LOL, well in a sense this is right. I can’t try a young-but-decanted bottle of wine A and a well-aged but just opened bottle of wine A side by side without a time machine.
But come on. A 25-30 year old bottle of bordeaux tastes NOTHING like a recent vintage wine from the same producer/vineyard no matter how much air you give it. I mean NOTHING LIKE it. Not even in the same ballpark.
It’s like the difference between putting on a down parka on a February day in Chicago and lying on a beach in the Virgin Islands. Both are kinda-sorta warming, but that’s about where the comparison ends.
I have a question for John, though. Why can’t you age bottles yourself or buy well-aged bottles. Certainly can’t be money; there are oceans of well-aged, well-priced wines available if you look.
Larry, not sure if you’re answering the more complex question of what characteristics about a wine determine how it will age, or the original question does decanting mimic aging to any extent. But if the later, then my answer is it’s self evident. Wines given air don’t taste anything like they will taste after aging for X number of years.
I think we have to remember that not all wines age. Many wines hold, which is very different from aging, and a lot of people confuse holding (or even softening) with aging. My thinking is that wines with air more resemble wines that hold (or soften) rather than wines that truly age, like a classic good 25-30 year old Bordeaux as you describe. Other than this one distinction, I agree with what you have said Neal.
Yeah, this is 100% correct. Also, I like John Morris’s answer. I believe there are some threads that discuss molecular changes in wine over time and their causes, including discussions about tannins, acids, and the SO2 and O levels in wine and their effect on aging. You also have a change in the acid structure of the wine, reflected in part by tartaric acid crystal formation over time if I recall. That stuff is not similarly affected by short term oxy blasts.
As for decanting evaporating aromas…well, that’s the whole reason for the debate about whether it’s actually a good thing. Ditching volatile aromas will occur in the first 10-30 minutes even without a decant. The decant accelerates that process, but also accelerates the evaporation of other aromas. I’ve read books citing blind studies that suggest decanting does more harm than good if your eyes are closed. Also, I’ve seen articles that suggest there is no change to tannic structure resulting from a decant before consumption. The idea that tannins soften with a decant is not supported by science. I believe the opposite is true with respect to long term aging.
Keeping bottles going past days 2 or 3 typically results in moderate oxidation, which is not a good thing and typically flattens the wine. A flat, unlively wine is not desired young or old in most instances. (and if you’d like to see a lively debate about how long a wine lasts on your counter, run a few searches and you’ll find threads).
What I don’t understand is why there isn’t a ready assumption that 30 years of largely anaerobic activity would have a different effect on the molecular structure or even chemical composition of a solution than a short duration of exponentially magnified aerobic activity.
Expecting a tremendously different outcome should be the ready hypothesis. Not the opposite.
Holding: Some wines remain fairly static, perhaps after a slight evolution and softening in the first few years. They can last decades without cracking up, but they don’t get more complex. There is usually some softening with a lot of age, however (see below). A lot of California cabernets are like that. They sort of plateau after a few years and can remain relatively unchanged for a very long time. A month or two ago, I hosted at tasting of Olga Raffault Chinons (Loire cabernet franc) going back to the 1970s, and they were a bit like that. Even after 25 years, some hadn’t developed a lot of secondary aromas, though the tannins had softened and they showed some of that sweet fruit I mentioned above.
Softening: “Over time, tannins ‘soften’ because they polymerize, or form long chains with each other. The tannin polymer molecules feel and taste less harsh.” (Citation) The acids in a wine don’t really dissipate, though in some cases the secondary flavors make the wine seem sweeter and less tart with age.
Aging (by which I think Howard means evolving more complexity with age; “evolving” might be a better term): Some wines develop lots of secondary aromas and flavors. Bordeaux and Burgundy are the classic examples. In both you may get aromas and tastes that fall in the earthy area (famously wet leaves or sous bois in Burgundy). A lot of classic California cabs from the 70s and 80s became more complex with time, too. (I haven’t drunk a lot of aged Cal cab from the 80s and 90s, but most don’t seem to have become as interesting.) This transformation to something with more layers of complexity also occurs in Northern Rhone syrah and Barolo and Barbaresco.
Also, some high-acid wines like Burgundy, (some) Northern Rhones and nebbiolo wines can flesh out with time; they lose their initial fruit but gain a sweet, round fruity quality with great age. Together with the softened tannins, wines that were astringent and tart when young become quite silky… In all these cases, the aged wine is really nothing like one at current release, or five or six years. The aromas, flavors and texture are completely different.
Thank you for your dedicated response, John. Especially with the citation, you almost made me feel bad for trying to .
But my main issue with these categorizations is that they are pretty much arbitrary, and are highly subjective, to a point where I could argue that it is pointless to differentiate between aging, holding, and softening as a fundamental attribute of a wine.
Because they are all “aging”. You are not doing anything different to the wine. The environmental factors are all the same in these three categories. Some wines take longer to develop into that “sweet spot”; some quicker. Maybe some don’t. I don’t know, because I don’t have any experience, or have read any empirical data, with a 200-year-old bottle that tasted like it was bottled yesterday.
In a way, based on description of these three terms, couldn’t I argue that a bottle of First Growth Bordeaux holds for the first 5 years, then softens for the next 5-10 years, then ages starting at year 15 and on? Or has that bottle of wine been aging for 25 years because it’s a wine that is perceived as an age-worthy wine?
Let’s say that if the Olga Raffault starts developing secondary characteristics after 40 or 50 years. Is that a wine that ages or holds?
If these are referring to the development stages or phases of a wine, I can get behind that. But to say that “Not all wines age. Many wines hold”… is too much of a broad brush for me.
