In other words, it needs another 15+ years to hit sublime magic, right?
Sorry this is not provocative, it is ill informed nonsense (well IMO anyway).
I think that the two bolded quotes demonstrate the author’s ignorance and lack of relevant experience. I defy anyone who actually knows about Bdx 1st growths, has them in their cellar and actually drinks - to say that they peak at 10 years. Ditto for high quality red burgs being at peak after 5 years. ![[cheers.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/0/0ff9bfcdb0964982cd3240b6159868fbdf215b1a.gif "cheers"){kind=small}
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The first statement you put in bold is exactly where I stopped reading the article. Pure ridiculousness.
Scott, of course taste is personal, no question. But that is not what I was implying; I was saying that I think his opinion would not match the vast majority of tasters who drink these wines.
Can I interpret your reply to mean you agree with the author and that you drink all your first growths at 10 years and all your grand cru burgs at 5 years? I am curious about your personal experience on these matters, rather than some author’s opinion (which you already know my views on that)
brodie
I don’t necessarily agree and have had some amazing 30+ year old Bordeaux. But I’ve also had some very nice wines at the 10 year mark (admittedly not first growths). I do find it curious that if you look at CT scores on top chateaus, they’re relatively consistent year over year. For example, 1995 Haut-Brion scoring mid 90s in 2002 and still mid 90s in 2019. Different but equally great?
In honor of this thread, we opened a 2005 Château Lassègue and a 2005 Château Vignot tonight. Neither had much secondary development, were a bit boring/foursquare, but did pick up plum, coffee bean, pencil graphite, and some firm grainy tannins; more in the Vignot. There are no noticeable notes of fennel/anise/or baking spices, so that’s good. It would age longer, and the tannins might get finer–but a solid meh. For my money, I much prefer Loire for Cab Franc. This is better, cheaper, and will age longer: 2015 Catherine et Pierre Breton Chinon Beaumont, France, Loire Valley, Touraine, Chinon - CellarTracker
Was this written by Terry Robards? He is well known, among other things, for trashing 82 Bordeaux and saying they would not live to be 10 years old. I cannot remember whether he was still the wine writer then or whether he had already been fired.
Nope. Frank Prial. https://www.nytimes.com/1987/01/18/magazine/wine-a-musty-myth.html
Well, he must have been seriously into a few bottles when he wrote that.
He was a little off in the ten year mark obviously, but his statement that there are plenty of wines to be consumed earlier is pretty much on the money and is probably even more true today.
I do find it curious that if you look at CT scores on top chateaus, they’re relatively consistent year over year. For example, 1995 Haut-Brion scoring mid 90s in 2002 and still mid 90s in 2019. Different but equally great?
No.
It’s scoring by label. And maybe also without a lot of experience with the wine.
On the subject of oak, as Howard wonders, I think the level of toasting has a big impact on smell and taste.
And more! As far as oak goes, it’s not only a matter of whether a wine was “oaked” or not so much as what was done with and to the oak. Where is it from? Most people only know French vs American, but even then there is more than one forest in each country and more than one species used in each country. And the forests aren’t monoculture forests, sometimes with more or less of a particular species and the species interbreed. You can tell the parents apart by the leaves and the acorns but forests aren’t necessarily harvested that way. And cold forests with harsh winters will produce trees with tighter grain and consequently more aromatics than forests that might be slightly warmer. Then how was the oak seasoned? Was it left out for a few years or hurried through the seasoning process? Was it left in the forests where it was harvested to obtain the same bacteria and other critters or was it seasoned somewhere else? Was it then toasted or not? And if it was, was it toasted really quickly or more slowly?
Then once you have all those issues settled and you get a barrel, you have the specific vineyard and the specific vintage to match it with. It becomes pretty complicated and I don’t know how you do it other than have a lot of experience with the vineyard, the grapes, the forest, the cooper and everything else.
I had an episode at a blind tasting of 2000 Bordeaux where they were all tight and tannic. No one even identified them as Bordeaux and we thought perhaps Northern Rhône.
