How good is "Day 2" and indicator of aging potential?

WINE TALK
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THIS^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

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There’s not often wine left over in our house, but the other day we shared half a bottle of the 2012 Dom. Murinais Crozes-Hermitage VV and put the second half in the fridge. On PnP it was meaty and smoky, quite enjoyable, especially for the price, but then to me seemed to shut down a bit after about an hour. Two days later I took out the remainder to warm up when I got home and we finished it off before some company came over. I found it had regained that meaty smoky flavor and the harshness that had crept in after a while open had faded away. I thought it was best after this little “rest”.

I’d say the few times I’ve done this it was hit-or-miss whether the wines improved at all, but I’ll second the claim that some young-drinking whites are totally fine with 2 or 3 days open in the fridge.

We did a horizontal of some SVD Washington reds last night so there’s 3 half-finished bottles in our fridge right now that we’ll check on with dinner tonight and report back.

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Are you talking refrigerated leftovers, or those at room temperature? I’m not clear.

I loathe oxidative notes, and yet I like a lot of wines on day 2. FYI, sugar is a strong antioxidant and open sweet wines will keep a long time in fridge with relatively little degradation. That explains your Yquem, Rivesaltes and reciotto experiences.

I think that’s critical – some wines are much less likely to benefit from being open a day. In my experience, it’s much likely to the case with higher acid wines (e.g., Northern Rhones, Burgundies, some Bordeaux, nebbiolo, some French gamay, barbera).

Again, it all depends on the wine. A lot of Northern Rhones and Barolo/Barbaresco benefit from decants well over two hours. I’m wary of doing that, but too many times the wines have not opened up with less time. I’ve seen that with a couple of Verset Cornases from the 90s in recent weeks.

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I’m no Parker fan, but I think that’s a bit unfair to say people who like wines he likes “guzzle the entire bottle on Day 1”. That’s a pretty mean generalisation.

John later on makes a similar point, about such wines having lower acidity and thus can more easily lose the fruit vibrancy by day 2. No judgement on the people who drink these wines.

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Yes John, is agree with those two types of wine, plus a few others, but I was trying to make a sweeping generalization across the world of wine (funny how that always seems to get me in trouble! Haha).

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Oh, go on, pass judgement. [snort.gif] [stirthepothal.gif]

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A “day 2” taste IMO tells how resistant a wine is to oxidation. This is one aspect of aging potential, but not the only one.

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Let he who is without Zin cast the first stone neener

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But, show poorly how? The key is looking for indicators, not a direct parallel. Some of that gorgeous stuff that can make a young wine show well goes away forever. Some of what develops into wonderful tertiary character doesn’t really show anything before that. So, you have to look beyond the superficial. Stability gives you an indication of longevity, but not enjoyability. Having lots of “stuff” shows you there’s a lot of stuff in there that could develop into tertiary goodness and complexity, as well as the specific identifiable stuff that will be there all along taking tangible trajectories of transformation. Of course, familiarity with a producer, region/subregion, grape variety and other factors can provide a lot of guidance, with benchmarks to contrast against. Then again, with enough familiarity you probably don’t even need to taste the '13 Chateau Hypothetique to know to bury it for 25 years.

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I generally agree with this, and would add that sometimes it also indicates that a wine actually needs more aging or aeration than it was treated with on the first day.

I drink mainly white and red Burgs and I think it is apt for both of those categories, particularly with Dauvissat Chablis. As I am not trying to preserve the wine for the second day, but to see what happens when it “takes up oxygen”, I make sure to leave it at room temperature, and make no effort to use a closure for anything except to keep insects out.

I was particularly interested in this thread as I recently had an experience with a Daniel (Patrice) Rion 1993 Vosne-Romanee 1er cru “Les Beaux Monts”. Its improvement on day 2 and more on day 3 impressed even me (I do expect most RB to improve on day 2, as in my experience, most show well for a brief time when opened and shortly thereafter close up tight (with varying degrees of tightness), making me believe the wine needed aeration as it showed well only briefly. When a wine shows well at first, I believe it has the stuff to show well with age. When it improves in the days thereafter, I am convinced. It also confirms the need for aging to show its best.

FWIW , my tasting note from on the Rion:

3/17: ok; not bad…good; two days later left in bottle at room temperature thiis was a beauty of reddish fruits (some black); excellent concentration and fruit-coated tannins; fruity finish. What a metamorphosis!

Also, FWIW, I think almost all Barolo/Barbaresco follow this pattern, too. Alsace wines usually stay where they are for days (and days) , but don’t usually improve, as they show well at first.

No expertise on other categories enough to offer opinions.

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I also don’t like the shape of tannin on high acid wine on day two++, but since I don’t like high acid wines I should keep my mouth shut… should but won’t… the shape of the tannin gets rougher for me and the fruit, although maybe being more present just doesn’t have the same freshness and it sits next to the acidity and core, as opposed to swirling with it… if that makes sense.

I think people often mistake oxygen opening up wines with letting weird volitiles blow off of the wine. It’s not like oxygen has much contact with the liquid in the glass, decanter or bottle right out of the gate, there’s a layer of volitiles escaping the liquid. I think large drinking windows after opening is definitely a case of either confirmation bias or correlation without the tiniest bit of causation (ok maybe the tiniest bit of resistance to o2 is necessary). It is more a reflection than the winemaking decisions and the wines inherent ability to resist oxidation, not its ability to age in bottle.

