Do Wines From Warm Vintages Age?

[Alan_Rath]

@Michael S. Monie

You’ve never dabbled with warm climate Austrailian Shiraz, have you?

I have. My general conclusion has been that most of them can age and hold up reasonably well, but very few develop into something really interesting.

To answer the OP, I think the real question is not about “warm vintages” but about “riper wines”. Obviously they can be related, but there some varieties that can manage warm vintages better, and there are some regions that can as well.

This is an age-old debate that really does separate people into different camps. My own view is that wines that are riper than “optimum” for their variety typically don’t age or hold up as well. A 16% Syrah is likely to not be as interesting (to me) as a 13% Syrah at 20 years of age. Can there be exceptions? No doubt. And there are plenty of other factors involved, but this is my general rule of thumb.

[g.colangelo]

@Matt Latuchie

When I was over in the Mosel, we heard multiple winemakers comment that, to them, 2003 may end up resembling 1959. This comment caught all of us off guard, as the narrative we’d become familiar with placed 2003 in the “avoid-like-the-plague-cuz-they’re-overripe” camp. Since tasting a handful in Germany, and more after returning, it’s a delicious vintage that can be found for fair prices across the country.

I also heard similar comments by Mosel winemakers recently. This summer I drank a 2003 Egon Müller Scharzhofberger Spätlese at a restaurant (no other vintages available), mostly out of curiosity and was not disappointed, to the contrary:

• 2003 Egon Müller Scharzhofberger Riesling Spätlese - Germany, Mosel Saar Ruwer (10.07.2016)
  Half-bottle, off the wine list at a restaurant, then finished the bottle in the evening at home. Subtle nose, sublime and ethereal. Highly complex too.
  Almost no sweetness at all, completely covered by a spicy minerality which I bet would make this wine terribly austere, were it not for the RS. The balance between the two components is magical. Only at the end of a long finish does one feel the beautiful, ethereal and sweet citrus fruit found also in other Rieslings. But here even as the fruit emerges more clearly the mineral component comes back and plays with it again.

Posted from CellarTracker

[Howard_Cooper]

@Jeff Leve

@Howard Cooper

In Bordeaux, at least in the Medoc, I pretty consistently like 1996s better than 1995s. They seem to have better acidity. Anybody have any analysis of this - am I correct.

My guess is, 1995 is higher in acidity and tannins. 1996 is riper, richer vintage with less acidity and higher levels of alcohol than 1995 in the Medoc.

That is not the way they taste to me. The 1995s I have had seem flabby.

[Chris_Seiber]

My (modest) experience mirrors Jeff’s - 1995 seems on the cool, stern and tannic side to me, the 1996s more ripe and opulent. I have no idea what the weather actually was those years, though.

[Mike_Schieffer]

@Soren R Nielsen

Btw. I had a 2003 Louis Latour, Corton Grancey some days ago.
Taste of raisins, some boring velvety red fruits, no real acids, no tannins, and so sweet (cheap Chilean box wine).
After some glasses with the food, some licorice emerged, as the only real positive note.
Very hard to see any future for this… Not My kind of wine (except for the licorice part). Baked in the sun.

Kind regards,
-Soren.

FWIW, cracked an '03 Drouhin Bonnes Mares recently with friends. Was stunningly fresh and vibrant.

[Brian_Gilp]

What is the basis for determining if a vintage is warm or not? Is it
Peak daytime temperatures
Nighttime low temperatures
monthly mean temperatures
Total GDD
Or some other measure?

Does the time when it is warm matter? Is it really the same if there is a heat wave in early July as if it comes in early September?

Should the impact of sunlight be included in the discussion since sunlight drives sugar accumulation and its difficult to be above average in temperature while at the same time being below average in sunlight.

I have observed in my own small hobby vineyard that has a shading issue and warm nighttime lows that I get “ripeness” at lower brix. Supposedly I should suffer from lower acidity and sometimes that happens but sometimes I end up with high acidity. The acidity, at least for me, seems to be driven more by soil conditions largely related to potassium than by temperatures.

I really don’t think that this is a black or white question. One first needs to define warm then from there it would seem to follow hypothesize what it is about that definition of warm that would impact the ability to age. Determine if that can be impacted by grower/winemaker decisions or if it really is a function of vintage and then go from there.

[mike_pobega]

For what it’s worth, there could be pockets of heat that goes unrecorded. This Past July while on our way to see Louis CK with my son, the outside temperature in my car showed 109f while on the BQE in Brooklyn and 118f by the time we got to the exit on the LIE. 118. My son was amazed. I kept announcing the jumps as we were doing and right after 118 I announced 750 Mikey!

I have no problem believing that vineyard workers recorded such. No problem at all.

[John_Morris]

@Jeff Leve

… with the exception of 2003, … In parts of some vineyards, I know that there were days that hit 128 degrees for a few days! Now, that is hot.

… Do you think I make this stuff up? No, it was not over all of Bordeaux, but in parts of vineyards in the Northern Medoc, it reached 129 F, 54 C at its peak in the afternoon for a few days in August! All the workers just sat in the cellars. Have you looked at how many people died in heat related deaths in August 2003? It is over 10,000!

Wikipedia lists peak temperatures in Europe of 45 in Jerez and 46 in Sicily but nothing close to that level in France – “just” eight consecutive days of 40C in Auxerre a little south of Paris.

[John_Morris]

@Michael S. Monie

The thread seems to have migrated to how warm is hot and how hot is really hot, as well as temperatures in Bordeaux. I’ll use Barolo: 2004-cool, 2005-hot, 2006-cool, 2007-hot, 2008-cool, 2009-hot, 2010-cool, 2011-hot. I frequently see references to how these alternating vintages will or will not develop with age as well as their longevity. And also the relative quality of the wines from respective vintages upon release, with the wines from cooler vintages almost always rating higher.

