Does anyone actively (or passively) age 10, 20, 30 etc year tawnies in bottle? What have your results been?
We always have a few bottles with 4-6 years of age just due to rotation, mostly Taylor-Fladgate 20. Never an issue. Itās no better and no worse. Still tastes like Taylor-Fladgate 20.
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Any thiughts on what would happen after 20 or 30 years? Hold up or are they going to start fading away?
No idea. Thatās an @Eric_Ifune question. If Roy Hersh was still posting he would also be an excellent resource.
I had great success with one I opened for Roy Hersh, though I donāt think it was any better as a result of the age neither was it worse:
NV Ramos Pinto Porto 20 Year Old Tawny Quinta do Bom Retiro - Portugal, Douro, Porto (3/15/2019)
Bottled in 1996, so it has spent more time in bottle than it did in cask, it shows delicate caramel with a touch of salinity, lovely. (92 points)
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In drinking many times with Eric and Andy, my memory is that Tawnies are bottled to be drunk. That is, they create the blend more for release rather than as a vintage marker.
Remember that Tawnies are barrel aged wines versus ruby Ports which are generally bottled before lengthy aging. The 10,20,30 year Tawnies have historically been made to represent a wine with an average age of the number on the label whether the actual wine did or not.
So there is likely not a lot to be gained by aging them as the makers are bottling them as a wine blended for how it drinks now. Obviously they wonāt die any time soon but to my knowledge the blended Tawnies should be purchased with the intent on drinking, for the most part.
Does anyone see driven cork finished tawnies? In my region, Iāve only seen bar topped ones. Most of the time I donāt buy this category, but just picked up a (bar topped) Croft āreserveā a few weeks ago.
Right, but Iād think a wine that sees significant oxidation during production would last a long time
I never claimed it wouldnāt. Iām only saying that its likely to be best closer to release and very unlikely to see improvement post bottling.
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I had a discussion about this with Dominic Symington about 15 years ago, re a bottle of quite old Colheita I had, and wondered how it would last in bottle. His comment was essentially that it should hold up fine in bottle, but obviously wouldnāt improve.
To be brutally blunt, a bottle of 10, 20, or 30 yo tawny isnāt very interesting to begin with, and should last just fine for many years.
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With the Colheitaās, they often do several bottlings. So if you get one from an earlier bottling it might not be quite as good as one from a more recent bottling for the same vintage. Iāve tasted that first hand.
I like the 20 year Tawnies. I also like the 30 and 40 but the value sees rapidly diminishing returns on the pricing with these. The 30ās Iāve tried were marginally better than the 20ās, if at all, for a good deal more.
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My complaint is that they all taste alike, dominated by caramel and maple syrup flavors. To get something really complex, you need to hit 60+ years, and a colheita gives you more chance of something interesting. Iād much prefer to drink a vintage port over most tawnies.
Interesting, while Im occasionally in the mood for a 20 year tawny, I usually am uninterested in vintage port unless its 50+.
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I have some limited experience with older bottlings - mainly with Australian tawny styles - as for a time they and VPs were the unsung bargains of the Australian auction scene. Ageing them in bottle really doesnāt add much as they have been aged in barrel up until bottling. They will last in bottle after opening, however that is not the thrust of the OPās question. In my limited experience, there is a chance that the spirit may become disjointed and protrude in the flavour profile to a noticeable extent. I found this in a 1945 Penfolds Grandfather Port (tawny) I tried a few years back. I have a fair few bottles of the style going back to the 70s, and IMHO thatās probably as far as Iād keep them. Topaques (Tokay) and Muscats may travel a little differently - Iām still yet to tuck into those. YMMV of courseā¦
No point. Basically all the things that might evolve and turn into something interesting are already oxidized in the cask. There is going to be some development in the bottle even with oxidatively aged wines, but the evolution is going to happen over several decades or even a century. It doesnāt make any sense to buy a age-designated Tawny and age it for yourself for a few years, because you wonāt be going to see any difference. The same applies for Colheitas. It doesnāt matter if the wine is from a single cask aged for 40 years or a blend from three casks aged for 35, 40 and 45 years.
The only chance you are going to see some bottle evolution in an oxidatively aged wine if you can find a bottle that has been kept for several decades from an auction.
Typically they start just fading away after some time. The best wines (usually 30/40 yo Tawnies, exceptional Colheitas, Frasqueira Madeiras, some exceptional Sherries) might be concentrated enough that they can still come across as impressive even as they start to fade as they might develop some additional complexity with further aging.
How come? A wine that sees significant oxidation before bottled is basically āruinedā to begin with! A wine that has been very reductively reacts very aggressively with oxygen and is more readily oxidized as it is still full of unoxidized flavor-, color- and other compounds. The more oxygen a wine sees during the aging process, the longer-lived it will be. Madeiras are the most extreme example: the can be kept in oak casks for up to a century and they can survive just fine for several.
On the other hand, most of the cheapo white wines are made reductively and many will keep only for a year or two before they start to fall apart.
This.
Agree with the part regarding 10 yo Tawnies.
Almost always this. However, once they start to get too old, they can feel just dusty, dull and lacking vibrancy. However, in small amounts, these wines can still add remarkable complexity when blended with very old bottlings of age-designated Tawny Ports.
Disagree. Just because a wine is from a single vintage doesnāt necessarily mean it is a better than one blended from several. Colheitas from exceptional vintages can be magical, but many Colheitas arenāt from fantastic vintages - they can be remarkably fresh with good acidity yet lack depth and complexity. Or they can be remarkably opulent with wonderful complexity, but lack freshness and energy. A great, well-crafted Tawny blended from old vintages can be miles better than an old Colheita from an average vintage.
And if you think that all Tawnies taste alike, you should taste more. Just coming from a trip to Portugal and having tasted a great bunch of Tawnies, they do taste wildly different from each other.
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My recollection from Roy is that only Vintage and some select LBV (e.g.Noval) will benefit from bottle age
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The non-vintage blended tawnies will not fade with many years in the bottle. Iāve opened many that had 20-30 years on them, and they were perfectly fine.
Colheitas, which are single vintage tawnies, are another animal entirely. Those do evolve and can be pretty interesting.
Thread drift: Iāve done a lot with ageing Late-Bottled Vintage (LBV) ports and they evolve marvelously over 20-30 years. They can be quite interesting. As an example, I opened a 1991 Dow VP and a 1991 Dow LBV blind in a side-by-side. They were definitely different, but a number of people had a hard time picking which was which.
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My opinions,
Age indicated tawnies will not improve in bottle. A few nonfiltered Colheita Ports can.
After 10-20 years in bottle, tawnies will start drying out, even start getting a bit musty. The older the wine the better theyāll hold up.
There are plenty of great 10 year old tawnies. You just have to search them out. They are mainly Portuguese houses. 20 and 30 year olds are a real sweet spot for QPR. 40 and 50 year old wines can be fabulous, but prices have really pushed up the past years. The muitos muitos velha catagory (over 80 years old) can be mind blowing, but with mind blowing prices as well.
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Would you be willing to share thoughts on what Colheitas you like for aging, and also some 20 years you like? Iāve enjoyed Sandemanās 20 for the QPR, and really enjoy the Quinto do Noval 20 as well, but a little pricy for my taste.