Glenn P - that might say more about your tasters than the wines!!
The 1987 version of this:
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Okay, the 1987 NYT article was trash. Here’s a perspective which seems more aligned with the comments on this thread…
Bordeaux: the ageing process
Stephen Brook June 6, 2008
From birth through maturity to old age, STEPHEN BROOK investigates the life cycle of red Bordeaux and asks how to know when to open that prized bottleFor many wine lovers, the greatness of a red wine is largely defined by its capacity to age. And not just to age, but to age interestingly. For all their merits, Sauvignon Blanc or Beaujolais are essentially uniform and don’t gain much from ageing, barring them from the pantheon of great wines. As Hubert de Boüard of Château Angélus puts it: ‘A great wine is a film, not a snapshot.’
Many red wines develop complexity with age – Barolo, Burgundy, Bandol – but Bordeaux pulls off that particular trick more often than most. Ageability is the stuff of which connoisseurship is made. The old cellar books of former Oxford don Professor Saintsbury and his acolytes were exercises in comparisons of famous vintages; the merits of an 1870 could be played off against the charms of the 1875s. It’s the vinous equivalent of
an addiction to Wisden. You would need a chemist to explain precisely why a wine alters as it ages. Probably the most important element is the interaction of oxygen with the wine.
No doubt dry extract, mineral compounds, remaining bacteria in the wine, acidity and alcohol also play their subtle parts. Aromas as well as flavours change with age, and colour may shed its youthful purple robe in favour of a more mellow garnet. One might suppose that a healthy dose of press wine, with its more overt tannins, would also affect ageability,
but Anthony Barton of Château Léoville- Barton questions this. ‘When we prepare our blends, we find that the one with a little but not too much press wine is usually the best. But I don’t believe that the proportion of press wine affects longevity one way or the other.’ Bordeaux does not age uniformly. Any time one tastes a wine, it has made a further shift along its line of development. This is frustrating for guidance-hungry consumers when the same wine is rated differently by critics at various stages of its development. Moreover, subjective factors come into play. It is easy to underestimate – because it’s impossible to quantify – the impact of mood and temperature on tasting. The same row of wines tasted at 15˚C or 18˚C is highly likely to yield different results. Minor
impairments such as colds, jet-lag, bad temper and hangovers can alter one’s perception and appreciation. A claret first becomes available for assessment during the en primeur tastings (in the year following the vintage), when by definition the wine is only partly formed. Choose an analogy: it’s a sketch, a pre-teen, a child painted in adult clothing by Velázquez. A year or so later the wine is assembled, bottled and released, and ready for a fresh assessment. It’s an adult wine.
After that, endless variables come into play. Some clarets shut down after bottling,
sometimes for three years or more. This means their aromas become suppressed, and the fruit quality subdued. One senses the wine rather than enjoys or savours it. But other wines shine out radiantly for a few years after bottling – and then shut down. In a horizontal tasting across a particular vintage, some wines will be less expressive than wines tasted alongside them and, consequently, may be under appreciated. Much depends on the vintage.
De Boüard notes that the 2000 Angélus is only just beginning to emerge from its shell, whereas the 2001 and 2004 are already more accessible. ‘The bigger the vintage,’ recalls Barton, ‘the longer the shut-down period is likely to be. I remember the 1989 stayed closed for quite a few years. But some other good vintages such as 1985 didn’t shut down that much. And my uncle told me that the great 1929s, which were very long lived, drank well throughout the 1930s.’
Safe keeping
Once the wine is in bottle, storage becomes important. I recently had the privilege of
tasting some very old vintages of Yquem. The bottles came directly from the château, so the wines were at their very best. That is the exception rather than the rule. Valued wines, especially first growths, are traded. A mature Lafite bought at auction may have crossed many an ocean from merchant to customer and back again. Most red wines
are robust and can take a good deal of punishment, but even a mighty Latour might wilt after an ordeal by heat in a container ship en route for Shanghai.
