Question about Tannins and Aging

This is always the question in austere tannic vintages- while the fruit outlast the tannins? In 1975, many wines are still quite tannic, as fruit fades (not all- there are some nice '75s). In 1988, the balance seems to have fallen on the fruit side- tannins are resolving, and most of the better wines are very good in a classic style. The jury is still out on 1994 (I subtitled a report on a '94 horizontal last year "tannins run amok!").

A more reasonable answer is. Maye, maybe not. No one knows. It's a crap shoot.

Yup. That a large part of what bottle aging is all about: the softening of tannins with time. In fact, the sediment that forms in older bottles of red wine is polymerized tannins (no longer bitter, BTW).

Aging not only smoothes out tannins; it also reduces that fruitiness of the wine. If a wine starts out *so* tannic, the tannins will outlast the fruit and you'll end up with a wine after 20 years of aging that has no fruit -- usually, not a pleasant experience.

Yup, either that or someone slipped some sandpaper into the glass when you weren't looking ;-) That's called "astringency" as is the hallmark of rough (green) tannins. With age or exposure to oxygen, that'll go away.

HTH Mark Lipton

p.s. Thanks for the thoughts on the '82 G-L. That's an example of a wine that was hell of tannic in its youth, and see how it's developed! :)

Mark (Dale and Mojo too),

Thanks for the helpful post! So what happens when you start out with a really fruit-driven wine that lacks tannic structure? Could you describe what an over-the-hill fruit-driven wine tastes like? I'm pretty sure I've had them but I'm not sure. I had one Pinot Noir recently that was so flabby that it tasted like cough syrup. I was frustrated with myself for lacking the knowledge to pinpoint what the obvious defect was (lack of acidity, weak tannins, or poor acid/alcohol balance). I found myself wishing that I could have an expert taste it and explain the defect to me.

On the same subject, is a lack of tannins what accounts for the softness that makes alot of "quaffers" unappealing to me? I'm thinking of some of the cheap Australian Shirazes such as Yellow Tail.

It really is amazing how many elements must come together to provide a perfectly balanced wine. It's exciting when it happens -- enough to send people like us on our quests for really great wine!

Jonathan

How long do you intend to hold your last bottle of the '82 G-L?

Jonathan wrote in news:4c461$42607210$d896cf7e$ snipped-for-privacy@VIAWEST.NET:

imagine the fruit is lacking and you are left with?

not much good sweetish water with alcohol mixed in.dead wine is not gross but sure aint pretty

So then, it possible to blend one's own wines for reserve, or is that a "black art" of the grower/Vintner?

I'll bet you mean Rosemont Shiraz. Ravenswood is a Sonoma (though they do have property, and sources, that lie beyond Sonoma) Zin producer.

That said, it is difficult to assess a tannic wine early in its career, especially for me. I do a bunch of barrel-tastings, but it's still a crap- shoot. Sometimes, I'm right, sometimes, I feel that I will not live long enough to see some of these monsters smooth out - and I feel that their fruit will live an even shorter life.

I had the pleasure (?) of tasting the first R Mondavi Pinot Noir. It was, IIRC, 1978 (?), and was made by the recipe from UC Davis' thoughts on PN in those days. When tasted in 2000, this wine ripped the enamel from my teeth - still! To get concentration, back in those days, the skins were left in contact with the must for a week, with heavy agitation. Maybe someday, in the next century, this wine will be drinkable. As a result of this failed experiment, RM quit doing PNs for many years, and the winemaker became a marketing director.

I collect a bunch of tannic monsters, and only hope that I live long enough to enjoy them. AND that THEY live long enough for me to enjoy.

Hunt

Nope, I bet he meant Ravenswood, Hunt. They now market a SW Aussie Shiraz, which I've seen placed next to [other] Aussie Shirazes in the supermarket in Indiana. Keep in mind that they're now owned by BRL Hardy, so maybe it's not so surprising.

LOL!! I do believe that I tasted that wine at release also, leading me to the generalization that "Mondavi doesn't do Pinot Noir (well)." Can't say that I was motivated to buy any, though. Still, compared to the Pinots of Santa Cruz Mountain Vineyards in that era, Mondavi's was a light, ready-to-drink wine ;-)

Mark Lipton

As I recall, Mondavi pulled the plug on PNs after three vintages (if one could call them that), however, he/they came back to the grape in the late 90's and did some respectable ones from both Napa and Carneros (yes, I know that Carneros overlaps both Napa & Sonoma, but they had those two different appellations on the bottlings, but I do not know the exact properties). These were not great PNs, and pale in comparison to some other efforts, especially from areas between Santa Barbara and Monterey, plus a ton from WA/OR. But, if you were to compare them to the Mondavi early efforts, or to much of the other PN production from big houses in CA from that era, they were not bad. I recently did in the last of the RM Carneros PN, and it had done OK in the aging department - not great, but OK with about 9 years on it. Glad I had not bought TWO cases, but one went down well. I do not think I would feel quite so fortunate with the competition from today's CA PNs, as the bar has certainly been raised.

Hunt

PS liked your TNs on Williams-Selyem. I've always liked their various PNs, though have not followed them too closely in the last three, or so, years. I received some individual producer wines from two of their common properties, but have not tasted them yet. More, when I do.

I'm pretty sure it was Ravenswood Shiraz. As far as its aging potential, it was already too soft and monodimensional for my taste now so I can assume that it is not going to get any better. I could be wrong...

Speaking of old Carneros Pinot Noirs, I bought two bottles of 1976 BV Pinot Noir (The first year that they labelled them as Pinots and not as a "Burgundy") from the of their legendary wine maker. I bought them mostly out of curiousity for $40.00/bottle from KL Wines. I immediately worried that the wine would be undrinkable so I opened one and was more than pleasantly suprised. Very nice fruit, acceptable acidity, soft and appealing tannins. The wine seemed to have lost any hint of hard edges, but had a vibrancy to it. A wonderful wine -- I only hope the remaining bottle is that good. Talk about a crap shoot...

J> >

Wow, new to me. I know that they were recently purchased, but I assumed that Joel Peterson was only working with Zins. With all of the acquisitions and mergers, soon we will have only two, or three corporations and the wines will come from their properties all over the old, and new world, and branding will be a thing of the past. It is happening too quickly for an old-timer, like myself.

Only CA producer to use the "Shiraz" name has been Voss of Napa, but then his wife is from OZ, so it is a tip-o-the-hat to her.

Thanks for the info,

Hunt

PS I would only expect a good, to great wine, from Andre Tchelistcheff, even an early PN.