Aging wine. . .sans mumbo jumbo.

Factual Questions
1

I’m somewhat unsatisfied with what the searches have turned up on “aging wine”.

What’s the REAL straight dope on aging wine?

Yes, I understand that people believe that the tannins mellow, the acidity decreases and hence the wine becomes “more balanced”, etc, but if that’s true, then something is chemically happening to the wine as it ages.

Besides, I’m always skeptical of claims made about wine unless I see a blind taste test, and obviously, that’s impossible when you’re talking about comparing an aged wine against it’s younger self.

So, what is it? HOW EXACTLY does that 1980 vintage change between 1980 and 1995.

Certainly with all the science applied to wine making, someone has this nailed down.

this is a previous thread. The most imformed answers still sound like this:

or

So, if that’s the real science, what’s that mean. . .that “those tannins over time will join together along with other chemicals and settle out of the wine” or is that just more wine marketing speak?

2

and while you are at it, does aging really happen in a bottle or just in the cask before bottling? Does storing a bottle of wine for any length of time make any sense or are they at their prime when bottled and it is all downhill from there?

3

To start with the later questions:

Aging happens both in the barrel and in the bottle with wine, unlike distilled spirits. 95% of the wines sold in the world are ready for consumption when they are sold. They will show little if any noticable improvement if stored. The remaining 5% however need aging to develop their true potential. This can range from a few months to a few decades.

Trunk, this isn’t just something “some people believe.” It’s self-evident to anybody who possess a set of functioning tastebuds. Find a local wineshop that is doing a vertical tasting and see for yourself. You can taste a wine at 5, 10, and 15 years of aging, for example, and see what happens to it. If psycat90 happens by, she can give you all the chemistry. But it is true, and you can taste it yourself for proof.

4

[QUOTE=silenus]
Trunk, this isn’t just something “some people believe.” It’s self-evident to anybody who possess a set of functioning tastebuds. Find a local wineshop that is doing a vertical tasting and see for yourself. You can taste a wine at 5, 10, and 15 years of aging, for example, and see what happens to it. If psycat90 happens by, she can give you all the chemistry. But it is true, and you can taste it yourself for proof.
[/QUOTE]

Is it true because you put “is” in italics?

Yeah, I’ve tasted young wines and I’ve tasted aged wine.

Guess what. . .I age wine myself. And, I even compare my notes from one year to the next on the same vintages. But, that doesn’t mean I trust myself. I know what I’m drinking, and I know what is supposed to happen to it, just like you do, and just like every wine critic out there.

Unless you can taste a 5 year old and a 10 year old of the exact same wine, side by side, you’re just a guy saying, “wow, the tannins in this 10 year old wine have mellowed.”

That’s why I’m asking about the science behind it.

You can measure acidity levels, residual sugar, etc.

Everyone knows that you don’t let your bottles experience vibrations, light, temperature changes, right? Fine. Where are the studies? Where is the guy who put the measuring equipment in a bottle of wine in 1980, stored bottles in optimum conditions, stored bottles in poor conditions, and retested the wines in 1990?

5

[QUOTE=Trunk]
Unless you can taste a 5 year old and a 10 year old of the exact same wine, side by side, you’re just a guy saying, “wow, the tannins in this 10 year old wine have mellowed.”
[/QUOTE]

That’s what vertical tastings are all about. You can do this any time.

Well, he probably works here. :smiley:

I’m at work, so I can’t access all the wine sites out there. But the chemistry is understood by winemakers, and has been for quite a while.

6

[QUOTE=silenus]
To start with the later questions:

Aging happens both in the barrel and in the bottle with wine, unlike distilled spirits. 95% of the wines sold in the world are ready for consumption when they are sold. They will show little if any noticable improvement if stored. The remaining 5% however need aging to develop their true potential. This can range from a few months to a few decades.

[/QUOTE]

are these 5% the ones I cannot afford or does it happen accross the whole range and you just have to know which is which?

7

Aging only works for the good of the taste for a time. They will go bad at some point.

8

[QUOTE=silenus]
That’s what vertical tastings are all about. You can do this any time.

[/QUOTE]
Vertical tastings are to compare one vintage against another.

As you know, it’s a comparison of WAY MORE than just the effects of aging, unless you don’t think that year to year variations in weather, soil, etc have any effect on wine.

9

This is why you cultivate a good relationship with a wine shop instead of buying all your wine at Costco. They can point you to the wines that will improve with age. Or get a subscription to Wine Spectator or Wine Enthusiast and start reading. As a very general rule, cheaper wines (<$20)don’t need aging. Two-Buck Chuck is ready to drink when you buy it. After that it becomes a crap shoot as to how long something will age for the better. Eventually all wines will go bad. But there are some out there that were bottled 200 years ago that are still magnificent.

10

[QUOTE=Trunk]
Vertical tastings are to compare one vintage against another.

As you know, it’s a comparison of WAY MORE than just the effects of aging, unless you don’t think that year to year variations in weather, soil, etc have any effect on wine.
[/QUOTE]

Ya, but without a time machine, it’s the closest you are going to get to being able to do what you want. Unless you do what we do with holiday bottlings of beers, and buy a case and have one each year, noting your opinions for comparison to the next year. Which, come to think of it, is what people at wineries have been doing for thousands of years.

