Aging Wine

Over the last week, I have had the opportunity to open up some old bottles of wine with friends and family. The 30 year old Burgundy was still holding up, but the 1969 St. Emilion was over the hill. I had made a comment on Facebook, that a wine was past it’s prime, which generated a question…”Aren’t all wines better as they get older, and what do you mean by past its’ prime?”. I wrote about drinking or holding a wine about two years ago, but maybe it's  time to take another look.

First, not all wine benefits from aging. Matter of fact, most wines are meant to be consumed within a year of release. I've heard that the average wine consumer holds on to a bottle of wine for about 40 minutes (the time of purchase to the drive home and consumption). Wine is a perishable product, and due to chemical reactions within the bottle, and oxygen exchange through the cork, the wine will change, and eventually deteriorate. There are a number of factors that affect a wines “ageability”. These include the grape variety, the vintage, the vineyard practices, and the winemaking process, as well as the bottle closure (screwcaps versus corks).

The grape variety will determine the sugar (and ultimately the alcohol) levels, the tannins, and the acids. The vintage is all the affects of climate/weather on the vineyards, which can also influence the final wine product.

The key factors that influence the ageability of  a wine are: acidity, residual sugar, alcohol levels, tannins, and ultimately the flavor and aroma of the wine.

Acidity is what preserves a wine. Acidity determines the pH level of the wine. But, too much acidity can be a flaw. Acidity does not change as a wine ages, it is constant. So, if it has too much or too little to begin with, the wine will only show more of the flaw over time. Wines with high residual sugar will age if they have balanced acidity. Without acids, the residual sugar will make for an odd wine after aging.

Alcohol levels in wine must also be balanced. When I taste a wine, I feel the burn in the back of my throat, if the alcohol is not balanced. Alcohol does not change in wine over time either, so just like acid, it must be in balance.

Tannin is that astringent feeling you get on your gums, after swirling the wine in your mouth. Tannins come from the skins, seeds and even oak aging. We don’t associate white wines with tannins (except from extensive oak aging), but for red wines, it is one of the components that allows the wine to age well. Some tannins are “green” or even gritty. Unfortunately, these types of tannins rarely age well, and actually only get more concentrated. I look for ripe tannins, that will mellow over time, and contribute to a smooth mouthfeel.

 In general, red wines with high acidity (such as Pinot noir and Sangiovese) have a greater capability of aging. Additionally, red wines, a high level tannins (such as Cabernet Sauvignon, Nebbiolo and Syrah), will usually be wines will stand the test of time. The white wines with the best aging potential tend to be those with a high amount of acidity (Chenin Blanc, Riesling). The acidity in white wines plays a similar role that tannins have with red wines in acting as a preservative.

As red wine ages, the red color will eventually fade to a light brick red, and ultimately brown. White wines will also move towards golden, then brown. These changes occur due to the chemical and oxygen reactions of the phenolic compounds in the wine.

When I taste a wine, I am looking for concentration of flavors and aroma. If it’s not there in the beginning, it will probably never improve. As a wine begins to age,  the aromas will change to a bouquet. Where we tasted fruit in the young wine, now we might taste something more complex, with notes of dried fruit, and earth. The finish will be long and pleasant. However, there will come a point when the wine has reached is “prime” or “peak”, and will not improve any further. It will actually decay, and die in the bottle. The challenge is to try to hold a wine until it’s peak, and no further. There is no set formula for figuring this out, and for that reason, I purchase numerous bottles, and start tasting when I have guessed the optimum aging time (also you can check sites like www.cellartracker.com, and read the notes of other tasters).

In the end, balance is the key. An unbalanced wine won’t age well. When you find a wine that is balanced with great intensity of all the key factors, that is the wine you want to age. The timing, though, is at best guess, and comes with a lot of trial and error. And, of course, it should go without saying....make sure you store the wine properly.

What's in the Wine Cellar?

For months now, a friend of mine has been asking me to come over to her house, and look through the bottles in her wine cellar. She had told me that there might be some old Bordeaux and Burgundy in there, but she wasn't sure what she had.

We finally got together (along with a few friends), and made an evening out of it. We all brought some wine..."just in case".

I had seen her cellar a number of years ago, but really didn't pay much attention to what was inside. Well, I should have! What I found upon entering her cellar was a room without any humidity or temperature control, and everything was covered in dust. Since the cellar backed up to the hillside, the temperature appeared cool enough, but I couldn't judge the swings in temperature. My biggest concern was the humidity. We live at 5,200 feet in the mountains. Our air is thinner, and definitely drier at this altitude, which can play havoc with wine corks.

We gathered some towels, and started carefully wiping down the bottles to see what we had in stock. There were a lot of old bottles of California Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc, most of which had turned brown in the bottle. We even found a 1989 Sutter Home White Zinfandel. Then our luck turned around a bit. We discovered about 10 bottles of German Riesling: 1987 Klusserather St. Micheal QbA. Next we found six bottles of White Burgundy: 1983 Clos Du Chateau Meursault. We thought each of these white wines might have potential to have survived their storage treatment, so we carefully moved one bottle of each to the refrigerator. I purposely chose the bottles that had, what appeared to be, the softest corks...in hopes the ones we left in the cellar would be in better shape. More on the tasting later.

