Check this out:
I just wonder what % of the original vintage remains in the barrel, and what the _average_ age of the wine is now.
Estimating that requires some fancy mathematics - as well as some educated guesswork. Any volunteers? :^)
Tom S
Not on the average age of the wine - but the fact that it's extremely high in dry extracts is not at all stunning (the contrary, in fact, woud be), given the fact that they have augmented it by 1 per cent per year over half a millennium.
M.
Wines a few hundred years old that are still drinkable are found more often than one might guess in Alsace and Germany. The Ratskeller in Bremen has several huge, old, ornate casks filled with wine in their cellar. Of course these have to be topped up a bit from time to time with excellent more recent wine. The oldest is the 1653. M. Broadbent reports that it is very sharp and not very nice. The best is the 1727 Rudesheimer Apostelwein. Broadbent described this wine, as tasted from cask, as: "It had an amber straw colour, the smell of old apples and a nutty, appley taste. Dry. Good length. High acidity." He rated it 4-star out of 5-star.
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