the elephant in the room...old wine at a tasting

i have to think that every time i see notes from a multi-wine tasting, it is almost always the oldest wine that steals the show.
20 wines with treasures from the 80’s and 90’s and some truly astronomically professionally rated wines (drc, rousseau, insert whatever)
and yet some unheard of wine from the 1920’s bests them all, and by a wide margin.
so i ask, is it the surprise that a wine that should long be dead actually still breathes, or are these wines really giving oscar worthy performances related to the others in the tasting?
if it’s been asked a thousand times before, i missed it, and apologies [cheers.gif]

If it’s blind tasting, it’s real. If not, it’s social signalling.

Several years ago I served a '66 & '82 Bordeaux blind side by side…the '66 mopped the floor with the '82. It was younger, fresher, and just more complex.

I thought this stopped when Rodenstock stopped doing events.

I’ve had modest older wines at their peak show better than maturing wines that will ultimately show better when they reach their peak. Not too big a surprise. I also see people down-rate those same wines, contrary to their own preferences, because they want to like those younger, greater wines more. And, plenty of well drinking mature wines get rated in the 90-91 zone, despite modest tertiary dimensions, due to preference or familiarity. At least in my circles, where plenty of mature wines are opened, past their peak, but still good wines tend to rate in the mid to high 80s.

Unheard of old bottles that don’t show well tend to be quickly forgotten. They may not even get widely tried. The ones that show well are remembered. People bias their memories that way. Novelty can be a factor, too, when people aren’t used to older wines.

Why are these bottles “unheard of”? Wines that old are often from producers that went out of business long ago for various reasons…or, just changed in quality. So, maybe they were well known in the distant past. Maybe a small producer that never got wide acclaim, yet still marked high quality. Maybe an exceptional vintage from an otherwise so-so producer. Perhaps the collector(s) who aged the wine so long knew something…

+1 +1 +1

And there’s an enormously subjective element. I was served a '61 Ch. Talbot a month ago, blindly. It was remarkably fresh but didn’t show any distinct Medoc character. Others loved it even before it was unveiled. Me, not so much.

As Anton said, most of the notes on these events were taken in non-blind settings. And typically the very old wines were served well into a long evening of wine. Draw your own conclusions.

Yes, old wines can be great, and distinctive. But very often they aren’t.

To me that should have been the tipoff with Rodenstock and Rudy: there was never a bad bottle at their drinkathons. All their ancient bottles were astoundingly vibrant. Just doesn’t happen like that (even allowing for the fact that they might have opened and set aside off bottles).

It it’s too good to be true, it probably is.

I read the book about Broadbent / TJ Haut Brions / Rodenstock and apparently one condition of those events was that participants could NOT use dump buckets / spittoons. It was under the guise of ‘these wines are too great to waste’ but since Rodenstock was secretly selling sampled wines he didn’t want them to be tasted unimpaired.

Part of it is the ‘Instagram effect’. People mostly write up things that are positive (just as they post their ‘best’ pix on Instagram). If an older wine bombed, many times it is simply left out as DOA.

Agree with Anton and John. That’s why I think the Audouze dinners are fun reads, but not as divine as one might think.

A perfectly mature wine usually wins over a wine of the same quality but too young.
Simple. Maturity is a fine thing.

However, if one rates the objective quality only any rating should depend on this quality, and not on age or maturity.
However this is not always the case.

I love both of your posts in general, and I agree that this happens sometimes.

But sometimes the old bottle is just great, even if you can see the label. Sometimes not, there are plenty of not-great old bottles too. But I think the percentages are often swayed by the fact that most wines people cellar for a number of years are from houses, regions, and vineyards that have built a track record of aging well enough to risk holding onto the wines for an extended period. They definitely get a boost from social signaling as well, but I think often the wine doesn’t need the boost.

Old, is that before Carter or before Nixon?

Just one piece of anecdotal evidence: I posted a while ago on a 1961 Nervi Gattinara. It was very good wine, but far from the wine of the evening. It wasn’t done blind, but it wasn’t a wine geek evening. Five bottles for six people (which is actually a lot). Just friends. I had it 3rd best out of 5 wines. No stealing of show, but a real pleasure and two of the people, who aren’t regular wine drinkers, were properly amazed that something 57 years old could be that enjoyable.

Dan Kravitz

i think this the response that most resonates with me, thanks

If Francois Audouze is involved in the tasting, it’s before Marie Antoinette.

I’m going to channel my inner Craig Gleason here. If there’s an elephant in the room…make sure you’re not the one wearing tusks. :slight_smile:

I do think there is a predisposition to want to like the older/oldest wine because we know/think it’s rarer and thus a privilege to be in the same room with it. I try not to let that affect me too much when doing a tasting, but it may. That said, when Francois served my dad and I a 1929 Corton Clos du Roi, it remains one of the most memorable wine experiences of my entire life. That then-83 year old wine held up as the wine of the entire trip, and that included a week in Burgundy and a heck of a lot of fine wine there and elsewhere. And still…that’s my own mileage. This could be the ultimate YMMV. As a counter, at a communal 50th b-day tasting in Atlanta last October, we had about a dozen 1968 wines and even the best of them wasn’t close to a top wine on the overall night when other stuff came out to play.

Kwa Heri,

Mike

Most wines don’t age forever or even that long. Most really old wines are dead or barely have a pulse. The few that are alive and kicking had to be great to begin with in order to live that long. Thus, if you are tasting an old wine and it is alive, almost by definition it is going to be a great wine.

Having tasted many older wines, I have a slightly different theory. Younger wines haven’t developed many of the secondary or tertiary characteristics in their lifecycle. You taste the young wines, and your palate adapts to the power and the primary flavors of the wine. When you taste an older wine in this company, you are better able to really grasp the refinement and the complexity of the wine. Obviously this is not true of all older wines, but certainly those which were kept to age are more likely to have the aging potential and therefore the lifespan to create this experience.

Had a 1964 Jean Gros Richebourg last night that was really outstanding along side 2011 Ann Gros and 2010 DRC Richebourg. In hung in with the younger wines but in it’s own old way.

Interesting topic and replies. A couple of thoughts here…

I went a little overboard on old Barolo and Rioja back when there were still relative bargains to be had so I have some experience with both. I’ve found that the hit rate on individual bottles can be very low but when you get a good bottle they can be brilliant. This variability increases as a function of age. When I bring a really old bottle, I will generally open it ahead of time and make sure the wine is at least drinkable so I’m not wasting everyone’s time. If the wine is completely oxidized or spoiled it is apparent immediately and I will open another bottle. With old Barolo I will often give the wine a half day or more to slow ox, during which the wine often improves dramatically. Rioja doesn’t seem to benefit as much from and can often decline with too much air so I’ll open it an hour or so before leaving. At any rate, the percentage of good bottles I bring is higher than what you’d experience opening bottles at random.

The second thought has to do with the nature of tasting itself and all of the inherent biases. Are you tasting what’s there or what you want to be there? That’s a tough knot to untangle and complete objectivity is never attainable even in a blinded context if you’re drinking wine you brought. There is also a component of novelty…if you’ve never experienced certain tertiary flavors and you have a high level of openness, that could positively impact your perception. I’ve found that my appreciation for tertiary characteristics in old Rioja has diminished now that I’ve tasted a bunch of them.