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Does all wine benefit from cellaring? Of course not.
What does cellaring achieve? IMHO, it balances out the tannins (sometimes harsh) with the fruit to give a more complex flavor. Bordeaux, especially older vintages, are made with this in mind. The ones I tried from the 70's were sometimes mouth puckering with tannins upon release. Ten years later they were a totally different wine.
Many new world wines are made with a very fruit forward style. Think Australian Shiraz or California Zinfandels. I enjoy these wines, but I don't think they will benefit from aging.
To paraphrase a description I read recently and totally agree with "The fruit of the grape is caged by the tannins, eventually the tannins will soften and let the fruit out". If the fruit is already out why would you wait? The wine won't gather complexity, it will only lose fruit.
I recently went to a tasting of Hourglass wines. The Owner was there and was asked how long his wines needed to be cellared. In my opinion the ones we were drinking were as good as they were going to get. Strong fruit and, as he put it, silky tannins. He danced around the subject and then told a story about sitting next to Mary Novak of Spottswoode Winery. They were trying some older Napa Cabs and she whispered to him "I hate older wines".
Don't put an unnecessary mystique around wine. If the fruit is already there and there are no harsh tones, then the wine is probably ready to drink. Also take into consideration what the winemaker was trying to do. Many, if not most, are producing ready to drink wines do to the current taste and the inability of most to store wine.
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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, Châteauneuf-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.
I've been hanging around the Asylum for years, and never knew there was a wine board. Hope you don't mind if my first ever post in this corner of the Asylum is your thread.
I'll agree with your points totally. The majority of New World wines are intended to be enjoyed within a couple of years of release. There is no rationale for aging them. In fact, they are unlikely to improve with age.
The trick is knowing which wines will improve with age, and the kinds of changes that can occur if a wine is held at appropriate temperature for 5-10 years or more. These changes will not be for the better for most everyday drinking wines. But for wines that are actually built to age, the changes can be remarkable and the resulting wine sublime.
Although I'll agree that a lot of fruit-forward wines will never improve with age, I have had 20 year old Zin, 30 year old pinot, and 20 year old California chardonnay that would blow your socks off. So, it's not just the grape, it is the quality of the original fruit and the expertise of the winemaking that determine age-worthiness. Cost is not always a good indicator of age-ability. Some expensive wines do not age well and were never intended to age. Some relatively inexpensive wines actually do improve with age.
However, one issue you did not mention is that aging wine properly has certain costs that people often do not consider. The cost of equipment, space, electricity and monetary investment in the wines themselves are often overlooked. These expenses can easily double or triple the amount spent on the original wine. That kind of cost should be balanced against the cost of the same wine bought 10-20 years later at auction or from a fine wine retailer. What one often finds is that, when looked at in strictly monetary terms, it only makes sense to cellar wine if it is within the context of an ongoing program that accounts for a certain volume added and withdrawn annually over decades.
Of course, for those with disposable income and patience, spending money on wine is rather like investing in good audio equipment. There is a payoff in pleasure that is hard to quantify.
"Life without music is a mistake" (Nietzsche)
...even without big tannins, I find many California wines tend to gain complexity with bottle ageing.
Cabernet - 5 years
Zinfandel - 3 years - except the very fruit forward ones
Pinot Noir and Chardonnay - 1-2 years
There is a dollar value associated to ageing wine?
So Ch. Petrus should be drinkable sometime in the next century. Every $10 adds 2 years of necessary ageing. Wine that releases for $800 needs 160 years to come to perfection.
But back to my original thought, what are you trying to achieve with ageing a wine?
...like I said above, I find ageing increases a wine's complexity.Think of a young wine, even without tannins, and it's tightly wound with hints of the flavors to come.
With a few months to a year of bottle age, it opens up revealing some of its complex flavors.
This process continues over the next few years, although slower.
Some people like a wine, esp. from CA, that's more fruit forward, i.e. the fruit is the main thing they can taste. With a little bottle age the fruit diminishes a little revealing other flavors which come more forward.
Edits: 02/07/10 02/07/10 02/07/10
Most wines made today are structured to be enjoyed during the first years after released. The fruit is ripe and the tannins are mild. California and other new world wine producers are giving the world what they want. If you go to a restaurant and order a bottle of Silver Oaks you will enjoy it and it doesn't have to be 5+ years old.
Asking how long to wait for a bottle of 2006 Hourglass, after the wine maker has just told you the fruit is perfect and the tannins are silky, is an example of what I'm talking about. People are laying down wines that don't need to be laid down because they are trying to be wine snobs!
There are wines that will improve with age, but they are a small percentage. Less now than 20 years ago. And I'm not saying that is a bad thing. Wine is meant to be enjoyed, so the more people that are getting into it the better. Just don't miss a wine at it's peak because of dogma.
...because of superstitions.I believe you are resisting the idea of wine storage at a constant 59 degrees, too. So if that's the case, buying wine that's best drunk young is probably a good idea.
Between one and three or five years for CA reds IS early compared to say, what Bourdeax need.
If you watch the WS ratings, they also suggest when it is best drunk, stored and consumed by.
Even champagne will mellow out and get more complex with a little bottle age.
That's the beauty of buying a partial or full case - you can taste it periodically along the way to decide when it suits you best.
Some men prefer young women, others young wine.
Personally, I prefer a little mellow maturity on both.
Edits: 02/08/10
if you're using the vintage date as the 2-5 years for California Cabs. Most wines are released 2-3 years after harvest. So you're saying 1-3 more years?The Hourglass Merlot was 2006, so it already had 4 years on it. It was an expensive bottle of wine, about $135. I believe the winemaker, as well as myself, felt the wine was peak.
I guess I'm thinking old school in laying down terms because I think of laying down being upwards of 10 years or more. The classic Bordeaux style needed that much or more to bring everything into balance.
And as for the resistance against 59 degrees via expensive wine refrigerators. My point was that wine is much more stable than people are lead to believe. Huge wholesaler facilities are full of cases upon cases of wines, and not just new wines, they've got past vintages stacked up as well. I've been in them. They don't keep them at 59 degrees. Only when you bring them home do the wines get the chill treatment. Marketing has created the need for wine refrigerators.
Edits: 02/09/10
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