you consider all wines, reds outlast whites on the average. However such general rules are of no use for selecting wines to age. You have to consider each individual case. On the average, men are stronger than women. However if you make the mistake of picking a fight with a lady boxer, you may be knocked out and on the floor with one blow from her.

My mailbox is always full to avoid spam. To contact me, erase snipped-for-privacy@webtv.net from my email address. Then add snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com . I do not check this box every day, so post if you need a quick response.

And how do Mr Johnson and Mr Clarhe know?

Wondering whether anyone has done any empirical studies on the matter, something like taking a suitable number of wines Mr Johnson tasted 20 or years ago where he said they would age well and then tasted them again recently to compare.

Given the inherently variable nature of the product, I am generally skeptical about predictions like "it will take N years for this wine to be at its peak".

I suspect that there is an element of fortune telling here, where nobody bothers to check rigorously the fortune teller's predictions when they become due against what was foretold.

Thus would very much like to see any studies on the subject.

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Salut/Hi Leo Bueno,

le/on Thu, 07 Oct 2004 12:31:07 GMT, tu disais/you said:-

Oops, should have read "Clarke".

30 years' drinking experience, and access to some of the best tasting databases in the world. In the UK (to speak to a country about whose drinking history I know something) wines have been laid down for at least 150 years, and there is a long experience in this. I've been lucky enough to have tasted wines at pre-auction tastings at Sothebys or Christies, and have watched wines grow up. Nevertheless my experience is as nothing compared with that of Michael Broadbent, Serena Sutcliffe, David Peppercorn, Patrick Grubb, to name but a few. Hugh Johnson is a journalist fundamentally, and is a good friend of most of these illuminatii. Oz Clarke is anothr expert who rubs shoulders with most of the most experienced wine tasters in the world. These people don't just pull aging potential out of a hat, they regularly revise their estimates, and taste, taste, taste.

Well of course, although they may not have done it with Hugh Johnson's book, probably, because all HE has done in his guide is gather together the expert opinion which surrounds him.

But this is such a fundamental issue, that there's loads of checking done all the time.

You're entitled to be, of couse. Have you actually read either of the guides?

Then YOU tell me what YOU think _from your own_ knowledge and experience, what you think will be the aging potential of any 5 2000 classed growth red Bordeaux - without looking it up.

I don't think there's a way to do a true empirical study. Tasting wine is inherently subjective (no matter what some points-hounds think), and the disparities of opinions get larger with older wines. I just tasted a '82 Gloria and thought it very nice, just past peak. I think Bill Spohn recently posted that he felt it was at peak. Another person on a different site opined it was totally over the hill. So who's right? Is it bottle/storage variation or tastes differences? If someone predicted in 1985 that this was a 20 year wine, are they right or wrong?

It's impossible to completely predict the aging potential of any wine. As others have stated, the best way to guess (and it is a guess) are to factor in:

1) the historical potential of the particular wine. It's not debatable whether Ch. Montrose or Ch. Latour are capable of long-aging. 2)the historical potential of the type of wine. I'm more likely to age Pauillac than Lalande-de-Pomerol, Barolo than Dolcetto, Clos de la Roche than village Vosne, etc. I'm more comfortable aging modest Bordeaux than red Burgundies (while an aged Burg is one of the wonders of the world, a smaller percentage of the moderately priced ones are agers imho). I'm more likely to age a white Burg or a German Riesling than a Loire or NZ SB. I'm more likely to age a Chenin or Riesling based dessert wine than a Vin Santo. And so on. 3)"expert" opinions. While it's not possible imho to do an empirical study, one would I think concede that Mr Johnson (or Coates or Parker or Clarke) has tasted more wines than the vast majority of us. That might well give them some insight. I might disagree with Mr. Parker about the aging potential of some super-ripe fruit bombs, but I do so gingerly, well aware that he tastes thousands of wines per year, and has for 25+ years. 4) Personal tasting. In reds, a wine that shows as tannic with a solid acid backbone and a good base of fruit is a better candidate for aging than a wine that shows as low-acid, low-tannin, and modestly fruited. Soft fat whites don't scream "age me!".

best, Dale

Dale Williams Drop "damnspam" to reply

There certainly are sweet wines that age wonderfully. I'm guessing that your scope is limited to wine from Italy, though?

Dana

Probably not.

Both are well represented.