11

I don’t believe anything about wine unless I see a blind taste test either. I don’t care how objective you think you’re being, taste is a very subjective thing. It’s very easy to “notice” a difference if you want it to be true.

Here’s a link to a scientific study on wine tasting (pdf): http://www.academie-amorim.com/us/laureat_2001/brochet.pdf

Here are a couple interesting articles that refer to that study:
http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:M76WX51vl0wJ:www.seattleweekly.com/news/0208/news-downey.php+"wine+snob"&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=14
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/moneymag/moneymag_archive/2006/01/01/8365231/index.htm

And some choice findings:

Wine experts use different language to describe the same wine colored differently:

“Reserve” wines not actually much better:

12

Very few people will want to admit that the $300 bottle of claret they laid down 10 yrs ago hasn’t changed for the better when it’s finally opened.

A quick google suggests an emerging consensus among wine professionals that there’s little point in laying down wine if taste is your criterion.

Wine increases in value with age due to its rarity, rather than an improvement in taste, and the overwhelming majority of wines these days are created to be drunk within a year or so of bottling.

This is just another case of subject-expectancy - you want the wine to taste better, you’ve be told the wine will taste better… and bugger me, if it doesn’t indeed taste better!

Double-blinded taste tests would be one way to solve it, but then my interpretation of “better” wine might not fit with yours… so even if you could agree that a wine has changed chemically in the bottle, that’s still no guarantee that it’ll be “nicer” to your particular palette.

13

sorry I can’t find the link. It was on the NYT a short while ago. There was an article about people’s reactions to wine with added vinegar. They were actually doing some kind of brain scan to see the action of pleasure centers. When people were told beforehand that they were getting the wine with vinegar (true or not), there was always a negative response prior to the tasting. When they were told the were getting just wine or simply were not told what they were getting, they waited for the tongue to tell them what was going on (and miss like all get out in guessing what they got)

If someone could please provide a link to this study, I would really like to revise the details of the test (which I think are very pertinent to this discussion). I can’t remember much about it (as I am not much of a wino, anyways)

14

This made me think of an interesting question . . . what’s the OLDEST wine your average consumer can buy?

15

Blind tastings can be fun. I once ran one on our beer club where they got Olde English 800, St. Ives, and other rot-gut malt liquors served to them as “homebrews.” Rave reviews from all of the tasters. :smiley:

Roboto, it depends on where you live and what your definition of “average” is. I know of several wine shops in SoCal where I can buy 100 year old wine. Out of my price and tastebud range, but I can buy them if I want.

16

[QUOTE=silenus]

Roboto, it depends on where you live and what your definition of “average” is. I know of several wine shops in SoCal where I can buy 100 year old wine. Out of my price and tastebud range, but I can buy them if I want.
[/QUOTE]

Out of curiosity, what is the type/age/price of some of these wines? I would love the novelty of drinking a 100 year old wine (assuming it was not vinegar). Even if it tasted bad, I still want to try it. I looked online to find some old wines, but couldn’t really find any. Perhaps that is the type of thing you’d need to get from a brick and mortar store.

17

[QUOTE=Harmonious Discord]
Aging only works for the good of the taste for a time. They will go bad at some point.
[/QUOTE]

Exactly. And different wines age better than others. Most Zins should to be drunk within a few years, while good Cabs can last (and sometimes get better) for decades.

18

Just for the record, I consider this question 99% unanswered at this point, with multiple hijacks alive and well.

e-logic was speaking to the point I am trying to see refuted, but have yet to see except with more subjective arguments (and in case anyone was confused, Brits call “claret” what Americans call “Bordeaux”).

19

Oxidation, sedimentation, evaporation, and fermentation are what happens to wine. Each is both good and bad, each happens faster in the barrel, and faster with a permeable cork stopper, rather than a plastic stopper, or screw top. Measurment happens a lot, at mass distributers, since they want consistant products. Vague taste measurments take place where individual variations are more prised. You get what you look for.

I had a half case of 1976 Chateau Laffite Rothschild claret. It is considered the vintage of the century by many. When it was 8 years old, I opened one up, and put it into a blind taste test against three other wines. One was a Romanian about two years old, one a California of ten years and one a Gallo of the current year.

Ten tasters, of only two sips, and a swallow each. No labels, separate tables, nice wine glasses, “breathing, and pouring” done by an actual professional wine server.

No one picked the Laffite Rothschild as a favorite. Two identified it as “probably expensive.” My close friends really liked the Gallo. The two wine “professionals” were quite confident that the Romanian was the best wine among the samples. I liked it better too. Even with the unbelievable deal on the wine, the Laffite Rothschild was three times as expensive as the California, and twenty times as expensive as the Romanian. I don’t remember what the Gallo cost me, but more than the Romanian.

This experience convinced me that with wine, your own tastes are the only ones that matter. If you like the Gallo better, buy Gallo.

Tris

“The difference between a violin and a viola is that a viola burns longer.” ~ Victor Borge

20

If you bottle you own wine, try a glass on the day you bottle it - pretty nasty; a year later, try it again - not bad at all. Something defininitely happens to the wine in that year. You might not notice any further improvement over the next year or two, and after a while it will start to get worse instead of better.