All this supports the adage that there is no such thing as a great old wine, just a great old bottle. Once a wine has reached maturity, its survival becomes something of a lottery. Devotees of costly tastings of rare vintages know how frequently a pair of bottles of the same wine can differ enormously, usually as a consequence of storage or cork condition. As a Bordeaux ages it takes on certain characteristics. Essentially, primary fruit aromas and flavours retreat as more subtle, complex, secondary attributes emerge. Aromas of undergrowth or cedar would be typical of a mature or maturing claret; on the palate there may be a growing silkiness and harmony, as elements once separate – oak, acidity, fruit, tannin – start to integrate. Whether or not you like those secondary characteristics will define whether or not you are beguiled by older wines, especially as tones of leather and
game become more apparent. There is no law that states that an old, or mature, wine is ‘better’ than or preferable to a young, fruity wine. Wine lovers who admire the
vibrancy and attack of a young claret are entitled to that preference. Vintage also plays an enormous part in the ageing capacity of Bordeaux. A touch of herbaceousness was often part of the profile of a young claret. Full phenolic ripeness was rare, though global warming and more rigorous viticulture are now making it the rule rather than the exception. But in the past, when harvesting was less selective and the vagaries of an autumnal climate meant that there would usually be some varieties or vineyard blocks that would not ripen fully, a slight greenness was almost inevitable.
If discreet it could, to many palates, be an attractive feature of the wine. But in truly awful years that greenness, rather than adding complexity, suffocated the wine with vegetal aromas. Anyone who has had the misfortune of drinking a 1972 claret will know how unpleasant that can be. In such years, ageing the wine will do nothing to repair it. To age successfully, a Bordeaux must be from a good vintage and must be reasonably well balanced at the outset.
It is worth bearing in mind the saying of John Williams of Frog’s Leap estate in Napa:
‘Ugly young, ugly old.’ There’s a lot of truth in that. Some wines that are very oaky or very tannic in their youth may blossom, after a decade or two, into complex rather than merely oaky wines, nobly structured rather than merely tannic. It is, however, exceedingly difficult to predict whether a youthful imbalance will remedy itself with time, or become permanent disfigurement. The 1975 vintage was a case in point. The young wines were ferociously tannic. The trade mostly had confidence in them, acclaiming the vintage as a great one but saying that it simply required time for the tannins to soften. In a few cases, they did; La Mission Haut-Brion and Pétrus, for instance, are excellent
1975s. But most wines from that vintage remained tough as nails and never became
enjoyable. Many wines open up at a leisurely pace and then reach a kind of plateau, where they remain frozen in time for around 10 years, sometimes more, before beginning a gentle decline.
That is often the case with the best vintages. Lighter and less structured years, such as 1987, tend to mature more rapidly and then decline more rapidly.
Swinging to the Left
It is tempting to assume that Bordeaux from the Left Bank, especially the Médoc, will age better than wines from the Right. Some 19th-century Médocs are still enjoyable. Cabernet Sauvignon contributes tannin and backbone that will preserve a wine admirably whereas, it’s argued, the fleshier Merlot of St-Emilion and Pomerol gives less structure and thus less ageing capacity. By and large, I think this is true. Of course there are legendary vintages such as 1947 when the Right Bank produced remarkable wines that are still going strong, such as Cheval Blanc. But they tend to be exceptions. Pétrus, with its clay soil and firm
tannins, or wines such as Ausone or Cheval Blanc, with their significant proportion of Cabernet Franc, are not that typical of the Right Bank. Hubert de Boüard argues that Merlot-based wines can age well, but much depends on soils, the age of the vines and vinification. ‘The wines need to be structured, and some fashionably overripe, jammy wines can have low acidity and little structure. In my experience, after 10 years or so, these wines generally lack staying power.’
