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RE: When should you lay down wine?

Posted by mchad on January 1, 2011 at 08:50:05:
As mentioned, there are many new-world wines that are meant to drink now. For these, we still use our wine cellar for storage but they are placed in a physical area that get's replenished fairly often. Typically, these are Sauv Blanc's, Chardonnay's, Gruner Veltliner, etc. from either new-world or old-world producers from France, Austria, Califoria coast or New Zealand.

For some new or old-world red varietals, we drink now but others we lay down between one to three years in hopes the tannins might mellow a bit. Examples are lighter California Pinot Noir (this can be a little risky), inexpensive French Cotes Du Rhone and even some red Bordeaux from lesser classifications.

We find ourselves laying down other wines for longer periods but these are the well known types such as red Bordeaux, Ch�teauneuf-du-Pape and dessert wines like Sauternes, Barsac, and even new-world late harvest Riesling's.

All that said, a wine drinker/collector does not need to spend gobs of money on bottlings that can benefit from bottle age. Many times people think that if a bottling costs lot's of money, they automatically must be layed down for a long time. In our cellar, we have very few bottlings that cost over $35 but about 2/3 of the cellar will age well for 5-15 years or more.