I lifted that quote from another thread, as I felt it may merit its own discussion. “Immediate consumption” wasn’t defined in that thread, but let’s say “immediate consumption” is “within one year of release.”
Honestly, I can’t think of any wines that fit this criteria, unless you count Tawny Ports and En Rama sherries, and both of them have “exception” written all over them.
I’ve always felt that “truly amazing” can come only from aged wine that displays at least some tertiary characteristics. This is a personal preference thing, nothing more. So, I’m curious to hear from folks on both sides of this fence: Are there “truly amazing” wines that are best consumed within the first year after it is released?
One category of such wines are lighter bodied reds that have wonderful complex aromatics that will fade away. They’re on full display, with excellent interplay with the other components of the wine.
Recent good examples I’ve had have been from varieties such as Trousseau (from Ribeira Sacra, btw), Alvarelhao, Mencia, Nerello Mascalese, Lacrima di Morro and Frappato. I’ve had a lot of duds from the same varieties and regions. I think the winemaking is crucial to retain the freshness and the volatile aromatic compounds. One Nerello I revisited after 6 months had lost all of its wonderful aromatics. None of the more mature bottlings I’ve had of Nerello M. had any of what I’ve gotten in some young ones.
I’ve experienced all sorts of interesting primary characteristics at press that rarely (or never?) make it to bottle, or just a hint of what was is retained. Others do make it, but fade away after a year. The same techniques you would use to retain this stuff run counter to what you would want to do to deal with many common features of a wine.
Similarly, I’ve had a few impressive wines done with carbonic maceration from varieties such as Pinot Noir, Carignane and Listan Prieto. My general thought on these is that the extra compounds produced and retained by the technique are a sort of crutch to make up for what some other varieties naturally have.
I have to say that while no longer in my wheel-house…Clio is at it’s best in it’s immediate youth in my thought. I think many of the wines I’ve tasted from the Jumilla are at their best if you can open them as soon as you can.
Most of your overripe, high alcoholic, yammy wines. Of course there are rare exceptions but most of what people were buying back in the 2000’s fall into this category, especially lots of stuff from California. They may have gotten good scores when young but as people are finding out now they didn’t age for s**t.
Tons of Provence, Corsican and so on Rosé. There are some truly great wines in this category that I firmly believe are uniformly best in their youth. As an exam I am a fan of the Dujac project Triennes. I am not sure it is great but it is extremely good and beyond fairly priced. I buy quite a lot each vintage and plow through it. There is a restaurant that I frequent that has it on the list and I buy it off there as well. They have the 2012 on there and as of late it has turned to the south. The fruit lacks freshness and secondary flavors have crept in making it no longer drinkable in my book. But for the past years it has been delicious.
One that jumps out is Rosé. And don’t laugh, there are a few (maybe very few) Rosés that can be truly amazing. Tempier is the one that sometimes qualifies (2007 was a truly amazing wine, for example). But that amazingness is there only when young. With any age, it settles back into just a very nice Rosé.
There are some wines that will eventually be better with age, but can be fantastically flavorful and explosive at an early stage. Some Rieslings fit that bill, I’ve had some Syrahs like that as well.
Tempier Rose’ comes to mind as well. I also had a co-op made red Vino Verde in Portugal that was amazing. It was probably only months old, but I’ll never have it again. One of those one offs you stumble across while traveling.
And you’ve had non-exception examples of each that you would consider “truly amazing”? If “yes,” which ones? The Albarino nomination, in particular, surprises me.