Fans of the early 2000s BBC comedy series Black Books will be familiar with Bernard Black's slurred wisdom "the older the wine is, the gooder it is". But is that always true? In short, no. Most wine is made for youthful consumption, but if you choose wisely and have a bit of patience, you'll be rewarded with some nectar of the gods.
So what happens to wine as it ages? With both red and white wine, the "primary fruit" will fade. These are the characters of berries, cherries, plums, citrus, apples and so on. As that primary fruit backs away, tertiary flavours will develop. These are the flavours caused by bottle age. In red wine, these are mushroom, leather, earthy characters (sometimes called "forest floor"), gamey notes and more. In white wine, you can expect honey, caramel, orange marmalade, dried fruits and almond characters to shine.
There is no perfect amount of time to age wine. The key is to find the right balance between the fading primary flavours and the developing tertiary flavours. Some people really enjoy heavily developed tertiary characteristics and should age their wine longer. Others enjoy a little more primary fruit and should drink their wine earlier. It's entirely up to you! I would, however, advise drinking your wine before the primary fruit has completely dissipated though, lest you have a penchant for leathery, fruitless alcohol.
So how do you know if a wine is ageable? Here are a few pointers to help you understand.
1. The wine has a history of ageability.
This might seem a bit obvious, but it's a great place to start. Some wines are built for the cellar and they have a long pedigree of proven ageability. In Australia, check out Mount Mary's Quintet, Clonakilla's Shiraz Viognier or Standish's 'The Standish' Barossa Shiraz. Even in bad vintages, these wines will go a long way. While the big grapes of South Australia are more commonly aged, some premium Australian Pinot Noir will last a long time in the cellar. Check out Bindi's Block 5 or Block 8 from the Macedon Ranges, or on the Peninsula try anything from Hurley Vineyards or the Main Ridge 'Half Acre' or 'Acre' Pinots.
2. Intensity of fruit.
This is the most intuitive. If you're lucky, you've had an intoxicating waft of an intensely aromatic or fruity wine. This takes us back to the pre-list preamble in this post - an abundance of primary flavour characteristics (short version: fruit and flowers) means there is more to lose. More to lose means it takes longer to lose it. Longer to lose it means the wine will live longer!
3. The wine is "structured".
You might have heard that it is actually your nose that does all the heavy lifting when it comes to what you can taste. That's true. Fruit and floral aromas are detected largely through your nose. So what does your tongue do? It picks up the "structural" elements of wine: acid, tannin, sugar, texture.
3a. Acid!
Acid, tannin and sugar are great predictors of ageworthiness. Premium examples of high-acid grapes such as Cabernet Sauvignon, Sangiovese and Nebbiolo are excellent examples of extremely long-lived wines. These tend to be quite high tannin wines as well.
3b. Tannin!
Tannin is that sometimes bitter, astringent texture in wine. It's the compound that gives over-steeped tea its bitterness, or causes that strange dry tang in cranberry juice. Tannin acts as an antioxidant, slowing down the aging process, giving other phenolic compounds to settle and coalesce into a well-rounded wine. (A note for the science nerds - this is quite the oversimplification! There are many factors that slow down the aging process and this is but one in a complex web of influences.)
3c. Sugar!
High-sugar wines can help kill off microbes (for the science nerds out there, sugar increases the osmotic pressure of the wine). This gives the wine little in the way of bugs to spoil it. The world's best sweet wines are also some of the longest lived - bottles of Chateau d'Yquem in good years have been said to be still drinkable after an astonishing 100 years!
4. Large format bottles.
Magnums, jeroboams, whatever you can get your hands on. Without getting too mathematical, these bottles have a higher volume-to-surface-area ratio, meaning there is less oxygen exposure to a higher volume of wine, which slows the aging process which again allows the wine time to set in.
A few tips to get you started:
For best results, temperature should be constant at around 15°C (a little higher or lower is fine, but wine will age faster when higher and slower when lower). If you're aging wines with corks in them, keep the bottles on their side and maintain around 60-70% humidity in your wine fridge or cellar (there is a lot of wiggle room here so don't worry too much). This will prevent the corks from drying out. It's not so important for screw cap wines.
For academic purposes, grab yourself a couple of cheaper bottles of wine that are not typically made for aging, then put them away for years. Maybe you'll discover something amazing? You probably won't though. You will, however, gain a pretty solid understanding of what happens when wine is too old.
For some short-term cellaring (3-5 years), grab yourself some mid-tier wine from any quality Australian producer. These wines typically run around $50 a bottle and will give you some quicker results.
If you're after something to age for an extremely long time (10+ years), the field narrows. For heavy reds, look for top bottlings from producers in South Australia's Barossa Valley, France's Rhône Valley (sub-regions include Côte Rôtie, Cornas and Châteauneuf du Pape) or in Italy the Nebbiolos of Barolo and Barbaresco in Piedmont or the Sangiovese of Brunello di Montalcino in Tuscany will only just be coming into their drinking window after a decade.
For lighter reds, look towards top bottlings of Australian Pinot Noir (especially from the Mornington Peninsula and Tasmania), carefully chosen Red Burgundy and of course New Zealand's Pinot powerhouse, Central Otago.
Don't forget white wines can age too. German rieslings come in a wide variety of styles. If you like it dry, look for "GG" or Grosses Gewächs, but don't be afraid of the off-dry or medium sweet wines of Germany too. Look for high-quality bottlings of Riesling with 'Auslese' on the label.
One final note, it would be rude not to mention vintage champagne. No varied cellar is complete without a few bottles of top bottlings from the big houses or some of the best grower-producers, but that probably deserves a future blog post of its own.
Of course, if you have any questions, don't hesitate to get in touch with us at the store. We'll be happy to help you plan your cellar no matter your budget or preference of style.
Happy drinking!
- Tim
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