A question, when it says on the back of a bottle..."Cellar for up to five years", how long should I cellar this wine. ?
For example, I'm looking at a bottle of Shiraz '01, it says it will keep for up to five years, but is that five years from 2001, or five years from when it was released ?
--
"YorkshireSoul" snipped-for-privacy@hotmail.com asks...
up to five years, but is that five years from 2001, or five years from when it was released ?<
Let's look at this objectively.
If it were to mean "5 years from the vintage date", whom would see and benefit from that info, prior to the bottle being (bottled and) released to the public? The vintner?
Always here for my fellow syngraphist or oenophile.
--=*=----=*=----=*=----=*=----=*=----=*=----=*=----=*=----=*=----=*=--
And after it has been released, who would know when it has been released, and thus when it is ready for drinking? The vintner.
I think you are correct, but it would be a lot more useful if the cellaring advice for a vintage would refer to speciifc years, e.g. "Cellar until 2006".
I have also encountered the opposite issue of reading in a book advice like "You should drink a 1998/99 vintage of this wine", when I had little idea when the author thought I would be reading the advice. Or was he just thinking about when he was writing it?
I would ask book and label writers to think a bit more about their readers!
Salut/Hi Jim,
le/on 17 Oct 2003 06:52:12 GMT, tu disais/you said:-
I have to admit that I've never really thought about this.
If I buy a 2001, and the winemaker says it will improve for "up to 6 years", I'm pretty sure that they mean it will continue to improve until
2007. From then it will spend some time et its apogee then start to decline. God knows what a retailer means when you buy a 2001 in 2003 and s/he says "this wine will continue to improve for 5 years". I'd assume again that they are referring to the vintage date, though depending upon their precise phraseology, I might very well query this and press them further.In my wine database I make explicit time delays "minimum age to drink" "maximum age to drink" and this is added to the vintage date to give years when I should start drinking and have drunk by.
As far as I understand it advice is changing to drink earlier than used to be the case. I think it is partly what you suggest (though it is not only the big retailers who are to blame). Plus the fact that there is only a small percentage of customers prepared to cellar wines
- so they do not say "cellar for 5 to 10 years" to avoid putting customers off.
DrinksForum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.