How do you know a wine will be good years in the future?

Some people have amazing cellars with hundreds and thousands of bottles. How do you figure out what will be good a decade or more down the road? It would be an aweful waste of money to buy a case of expensive wine only to dislike it when it comes of age. Are there ways to discern a young wine will have what you want in 10 years or more?

This is a good question, and has kept me from buying much wine. The gamble just isn’t worth it unless you have some inside information.

It’s never a waste of money. In ten or twenty years if the wine is not to your taste, you will certainly be able to find a buyer who will find it pleasant to his taste.

Thank you, but that’s not exactly the answer to the question.

The answer is you don’t know although many producers have track records showing the ageability of their wines. It’s a leap of faith based on past experience with similar wine. A big thing to consider when putting wines away for a while is what your palate preference is. Aged wine has different characteristics from young wine and may or may not be pleasing to your palate when those aromas and flavors are revealed. That’s where Joes answer comes into play.

Personally I would rather not wait to find out I have to sell it on the secondary market. Anything beyond 10 years in my cellar is a stretch. Anything older I will source from another one bottle at a time to be safe. Problem there though is provenance. You just don’t know the history of that bottle you buy at auction. Some times you win, sometimes you lose, just like cellaring. It’s a crap shoot either way. Thing about cellaring is being able to follow the wine every year or two to see how it is progressing, or not. Knowing where the sweet spot is and enjoying then. Sometimes that is in the first few years, other times decades after. Adds to the mystique of wine collecting.

Jan, it’s a tough question to answer, frankly, as nobody KNOWS it for certain. It comes from experience, tasting wines that are young and at other times in your life tasting those same producers with some age, realizing what the wine is like later on compared to early on, and seeing what your preference is. For example, you might enjoy a Ridge Monte Bello 5 years after release, then you try one that’s 25 years old and you LOVE it, as it’s a different wine - that’s the type of wine you ‘know’ ages well, based solely on your own experience and opinion, and that’s all that matters in the end.

Also, you can tell, more simply, by a wine that seems really structured or ridiculously oaky - likely the winemaker is intending that wine to age. Many wines now - especially in CA - are made to drink soon, as that’s where the majority of the market is. If you drink a Chardonnay that tastes super oaky and seems like it has no fruit, it’s made to age. If you drink a Cab that is velvety, super bold fruit, and drinks very well, it’s not made to age.

I’m a 20 year novice in experimentation of aged wines. I have tried 13 year old home pressings and storage locker hoards of late. The better the wine the more likely it was stored well I have found. My first hoard was from a cooled facility (Bordeaux wines) and my second from a lower level storage locker with decent temp history (Napa, Sonoma,Bordeaux-Sauternes, Napa Sauvignon Blanc). I keep a list of years and vineyards to refer to. 60’s and 70’s always need 45 minutes to clear. I’ve tried a paper filter but settle time works perfect. '68 Rotheschilde was Excellent after 45 minutes, clear and flavorful. Not all aged wines will be as tasty as a 3 yo wine each is a lesson and a joy taste.

Also some wines have a history and reputation for aging. Classed growth Bordeaux for example. German Riesling is another.

I’ll echo the ‘track record’ comments.

Beyond that, tasting a wine that is structurally (tannin, acid and fruit profile are primary considerations) similar to wines that you know age, can give a good clue.

It’s not a science though - or rather science hasn’t developed (or can’t be bothered to develop!) a formula for the optimal age for a wine, nor the optimal construct for a wine to age. Indeed most efforts seem to be focused on how to make a wine drink well in youth these days, rather than seeking brilliance at maturity.

Even if there is a track record, things can change (see white Burgundy P.Ox. for a most extreme example). Bottle variation / cork issues add to the difficulty. However when old wines are on form, the unique complexity they can offer makes the experience of cellaring (or taking your chances on the secondary market) very much worthwhile. It’s not always the grandest of wines that deliver this either. Once you’ve had such a gem, it’s difficult not to pursue the cellaring route.

regards
Ian

As above I don’t think it will be money wasted as it can always be sold off if well stored. Some of my favorite lot purchases are 11 bottles!