Every winemaker, and many a wine writer, is often asked when is the ‘right’ moment to drink a particular bottle. The answer is that there is no such thing. If you have three bottles of a fine Bordeaux from the same year, chances are you will drink the first too young, the second at a moment when it gives great pleasure, and the third when it is in decline. But those moments can only be defined by personal taste. My moment of perfection may not be the same as yours, and vice versa. It is entirely legitimate to enjoy a great wine in its virile, imposing youth. It is equally legitimate to enjoy it during its mellow middle age – at, say, 20 years. After 30 years, the risk factor increases significantly. The chances of a wine, however great the property or vintage, being faulty are far greater at, say, 40 or 50 years. Oxidation, cork taint, poor storage, different bottlings (château bottling was the exception rather than the rule until the 1960s or beyond) can all gang up to mug a wine’s evolution. Opening a venerable bottle, especially one acquired at great expense, is an act of faith not always rewarded. I recall watching a duff bottle of 1953 Château Margaux being tipped
down the sink. Only those with unlimited means or a gambler’s instinct should collect venerable bottles. Some wine merchants and specialists organise vertical tastings that
often include wines from the 19th century or 1920s. These events don’t come cheap but they offer an opportunity to taste legendary vintages for less than the price of a single bottle. For wines from good, if not stellar, vintages such as 1978, 1985, 1988 and 1995, there are rich pickings at auction houses, with prices often lower than the grossly inflated prices of some
modern vintages.
Written by Stephen Brook
Ha, except that I stopped reading after the first two erroneous comments at the beginning.
I was actually going to to use Beaujolais to debunk the first point, but then he uses it as the prime example of his point. Beaujolais can be great both young and with maturity. I love them fresh, but to say they do not age, is flat out stupid. Some demand aging: Roilette, for example. I have quite a lot of Beaujolais in my “cellar” that is sitting at 10+ years of age and some still need time. I’ve had some Beaujolais from Bern’s that are 25+ years old. They do indeed develop additional layers of complexity with age. And then to say Sav Blanc doesn’t age, either, suggests to me that this author’s prime experience with the grape is limited to NZ. Um, the great Sav Blancs from Loire and Bordeaux age beautifully, and like their red siblings, do indeed evolve with additional layers of complexities, aromas and tastes.
I did not read any further.
I concur, counselor.
IMHO, there are hardly any red varietals that don’t improve with 10+ years (the usual caveats apply: good producers, good to excellent vintages)
What are those? Maybe Dolcetto?
I agree with both your points on those two wines. Maybe he meant aging in the context of Bdx (20-30+ years)? Oh well, I’m done quoting articles.
Please don’t. We need content to satiate our inner-pedants! 
Ha, getting shade from Levenberg… almost like the good old days on the Parker board. As I said, it’s an uphill battle. I’d wager some good old fashion blind and double-blind tasting might at least loosen some of these firmly held positions on vintages and what’s drinking well (or not). Nevertheless, when to drink wines is unquestionably subjective (for perspective, the 2011s are now being poured in mass at restaurants in Bordeaux) and people should drink their wines when they want. To be clear, nowhere have I suggested drinking old wines is the same as drinking younger wines (I’d argue it’s not always better… or worse), peddled in misinformation, or suggested Bordeaux should be Napa. Drink on…
Dude, don’t use Bern’s as a reference point for drink windows… that place is like the twilight zone where time stops!
Haha, fair enough! But you might be surprised! And I wish Berns, as often as I go there, could slow my aging.
Restaurants in the US are probably pouring 2015s - I would not say in mass as I doubt Bordeaux is poured that often anymore at restaurants in the US. Is it common for you to see a correlation between what restaurants are pouring and what is mature because that has not been common in my experience?
But Alfert is right - even Beaujolais from my own cellar ages quite nicely. And I’m sorry but if you’re going to talk about aging wine that transforms into something magnificent that could not have existed young and you don’t mention Tempranillo at all, the article isn’t worth reading.
BTW - from lots of tasting both blind and double blind.
But - if anyone is up for it . . .
You just need to spend more time in their cellars. Do they have Ted Williams’ head in there?