Exactly what I was going to say. Nobody has ever had a great 30+ year old wine and thought that bottle would have tasted the same near release with enough time in the decanter.
To the OP, go source a few mature bottles at retail or auction. They don’t have to be expensive wines - buy a 20 year old Kabinett and a 25 year old non-trophy Napa cab or Bordeaux, try them, and see the difference, and how you like it compared to young aerated wines.
But I think you do have data. You have wineries which have been around for decades and have established a pattern of how their wines evolve over time (putting aside any major shifts in winemaking). You have many experienced wine enthusiasts who have consumed various vintages of the same wines for many years and can speak to a wine’s evolution. Sure, each bottle can be unique and may be an outlier from time to time, but there’s a reason collectors gravitate towards certain wines - because they have a history of aging into something subjectively better than when first released.
I don’t see what’s arbitrary. And they’re “subjective” only in the sense opinions will differ about whether a particular wine is stuck on a plateau or poised to blossom. That’s where experience over time with the particular type of wine comes in.
As I said in my post, “Aging” doesn’t really capture what Howard is talking about. “Evolving” or “Evolving and gaining complexity” would be better. There’s a big difference between that and a wine where the tannin simply softens and nothing else much changes.
(“Holding” doesn’t mean the wine tastes like the day of bottling or release.)
I wouldn’t apply “holding” to most Bordeaux because, in my experience, they do typically change over time, perhaps slowly but still changing. And they have a long track record of developing layers of complexity with age. By contrast, some wines, including a lot of California cabs and (seemingly) Madiran just soften a little and then stays in one place.
After the Raffault tasting (notes posted here), I’m not sure how to categorize those wines. Even the '89 wasn’t so different from the wines from this decade. There wasn’t a huge gain in complexity in the older vintages we tasted.
What’s broad-brushed about that? Are you asserting that all wines will at some stage get more interesting before they die? Have you never had wines that just sort of freeze, staying alive but not changing after decades? I certainly have. (I’ve been tasting wine over ~35 years, and Howard has, too.)
Some wines do take a very long time, and if you know that, you may hold out hope. Barolo is the obvious one. But it has a long track record of developing very well with 30-40 years of age. Likewise in Burgundy, the '93s and '96s were worryingly tannic and acidic, and difficult to judge, but they evidently are coming around. Again, there’s a track record.
Perhaps I didn’t phrase my opinion very well. I think wines age. I think almost all wines age. What I was protesting was the hard-line differentiation that “these wines age, but these wines merely hold”. Without citing any academic sources, it is my understanding that aging is a chemical change that occurs in wine over time. So if there is a bottle of wine that is completely void of tannins and acids and all that good stuff that develop over time, fine, maybe that wine doesn’t age. But given a regular wine in a regular containment, it ages; could turn better, could turn worse, could turn fast, or could turn slow.
I guess my problem with aging vs holding is who determines what the cut off is - does it take 5, 10, 20, 50 years of not developing secondary, tertiary, quaternary characteristics for a wine to be called “holding”? It’s very subjective and relative.
Eric, the guy at REDACTED is right, but that’s only because, at that particular DC Italian market (unlike all the other DC Italian markets?), they quick-age their wines by storing them all upright and at 80F “room temperature”. Their 2010 Brunellos probably taste like ‘97’s with a little air… one reason why I never touch their wines.
lol, its not that bad, I wouldnt buy expensive wine for aging, but before their wine went upscale, they would bring in older coop wines from italy and sell them for like 2-5 bucks a bottle. They were actually nice quaffers that had tertiary notes. Also, they do have an huge italian selection and varieties you can’t really find at most stores. I learned alot buying wines there when i first got into wine. They do carry stuff like Ar Pe Pe, but they price it high, and in the summer it does get a bit warm in there. But at least they swapped out the incandescent lighting.
It sounds like you are trying to reason out the conclusions abstractly without much experience of aged wine or tasting the same wine over a period of years. It’s sort of a sterile argument.
[1] Do you mean “age” in the sense of “evolve with increasing complexity”? Or just that they survive? Either way, I think you’re just mistaken factually. Most wines are made for current consumption and deteriorate after a couple of years. And a high proportion of those that last longer don’t get more interesting.
[2] There isn’t a “hard-line distinction” between wines that age/evolve and those that plateau and never get more interesting after a certain point. It’s just generalizations made by many of us who have tasted over a long period of time.
[3] Are you asserting that all wines with sufficient structure not to crack up will develop complexity eventually? If so, that’s utterly theoretical and simplistic, and is not borne out by the facts. Some grapes produce wines that get more interesting with time; others don’t. Same thing with regions and producers. There’s no chemical process in the bottle that leads inevitably to complexity.
[4] When should one give up hope on further improvement in a wine and conclude that this is as good as the wine will get?
There’s no hard and fast answer, but with experience you can make some informed judgments.
For instance, JJ Prum rieslings can take a long time to open up and evolve – sometimes 20 years or more – while Donnhoff’s wines are approachable and complex much sooner. Both are top producers whose wines show great complexity.
Or take Barolo, where the 1978 vintage has only entered its prime drinking window (softening tannins, more complexity, more flesh) in recent years. If you serve me a '78 Napa cab that’s either harshly tannic or smooth but simple, I don’t hold much hope that it will be better in five or ten years. In contrast to nebbiolo wines, at forty years, I expect a cabernet to be pretty balanced and interesting if it’s ever going to be. Why do I say that? Long experience.
This conclusion isn’t “subjective” in the pejorative sense you’re suggesting – being solipsistic/unique to one individual. It’s a generalization based on experience, and it’s an opinion shared by many.
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