I’m no sure how universal the view is that the cooler vintages are better. Jeff Leve plainly takes issue with this notion in Bordeaux. And Parker called the 2007 Barolos some of the most exciting young wines he’d ever tasted. Bill Klapp likes them.

That said, I lean toward this thesis in a very general way. I’ve found I like a lot of 1996 and 2006 Tuscans better than the warmer, more hyped years that followed them. It’s why some of us like 2004 in the Southern Rhone, though that certainly didn’t get high points.

And I’ll lay my bets on 2006 and 2010 over 2009 in Barbaresco/Barolo when it comes to aging. So will the winemakers.

More acid, more precision in the cooler years. Grapes tend to lose their specificity and personality after a certain degree of ripeness – they sort of converge, losing their terroir character and sometimes even their varietal character. And high alcohols are sometimes masked by fruit young and become more apparent, and objectionable, with a few years age. That seems to be a problem with many 97 and 07 Tuscans.

But “warm” and “cool” are kind of crude measures, because there are years with cool summers but warm autumns and vice versa, and cool nighttime temperatures are at least as big a factor; the highs alone don’t tell you the whole story.

(We can leave aside the truly freak year of 2003, I think. Miraculously, some good wines were produced in lots of places.)

[Robert_Grenley]

@Paul H Galli

@Mel Knox

Acc to wikipedia, around 14,000 people died in France due to the heat in 2003. There is hot and then there is HOT! The vines tend to shut down when the temps reach over 102 F, so there is no flavor development.
Plus it was a very dry summer.

I don’t think one can generalize well here, but I think a lot has to do with the acidity in the wine and that is my worry about 2005 in Burgundy.

In California we are used to warm vintages and know what to do. A friend of mine was working at a winery in Pomerol in 1989. The owner of the neighboring winery had must weights of over 14 degrees potential alcohol but he still wanted to chaptalise. He should have been thinking about tartaric.

Mel Knox wrote:
I am beginning to have my doubts about 2005 in Burgundy.



Mel,
Again, what leads you to this conclusion??

TTT

I am not seeing specifically what is leading Mel to have his doubts about the 2005 Burgs…reds that is.
While on the other hand, Clive Coates in his 10 year retrospective tasting on the 2005’s, wrote:

" A magnificent red wine vintage. This was a dry year, though never particularly hot, save for a heat-wave in May. A hail-storm on 17 July devastated the vines between the villages of Santenay and Chassagne-Montrachet. After a mixed August, and much-needed rain on 6 September, the skies cleared and it became increasingly sunny and warm. The Côte d’Or harvest began in the middle of the month and was all but complete by the week-end of 1st. October.
Now ten years old, the red wines, though many are still rather closed, are well deserving of all the bally-hoo they engendered at the outset. The vintage is consistently good (except naturally in Santenay and Chassagne-Montrachet) from Marsannay to Maranges, as well as proportionately so from grand cru to the humblest generic. Few past vintages come close. Perhaps the nearest is 1999, but that was a very much more generous harvest. The relative shortness of the 2005 crop can be seen in the concentration of the wines. They also have depth, finesse, harmony and the potential to last. But they are not monolithic. What more do you want? Don’t start opening the best until 2020 or so."

[Paul_H_Galli]

@Robert Grenley

@Paul H Galli

@Mel Knox

Acc to wikipedia, around 14,000 people died in France due to the heat in 2003. There is hot and then there is HOT! The vines tend to shut down when the temps reach over 102 F, so there is no flavor development.
Plus it was a very dry summer.

I don’t think one can generalize well here, but I think a lot has to do with the acidity in the wine and that is my worry about 2005 in Burgundy.

In California we are used to warm vintages and know what to do. A friend of mine was working at a winery in Pomerol in 1989. The owner of the neighboring winery had must weights of over 14 degrees potential alcohol but he still wanted to chaptalise. He should have been thinking about tartaric.

Mel Knox wrote:
I am beginning to have my doubts about 2005 in Burgundy.



Mel,
Again, what leads you to this conclusion??

TTT

I am not seeing specifically what is leading Mel to have his doubts about the 2005 Burgs…reds that is.
While on the other hand, Clive Coates in his 10 year retrospective tasting on the 2005’s, wrote:

" A magnificent red wine vintage. This was a dry year, though never particularly hot, save for a heat-wave in May. A hail-storm on 17 July devastated the vines between the villages of Santenay and Chassagne-Montrachet. After a mixed August, and much-needed rain on 6 September, the skies cleared and it became increasingly sunny and warm. The Côte d’Or harvest began in the middle of the month and was all but complete by the week-end of 1st. October.
Now ten years old, the red wines, though many are still rather closed, are well deserving of all the bally-hoo they engendered at the outset. The vintage is consistently good (except naturally in Santenay and Chassagne-Montrachet) from Marsannay to Maranges, as well as proportionately so from grand cru to the humblest generic. Few past vintages come close. Perhaps the nearest is 1999, but that was a very much more generous harvest. The relative shortness of the 2005 crop can be seen in the concentration of the wines. They also have depth, finesse, harmony and the potential to last. But they are not monolithic. What more do you want? Don’t start opening the best until 2020 or so."

I don’t find the 2005 Red Burgs to be lacking in acidity.
I don’t find the 2005 Red Burgs to be lacking in anything!
I’m just pissed I’m likely too old to be able to fully appreciate them…

TTT