I actually find this to be worst for me with first growths and superseconds in the best vintages, 3-20 yrs old. And these definitely age. Put in the fridge, for me totally makes the wine even less drinkable… makes no sense but to me the chemical o2 chain reaction while slowing down the physical side just makes disjointion worse…

I was once on a boat wakeboarding and was worried the wine would get oxidized from driving around and shaking on a boat, so I beerbonged an entire bottle of a well made petit chateau 2010. Took 8 seconds and was marvelous… ok so maybe that’s an excuse to overindulge but some epic pictures of me exist doing this in a Disney Goofy hat.

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An interesting thread with a lot of thoughtful replies. For me it gives me a preview of that bottling oak regimen. A couple examples, a sl toast top note on a cab or syrah 24 hours later can turn into a charred oak note that is very unappealing. In pinot noir a tertiary vanilla or vanillin note can turn into model clay or “play doh” note that is the opposite of what I look for in pinot.

This doesn’t happen with every bottle, these are just examples but I do find they often occur on “day 2”.

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There are so many exceptions on both sides that I don’t understand why anyone would think a wine’s showing on day 2 really tells us anything about how it will age. You’re basically saying that in some cases wines you know to be very ageworthy show very well on day 2. Why would you call that anything other than coincidence? You can come up with some interesting scenarios you’ve seen, but there are so many others that defy the “rule”. Plus, it isn’t as if any of us can reasonably test the theory.

Tired. Somewhat oxidized. I really can’t follow rest of your post, except the last line, which is absolutely true. Track record is the best indicator.

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From a chemistry perspective (is there another?), I don’t think an open bottle tells you a lot about how a wine will age (though from practical experience, opening the bottle and tasting the wine will tell you a lot, in terms of its ripeness, acidity, structure, etc.).

There’s only one thing that happens when the bottle is open: the wine is exposed to oxygen (doh), which is what everyone thinks is the main “actor” in aging wine. I think this is wrong, here’s why:

  1. Andrew Waterhouse, wine chemist at UC Davis wrote this about the notion of oxygen changing a wine: “You can saturate a wine with oxygen by sloshing it into a decanter, but then the oxygen just sits there,” he said. “It reacts very slowly. To change the tannins perceptibly in an hour, you would have to hit the wine with pure oxygen, high pressure and temperature, and powdered iron with a huge catalytic surface area.”

  2. Oxygen is not the main driver of aging in the bottle. At least not good aging. Why do I say this? What does everyone look for in an aged bottle? A good cork, and low ullage. We want low oxygen transmission through the cork, and as high a fill as possible. Can there be nicely aged bottles with low fill? Sure, we hear those anecdotes all the time, but as a general rule a good cork and high fill are indicators of the best chance for a good aged bottle. That means oxygen isn’t the main component of aging, it’s other slow reactions that take place, which don’t require oxygen. So those chemical reactions which do take place in an open bottle aren’t particularly indicative of the real reactions going on for years in a well sealed bottle.

  3. Wines aged with lots of exposure to oxygen have characteristics very different from a typical well aged wine: there are obviously some wine types which rely on higher exposure to oxygen to create their “aged” profile. Notably tawny ports. Which is also the character of non-fortified wines that age with poor corks and are exposed to higher levels of air than desirable - that sweet, caramelized note you dread when opening an old bottle.

As others have said above, being able to withstand air for a day or two is probably a good sign that there is sufficient tolerance in a young wine to the O2 that leaks in through the cork over years, but IMO it is not much of an indicator for how the unopened bottle will develop over many years.

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I routinely retaste on Day 2 or 3 (Wayfarer, Shared Notes, Cattleya and Argot open on my desk now from Saturday). It is a good method to see how a wine develops. Sometimes you can take it to extremes… Press - articles, wine reviews | Wayfarer - Sonoma Coast, CA. According to Morgan Twain-Peterson, during an interview/tasting with me, he remarked that “the longer a wine can stay open (without ‘falling over’), the more likely it is to have a longer life.” Certainly there are exceptions but I like the concept of repeatedly tasting 'forcing a wine to ultimately disappoint."The great ones don’t.

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Not that good at as an indicator, but I’ll give you a tip on one that is. Hold the bottle up, take a good look at the neck of the bottle. On the top of the neck will be a seal. If it is sealed with a screwcap then it will age for quite a long time.

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really good post worth reading twice.

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Alan put in to words what my streams of consciousness were trying but failed miserably (with some gross overgeneralizations) to explain… darn well put!

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Thanks for this Alan

IRO oxygen, the screwcap industry adapted to allow specific levels of oxygen ingress - any feelings whether this was a mistake, or whether there are chemical reactions that do require minimal oxygen to get the ageing we have become used to in a cork sealed wine (specifically one where the cork is sound and does an effective job)

regards
Ian

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No expert here, just studied technical chemistry way back and applying some common sense. It can be very difficult to simulate chemical reactions which normally take years to happen over a short time.

  • Polymerization
    You will not be able to build any longer chain molecules unless you utilize catalysts and provide all other necessary conditions.

  • Oxidation
    Some compounds will readily react with any oxygen offered. But this short time reactions already happened during the filling and short term storage of the wine. There is enough oxygen in a bottle (dissolved and gaseous) to complete these reactions. Any slower oxidative reactions will take time (or cat + cond).

So its really only the changes you make happen by adding a lot of mechanical force (agitation by emptying the bottle content into a decanter) and introducing an abundance of additional oxygen. You also allow any volatile compounds to be released. Depending on the temperature this can happen slowly or rather quickly.

So for me its a bust. Just doesn’t make sense. However I am not hundred percent convinced and still continue my tastings. Cheers.