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rapid aging

The first question you ask assumes that the aging that takes place before bottling has the same effect as the aging that takes place after bottling.

It also assumes that (if the winery thinks that a certain wine peaks after 7 years) they can afford to hold onto it for 7 years, aging it just right, and then putting it into bottles at the perfect moment, stopping aging at that moment. All fairly questionable.

As to your second paragraph, most wine that is sold in the world is sold shortly after the retail establishment purchases it, and is drunk the night the consumer purchases it. So if it gets any aging at all, it is typically aged by the winemaker. But for that small percentage of wine that really does get aged before drinking, I didn't know that winemakers are aging it more on premises than they used to. I'm interested in the source of that statement.

It does seem true that a screw cap changes what happens (mostly for the better in my opinion), but it doesn't prevent aging in the bottle.

Reply to
Doug Anderson
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I don't think winemakers release screwcapped bottles later than corked bottles. When bottles are released often has more to do with cash-flow than anything else. Some producers hold some bottles back and then sell them for more money, but that is in effect an investment for them, and more usually they prefer to get the income ASAP to run the business.

Poor corks may allow more oxygen into the bottle than screwcaps, and corks do have other effects like sometimes adding bad flavours, or removing flavours. But screwcaps still do allow in some oxygen, and there are many other changes that take place in-bottle in the absence of oxygen.

Also bear in mind also that different people want different things. Some like young wines, some very old.

That is true, but a lot of reds are put under screwcap too, particularly in Australia and New Zealand.

Reply to
Steve Slatcher

Yes, anaerobic. It is also called reductive (as opposed to the oxidative ageing that takes place in the presence of oxygen). See

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Especially the paragraph about 2/3 down.

Reply to
Steve Slatcher

Both aerobic and anaerobic cross-linking of tannins is possible. The aerobic pathway probably involves the intermediacy of phenolic radicals, produced from the reactions of phenols with triplet oxygen, undergoing something akin to Wurtz coupling, possibly aided by transition metals such as copper should they be present in the wine in catalytic quantities.

The anaerobic pathways involves the condensation of acetaldehyde, an oxidation product of the alcohol in the wine, with two phenolic molecules to produce a methylene-crosslinked biphenol. That's just basic electrophilic aromatic substitution, a reaction that every student in sophomore organic learns.

Some people like a bit of bitterness in their wines. Others drink their wines while eating red meat and the fats in the meat mask the tannins of the wine. Some others have little choice: if you want to order a red wine in a restaurant, you're limited to the (usually very young) red wines present on their wine list. It's the rare restaurant that can afford to cellar red wines as long as is needed to resolve their tannins.

Mark Lipton

Reply to
Mark Lipton

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