Then, things got a bit more interesting. We came across one bottle of 1986 Clos Vougeot (Red Burgundy - Pinot Noir), then a bottle of 1990 Chateau Ducru-Beaucaillou St. Julien Bordeaux, followed by a 1980 Chateau Baronne Phillipe Rothschild (later known as Chateau Armailhac), and a 1961 Bolla Amarone Cantina de Nanna. Then, what we hoped were the finds of the evening: 1-bottle of 1971 Cheval Blanc, and 3-bottles of 1966 Chateau Latour.

I had brought all my old vintage charts, and my Bordeaux Chateau book, to look up tasting notes on the wines. We knew that there were some bad vintages in the bunch, but held out hope for the Chateau Latour (which was still wrapped in its' original tissue paper). It's always that age old question of Drink or Hold.

We opened the two whites first. The Riesling was past its' prime, but you could taste what it used to be. The petrol aromas were pretty evident, but any notes of sweetness were long gone.The remaining bottles may be better, but I doubt it. The white Burgundy (Chardonnay) was all yeast, and was golden in color...but nothing drinkable.

Next we moved to the reds. As I cut into the foil caps, I could tell we had issues. Almost every bottle had leakage, and mold on the cork and capsule. The next challenge was getting the corks out of the bottle in one piece, which didn't happen too often. While I can say I tasted a 1966 Chateau Latour, I can't tell you how good it was, as it had turned. Not to vinegar yet, but was beyond its' lifespan. I'll tell you, there is nothing more depressing than watching Cheval Blanc or Chateau Latour being poured down the drain!

To try and save the evening, we opened up a 1987 Heitz Martha's Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon. For the first five minutes, the wine was still there. You could taste a bit of remaining fruit, but the tobacco and leather notes were soon overtaken by an oxidised brown flavor. For five minutes, we were loosely transported back to 1987.

We spent a total of five hours going through the cellar, eating dinner and appetizers, and tasting the wines we hoped had survived. In the end, the Brunello and Petite Verdot we had for dinner, proved to be the best wines of the evening. But the chance to try these wines was something to remember, and a true testament to properly storing your wines. Now might be a good time to review proper storage techniques, and save those valuable wines!

Wine Storage

You've just found this great wine, and think it would be the perfect bottle (or case) to set aside. You figure, "this wine has great staying power, and will been even better a few years down the road". So where do you store it? In the closet? On that wine rack on your kitchen counter? Or, do you have a cellar? I would venture to guess that most of you do not have cellars, so there are steps you can take, to make sure those bottles you set aside do live up to your expectations.

When I started collecting wine in the 80's my wine storage consisted of a plastic milk crate located in the basement of our house. I have no idea what the temperature was, but the wine held up pretty well. Later on, I expanded to a nice wooden wine display rack, that I located in my living room (this way I could show off some of my collection)....but the wine didn't seem to hold up very well. I ended up putting my best bottles in the closet in the center of the house (they did much better there). I learned the basics of wine storage by trial and error. Let me save you some steps, as well as help you save your wine. There are five things you should keep in mind, when storing your wine: 1) Temperature; 2) Humidity; 3) Light; 4) Vibration; and 5) Cleanliness.

Temperature - The most important thing is consistency of temperature. Think about it, heat makes liquids expand, and cold causes them to contract. If your temperature goes up and down, there is a danger of the cork (or any other seal type) failing. This would lead to oxygen entering the bottle, and your wine oxidizing.  There are ideal temperatures to store wine at. Whites are usually stored at lower temps than reds, so your storage range should be somewhere between 45 and 64 degrees. The ideal range is a little tighter: between 50 and 56 degrees (these are obviously fahrenheit). Keep in mind that the higher the temperature, the faster the maturation, and keep the temperature consistent. My cellar has one temperature, so I store my white wines on the lower racks and the reds higher up.

Humidity - with traditional sealing (corks) humidity is very important. Think about it...cork is bark from the cork tree, so the humidity of your storage area will affect the integrity of your seal. If it is dry, the cork could dry out, shrink, and expose your wine to air, and possibly leak wine out of the bottle. Too much humidity can also be a problem, causing mold to develop. Ideally, your humidity should be around 75% to 80%.

Light - have you noticed that most wine bottles are green, or brown? Not too many clear bottles out there. Reason...wine is photosensitive. In other words, it reacts to light. White wines will darken, and red wines will fade. If you save wine labels, the light will also fade your labels. Store your bottles in a dark location.

Vibration - wine is a living organism. Great efforts are made to treat the wine gently during the winemaking process, and the maturing process should be the same. Over time, the wine settles out. Those bottled without filtering will have sediment that needs to settle down. If you are constantly turning, and shaking, you may upset the desired physical changes. I store my bottles, label up, and with wine tags on the neck, so I don't have to pull bottles in and out to determine what is in the rack.

Cleanliness - store a bag of garlic next to your wine, and tell me what happens. How did that garlic smell get into everything? Trust me here, keep your wine in a clean, odor free, well ventilated area.

Besides storing your bottles, the only other thing I would recommend is keeping records of the wines you have stored. There are wine cellaring software programs you can buy, but I just keep all mine on an Excel spreadsheet. I keep track of the name, style of wine, vintage, purchase price, estimated "drink by" dates (based on my estimates, and write-ups in trade magazines) and my tasting notes.

So where do you store you wines?  Is it time to move them to a better location?