I’d work the problem in reverse and buy some aged bottles of different varieties (and good provenance) and see if you like older wine. If the answer is no I’d repeat the experiment in a few years. Maybe aged wine isn’t your thing?

Indeed this makes sense. I’d bought wine ‘to cellar’ for a while, but it was a mature Bordeaux that woke me up to properly mature wine.

Lol I hope nobody laughs at me, but I was intending on following robert parkers maturity predictions for most of my wines. I also make sure to keep up with reviews on delectible/ct/vivino to help determine when to drink or how long I should/could age them for.

Hi Albert
[rofl.gif]

Only kidding [wink.gif]

Taking a drinking window steer can a useful starting point, particularly when you’ve no experience in that label ageing. Never treat it as something to follow blindly, but more a general guidance to ‘drink that wine before that other one’.

Worth being aware that prime drinking window is very much a personal preference and some will complete drinking a stash of a wine before I reckon it’s ready to drink the first bottle. I know many who despair at quoted short drinking windows for Barolo and Burgundy, arguing that the window quoted is the worst time to drink the wines, rather than the best, often encouraging you to start opening them when they start to close down, and drink them all up before they open out into maturity.

Your comment about CT/vivino/delectable is a good one. The critics focus on new releases to a) steal a march on the opposition if possible and b) get their names on shelf-talkers in shops - who aim to sell straight through asap. However these newer media have a greater focus on wine drunk throughout it’s life, from youthful promise to feeble senility. That makes them much more relevant than an early view from a critic, tasting the *bottle not long after release. I know Eric at CT makes a lot of effort to weed out ‘shill’ / fake reviews, and I hope the other two are as diligent (I don’t use them, so don’t know).

regards
Ian

  • Assuming that the winery was honest and sent a representative bottle, not a ‘critic’s cuvee’. Sadly the latter does occur, occasionally uncovered, but we suspect many get away with it.

I often find that sites like cellar tracker way undercall how long a wine will stay in a prime drinking window. There will be comments like “drink it up quickly” for wines just beginning to develop tertiary flavors. But I tend to like aged wines. I’d recommend buying a couple and seeing for yourself if you like them.

Best way to learn is probably to buy a few cases of ageable wine, and begin opening a bottle a year of each one then observing how they evolve. Takes 12 years though.

Winefolly weighs in on the topic.

Not a bad ‘insight’ piece, so I’ll cut her some slack for the following comment:

A wine that isn’t complex to begin with won’t become complex with age

Hunter Semillon is a wonderful example where the ageworthy examples are remarkably uncomplex on release, especially compared to some riper / more worked examples that are noticeably more complex on release, but don’t age as well. Once these ‘simple’ semillons reach maturity, they can acquire wonderful complexity.

There are plenty more scenarios where that advice is just plain wrong.

Like I said though, I think it’s a reasonable piece, so I’d encourage the interested to read the article and not focus on a single disputed comment.

[EDIT: Oops, I missed this comment in a boxed section, which as written, the bolded section is nonsense

If you live in a place where your home exceeds 70 °F (27 °C), using a wine fridge or underground storage is highly recommended. > It’s been shown that fluctuating temperatures will accelerate aging at a rate of 4 times faster than the consistent climate of a cellar. >

How much fluctuation? By how many degrees F/C? How measured? Exactly 4 times faster for any amount of fluctuation? It suggests the wine will reach the same point 4 times as fast. This bit needed a bit more proof-reading / editing as the broad comment is reasonable, but the ‘science’ either very badly worded, or conceivably flawed / made-up … and no source was quoted ]

Must take the bottle on the next “Timeless” trip to the future ! (Or do you need to find a same bottle when visiting the future ?) [swoon.gif]

She’s a Master Somm, a NYT best selling author and was in “Somm, into the bottle” movie. So she has some street cred already.

You know, I’m tempted to start a thread titled “If you had a Time-Machine…” and ask “If you had a time-machine and could travel to ANY year to try ANY wine, WHEN would you travel to and WHAT would you drink?”

For instance, it may be interesting to travel to 1895 and drink an 1870 Margaux. It would be amazing to taste that pre-lhylloxera wine in the context of phylloxera having just finished devastating Bordeaux.