I thought it would be cool if on their 21st birthday our kids got a bottle of wine (or perhaps champagne?) that was from the year they were born. Since the oldest is about to turn 3 it would be pretty cheap and easy to buy them now. The question is how difficult will it be to keep them so they are still good 18 and 20 1/2 years from now, versus would it just be easier to buy two decades old wine?
Would two bottles of wine from a local grocery store be fine in the crawl space for 20 years, or would I need better (aka more expensive) wine or a better method of keeping them?
Generally speaking, it is mainly red wines that improve with age and it is only some of those. Whites and Champagne do not usually age well although there are some exceptions. They will be still be drinkable for a long time if stored properly but there is no point to aging them yourself on purpose. The wines that are most commonly aged are Rhone reds, Bordeaux, and Burgundy. Some really expensive white Chardonnays age well as do some dessert wines.
The best way to age wine is to put it in a place where the temperature is as stable as possible and cool (about 55F). That can be achieved in some places by placing it on its side in the cellar if you have one. Otherwise, it takes equipment and may not be worth it to you unless you know someone with a wine cellar that will hold it for you.
Temperature variation is the biggest concern. While the ideal situation is a constant temperature of around 55 degrees fahrenheit and enough humidity to keep the corks from drying out, that isn’t as essential as some make it seem. Remember that people stored wine in true passive cellars for centuries before we got the current wine cellar technology. If your crawl space never gets too hot or too cold (certainly you don’t want it to freeze ever), and if the temperature changes are very gradual, it should be fine.
If you do want better climate control, the problem is that none of the options are really cost effective for half a dozen bottles of wine. In most cities there are off site storage facilities where you can rent lockers or rooms in a carefully climate-controlled building. At most places I’ve seen, the smallest locker is around 9 cases. If you’re going to build a small collection, that’s a decent option. You can also get a small wine cabinet, but the cheaper ones aren’t really designed for long term storage and might do more harm than good. Here are some options.
Also, when you buy wines, make sure you’re buying something that will age well. Not all wines qualify.
Buying something old down the road is possible, but the problem there often tends to be that you don’t know how it was stored, etc. Winebid.com has a lot of older stuff, and you can take a look there to get an idea of what’s available. I’ve bought quite a few older wines from them, and it’s pretty hit and miss.
Go old-school and lay down some vintage port from the years of their births. A pipe or two should be sufficient. Best to let the merchant you bought it from store it for you as well. They will have the right cellaring.
I just want to reiterated what FoundWaldo said - the vast majority of wine is not meant to be aged. If you just randomly pick a couple bottles from the grocery store, chances are in 20 years, you’ll have a couple bottles of undrinkable swill.
That said, if you take the time to go to a real wine store and ask for some bottles that will do well with aging, they should be able to help you. But do go to a decent store - one that regularly deals with aged wines would be my choice. There are lots of wine shops that don’t, so do a little research and find one that does.
Also, wines at the grocery store already have typically not been stored or transported very carefully. It (usually) doesn’t matter a whole lot if you’re drinking it soon, but if you plan to store it for decades, it can make a difference. If you’re going to go to the trouble of keeping wine around for a long time, it’s worth putting in a little more effort and money to make sure the end result is good.
BTW, lots of Champagne ages very nicely, but it doesn’t tend to be the grocery store stuff. As Athena said, the people at a high quality wine shop can guide you to the right things.
I personally wouldn’t have the shop store it for me unless they are in the business of storing wine for customers. They may actually not have the right environment for long term storage if they turn their inventory over a lot, and I’d worry about it getting lost in the shuffle if it’s not part of their normal course of doing business. Besides, who’s to say that your corner wine shop is going to still be around in 20 years? At least with a professional storage facility, when they go under they typically go through the effort of making sure that the clients get their stuff (though I have heard of exceptions). If it’s one or two random bottles for an individual client in a retail store, it’s much more likely you’d never see it again.
Those are gonna be some lucky kids, if they have a pipe or two of the recent port vintages available. [You know a pipe is roughly 48 cases, no?:dubious:] However, regardless of the quantity, practically no merchant is going to be willing to store anything for 20+ years. Most of us won’t keep anything for you longer than the first safe shipping season without storage fees, and after a year or so, the wine would be released for sale to others, and you’ll be refunded the purchase price less the accrued storage fees. There are certainly wine storage facilities in many of the major US cities, but they don’t usually have any affiliation with the retail side of the business.