Only indirectly. A light bodied wine will probably not have enough fruit after substantial aging to keep it appealing. There are likely exceptions to this, however.

Nope.

Nope, though most of the longest-aging wines are very high in sugar.

Yes. High acid levels are important for the long-term aging of wines.

Yes. Higher levels of sulfites help preserve wines, especially sweet white wines.

Not necessarily. There is a crude correlation between price and longevity, but it's far from universally true.

In red wines, tannins (the astringent, bitter component) are an important element of long-aging wines.

Experience and sensory perception. With red wines, tasting a young wine that has depth of fruit and suitable structure (tannins, acid) for aging clues you in that it might improve with age. In a white wines, acids and depth of fruit are the principal clues IIRC, though my experience with them is very limited. In the end, it's an imperfect science and requires lots of experience to get even reasonably right. Even then, there is far from complete agreement over what constitutes a "mature" wine. Most famously, the British prefer much older wines than the French (and Americans, and Australians...), so their judgement of aging potential might be skewed to longer term.

HTH Mark lipton

Yes.

Alcohol ages better than sugar.

Certainly sounds like someone who hasn't had many sauternes, and who's probably never had a decent Australian fortified. Seppelt Para Liqueur Port (probably just Para now to appease the EU) is rereleased when it turns 100, and is from all accounts amazing. Rutherglen Rare Muscats are phenomenal too, and normally average 30 years old, with material a lot older than that.

Kieran

Hi!

First of all, thank you all for your replies! They are great and I have learnt a lot from them.

What bothers me is the fact, that all of you are writing from consumer's point of view. I understand that tasting regularly (let's say once a year...) should help you determine when the wine reaches its peak.

But what are the secrets that a good winemaker should be aware off? What can he do to lenghten the life of his wine?

Regards, Matija

This is a totally absurd statement. Wine ages. Alcohol does not. Sugar does not. Both of the latter are well-known specific chemical compounds. (OK, sugar can be in several forms but that's irrelevant.) Kept in a sealed environment free of contaminants and at appropriate temperatures, both of the latter will retain their chemical composition until hell freezes over. Wine ages because of the interaction of the various compounds that it is composed of. Pure chemical compounds change over time due to external influences or because they are inherently unstable. Changes of these types are very different from the aging of wine.

Vino

And that's why I ask myself: How long do we need to feed the trolls?

M.

Sugar will break down quicker than alcohol. I wrote this unclearly.

Sorry, Michael. I kind of lost it for the few minutes it took to write my reply. And for the record, the aging statement was what I was replying to. The vagaries of newsreaders sometimes make it difficult to tell who wrote what.

Vino

The question I put to you is: Why do you want to do that? It is not necessarily a good thing to have a wine that NEEDS to be aged. Quite the opposite! In fact, the trend in Italy (in Piemonte at least) is to make wines that drink younger and don't need so much ageing. Big reds like Barolo and Brunello di Montalcino are traditionally age-worthy, and the amount of ageing is required by wine law (the DOC). Recently, unless I am mistaken, some of the DOC regulations have changed, allowing somewhat shorter ageing. You can imagine, too, that there is some economic incentive at work here. Your inventory can turn over faster with shorter storage/ageing times required. The cost can be reduced, as capital is not tied up as long.

You're confusing ageworthiness with storage life. Lengthening the life of the wine is done more by storage conditions than by formulation. The ageworthiness of a wine has to do with its type, style, composition, and treatment, and often whether it is a 'Riserva' or 'Normale'. A properly-made Barolo is not going to be at its best until at least some time has passed after bottling. A Dolcetto, on the other hand, is generally drunk quite young. Some winemakers do not release their wines until they have matured to the point they deem acceptable. Depending on the particular winery and vintage, the ageworthiness of the wine will vary, but there is generally a certain standard time for the type. It's not really something you have a whole lot of control over as a winemaker, because much of the production process is governed by law.

On the other hand, many Italian winemakers wanted to make wines on their own terms, outside the DOC system. Thus we have had an explosion of VDT wines (now termed IGT) that are based on the same grapes but are fashioned as the winemaker wishes, not according to DOC regulations. These wines are not allowed to be called 'Barolo' or 'Barbaresco' or 'Chianti', etc, and thus have unique names such as 'Arte' or 'Solaia' or 'Tignanello'.

No problem! ;-)

M.