I keep seeing lots of interesting stuff on auction, but I have a policy of only bidding on wines with near perfect fills unless the wine is from 1970 or before. I do this because we often see wines from the late 70’s and early 80’s with perfect fills, suggesting bottles from that era with base-neck fills or lower may have been mistreated along the way.
Is this reasoning sound, or it is too restrictive in general? What’s been your experience will old wines with imperfect fills? Of course, price is always a variable, so assume for the discussion the asking price is attractive, but not a screaming deal.
Right now, I am specifically looking at a lot of 30 year old wine (photo attached), so thoughts on these bottles in particular are welcome. The asking price is quite fair.
The left one is even into neck …
There is no problem at all - except you´d like to store them for another 15-20 years … then the slightly weaker cork of No. 2 + 3 could cause additional ullage.
However - it´s an issue of price … I´d pay less for No. 2 + 3 …
I don’t think a base neck fill is necessarily an issue for a 30-year-old wine. I would, however, want to get a picture that gives me a real sense of the color of the wine as well to see if there’s any suggestion of significant oxidation.
A follow-up question:
Those of you who have cellared wines in climate-controlled cellars since release for decades, what does the typical fill look like for the bottle in your cellar at 30-40 years, 40-50 years, 50+years?
I didn’t start cellaring wine until 1995 and then not in earnest until 2000 and I didn’t get climate-control until early in 2005, so I have no useful data yet.
A bit hard to see, but this is a 1967 Carruades that I have haad since the mid 1970s and abused for at least the first 8 years or so, and the fill is better than #2 and about the same as #3. What does that mean? Who knows?
Opened a bottle of 1982 Ch Leoville Poyferre with a fill like the center bottle and it was excellent so I think the storage conditions are more important than the fill.
Last night I opened a 1981 Certan-Giraud that had a fill a bit lower than Jay’s bottle. It was a $30 gamble from K&L so what the heck. It was in pretty good shape and drank very nicely, though a few of the tertiary aromas hinted at warmer than ideal storage - let’s say 1% maderized.
Last weekend I had an 81 La Conseillante with a fill well up into the neck and it was pristine.
I would be happy to try bottles like you showed if the prices are good, though their storage probably hasn’t been ideal. I don’t think they’ve been damaged.
Fill level can reflect cork quality as much as storage conditions. I think Bordeaux corks from the 70s and early '80s often allow the fill to slowly drop, expecially, I suppose, in a passive cellar like mine, where one has annual temperature variation. I’m not familiar with corks from other decades…
Even mid shoulder, even low shoulder, can be fine, if the storage conditions have been decent. The color of the wine may be a better indicator of its condition. And, of course, good strong vintages will always age better than mid-weight ones.
Here is my contribution to the thread, my birthyear Mouton from one of the greatest vintages ever in the history of Bordeaux:
It’s been sitting in one of my wine fridges since 1995, who knows what hell it went through before that. I simply cannot wait to taste it in November, on my 50th, to experience the 69 that Levenberg scores it on CT.
Bordeaux bottles from the early to mid-80s that I purchased on release and stored in a temp controlled cellar almost all had fills still well into the necks at 25-30 years. A few were base neck. None were below the neck except a rare leaker.
Bottles of the same wine purchased 15 years or more later would occasionally have similar fills, but more often the fills were lower than the ones I’d been cellaring since release. The thing is, some of the base-neck bottles were just as good as and on occasion even better than some of the purchased-on-release bottles. The success rate was higher with the bottles I’d cellared their entire lives, but I wouldn’t dismiss a base neck bottle with 30 years of age just because of the fill. Price, house reputation and provenance would be other factors.
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