That being said, vintage port is a good suggestion. 2009 and 2011 were both good vintages, and will be readily available. 2009 was just released this fall, and 2011’s will be around in a couple more years. Both should be hitting their stride right around the time Gedd’s kids turn 21. The good part is that older vintage ports are pretty readily available. If you wanted to drink a 1963 tonight, you could go buy one in just about any big city in America. No need to put it down yourself. I wouldn’t worry too much about putting things away now, they’ll still be there several years down the road, and unless you have the capability to store them properly yourself, your net cost won’t be outrageously different.
One of the things that drew me to our house was the hand-built stone cave under the oldest portion of the house.
It stays around 58 degrees year-round, maybe I should consider renting a portion of it out? silenus, if you have a “pipe or two” of vintage port you need safely kept, I’m sure we could arrange something!
Good point, WCStyles. Looking on-line at just one siteI can get anything from a 1990 Chianti for $15 to a 1990 Méo-Camuzet Richebourg for $1,880.76. (Sorry kids, don’t love you that much.) What I’m hearing from you is that I can plan on most places having some '09 and '11 with them as long as I’m willing to spend a few extra bucks for the big 2-1.
Also my knowledge of alcoholic beverages isn’t the best; does “port” always mean wine from that specific spot in Portugal or is it also a more general term for fortified wine?
Yup. This is very recent, but the Portuguese asserted their right to the name, and now Port only comes from Portugal. So bottles for fortified wines you see in shops are in the process of cutting over their names. You may still see some non-Portuguese fortified wines labelled as Port on the shelves, but no product bottled in the last few years.
You will see the generic “Tawny”, “Fortified” and a range of newer descriptive names, but not Port. Muscat is considered a variety of grape, and thus not protected. Same with Shiraz, so you will see them on bottles that have nothing to do with those places.
For the OP, I would second the idea of laying down a few fortifieds. Down here in Oz, I know quite a few people who have done this. (Then again I live close to a number of the major wine growing regions, and we make a lot of very high quality fortifieds with cellar door sales a pleasant afternoon drive away.) There will always be something special about having cellared it yourself. That the kids grew up with it under their feet makes it doubly so. Also the price difference is not small. A good fortified that has been cellared for 20 years commands a significant premium. You could also consider a red, but as has been noted earlier, you must select one that is suitable. In general most wines are built for immediate drinking now. Even wines that say they can be laid down for some time are mostly going to be drunk soon, and the makers know this. A wine that has the legs to go 20 years is not going to be good drinking young, and you should take advice as to good one to select. What it won’t be is all that cheap. Not stupid money either, but not corner store prices for quaffing wine.
Another one to consider would be some of the desert style whites, a Botrytis affected Rheisling, some other sticky whites, these can become amazing beyond belief with age. Again, you need advice. A nice selection, a dozen reds, a dozen fortifieds, some sticky whites. There could be wine for a number of fabulous meals at reaching age. That would be pretty good.
In the US, at least, the “semi-generic” name “Port” is still permitted if the labeling hasn’t changed since 2006. Here’s the cite from the TTB. If any change were made that would require a new certificate of label approval, then the semi-generic would no longer be permitted.
I know the Australian stickies I sell don’t include the word “port” in their names, but the bottom-shelf gallon-jug New York versions sure do. Regardless of the nomenclature, Australia is an overlooked gem for port-style wines that can compete with the originals for a fraction of the cost. Tawnies mostly; we don’t see a lot of ruby or vintage-type Aussies here.
Sorry for hijacking the thread into a discussion of wine-label politics. I stand by my advice to buy some ports IF you have a way to store them properly, or just wait and buy 'em later if you don’t. They’ll still be there, and they’ll still be affordable (barring any total American economic collapse or sudden insane demand for vintage port). I’ll also add that your kids are lucky. Some of us have birth years that were pretty universally miserable for wines that would last longer than five or ten years. Only wine I’ve ever had from my birth year was a good 20 years past its prime, and its prime clearly hadn’t been all that prime.