People talk about quality and style in a tasting note but the other thing is the concept of “potential”. One of the critics jobs are probably to account for potentials and even WSET teaches you to how to predict the potential. But I’m recently wondering how good our educated guess is, and what we’re basing the prediction on.
The very basic theory is when the wine is young, it has primary fruits and secondary aromatics, and it would gain tertiary complexity over time. So, it needs structure and fruit intensity to become a great wine in the future. But I am almost certain this is oversimplification.
For example, people talk about a dumb phase where the wine is uninspiring or even a shut down phase where aromas are lacking. And it seems almost impossible to guess potential of wine based on such sample, unless you know the label from past vintages and know how they typically evolve.
But even then, we all know even critics change their scores sometimes quite drastically over the span of a decade. I’ve also seen multiple of Jasper Morris tasting notes that say sth like “I hope this is just in an awkward phase” or Wine Advocates notes with a question mark to denote “maybe an off bottle?”.
I think we mostly can guess correctly if the wine is showing well (as expected) and checks all the boxes to be an “age-worthy” wine, but if not, we just guess based on the label and its past track records? If so, what’s our success rate on this educated guess? How often did you get surprised by wine that unexpectedly aged greatly or terribly?
I do not have the full context or a precise quote to offer, but Michael Broadbent once wrote- possibly many times- that it takes about 10 years to really see where a vintage is going. This was in reference to Bordeaux, but I think can be applied to most ageworthy wines as a high level rule of thumb.
I have never gone back and done a statistical analysis on my long term success rate of being right, but I do think it is important to make predictions and write them down. That degree of formality helps them stick in your mind, plus it is an important part of documenting your experience with the hobby. It can help in future vintages, but there will always be surprises in both directions.
In the long run, I am not sure being right is a viable goal. It is more about making smarter guesses over time. And at today’s prices (plus availability issues for many top wines), I think it is all the more important to document all the opinions and guesses you have to assist in some way in making decisions about when to open bottles. Precious few of us, and I am certainly not in that number, can find or afford the best wines of the world at the quantities we used to be able to with ease. And so there is just a lot less room for mistakes when guessing when to pull a cork.
A lot of knowledge about a wine or a region over time improves the probability of being correct in the assessment, but even winemakers who know their wines better than anyone else will also experience surprises of how a vintage developed.
I think this constant discovery is part of the excitement with wine for most of us who age wines. Like Tom mentioned, observing and noting is an important part of it all.
Certain varieties are easier to predict, others like Nebbiolo can be a lot harder to read requiring more from the consumer in terms of time at every stage. In bottle, opened…
Predicting the future in general is quite difficult
Great post! And I’m hoping to see lots of honest participation on this one.
Taking things in turn …
Whenever I perceive a wine to be in a dumb phase, I say so, but always leave open the possibility that I’m wrong about the dumb phase, and it’s either (1) a bad bottle or (2) a situation where the wine has gone in a completely different (and unfortunate) direction than I would have expected. Prognosticating about the future on the basis of tasting a wine during a dumb phase is, imo, foolish — I’d consider that surmise not much more helpful than someone doing the same without even having tasted the wine.
This doesn’t happen nearly enough — critics and amateurs, alike. Far too many people get attached to their initial opinion, and aren’t willing to be honest when subsequent experiences are different. I fully agree with @Tom_Reddick where he recommends recording your honest thoughts/opinions/prognostications — in my opinion, this is the best way to learn, and also to improve your palate. This exercise forces you to commit to something, and if you’re good at writing-down the reasoning or basis behind your impressions and guesses for the future then you’ve put yourself in a great position to learn more later.
Track record and experience with a wine are obviously quite important with respect to guessing a wine’s ability to improve with age. But experience with wine, generally, is helpful when you’re presented with a new-to-you wine, and you’re trying to predict its future … I mean, we’ve all had that experience where we tasted a wine for the first time and are blown away by it, and believe it has the goods to improve with age — that doesn’t happen on Day 1 of wine connoisseurship — it takes years of thoughtful experience to legitimately have that experience.
As for success rate? With some wines, given their long track records, anyone could have a pretty good record predicting the future. I think where things get interesting is when you’re tasting a wine for the first time, and you are unaware of its track record. For those wines, I’d say a 50% success rate would be impressive — people are wrong far more often than most are willing to admit — as if it’s moral failing, or something.
As the years pass, I find I’m less likely to be surprised by how well/poorly a wine has aged. Many reasons for this, most of which I assume are obvious — that said, one I’ll throw-out there is this: There will be no surprises in the absence of opportunity to be surprised.
Scott is right to call out track record. If prior vintages of a wine show a pattern, with some variance for vintage, then it’s a lot easier to make a prediction. It’s informative to look at Aussie critic Jeremy Oliver’s drinking windows. What on first sight looks like precise start/finish dates, on closer inspection shows he uses ~ 10 brackets e.g. something like 1-2 years, 2-4 years, 4-7 years, … , ending in 30-40 years. He’ll have a baseline for the label e.g. 12-20 years. In a sturdy year he might move a label up a bracket to 20-30 years, in a weaker year down a bracket or two e.g. 5-8, or 8-12). That really is about the limit of precision we should be thinking in. The balance Scott mentions is the factor that dictates, and this is easier if the taster has experience in a label to extrapolate from memory such differences.
If it’s a brand new label, or a significant winemaking / vineyard source change, then all bets are off. Compare in the mind against wines it ‘tastes a bit like’, but it’s going to be a rough guestimate.
Personal success rate? I don’t know. I certainly recall one where I was way off, basing my view on the bright acidity, but thinking the fruit would be sturdier than it was. A few modest (but not tricked up) wines have very much surprised in their longevity. Aside from that, I treat drinking windows as the very broadest of hints as to whether a wine is one to bury, or can be drunk, so don’t tend to have a feedback loop to re-assess.
I’m no expert, but I think nice fresh primary fruit balanced by a stiff backbone of acid and tannin in a young red Burgundy is a promising factor that favors long term upside/positive development potential. I assume these are wines made from phenolically ripe fruit generally.
In contrast, when a young red is ALL ripe fruit, and LACKS acid / tannin to buttress things, even a lover of primary fruit like me can find them flabby and one-dimensional - wines with little hope of positive evolution. I assume these may be wines made from overly ripe grapes, all sugar, no concentration/complexity.
For example, I felt like a lot of solar-vintage 2018 red (and white) Burgs tasted ripely unbalanced. I’ve certainly had some nice exceptions, but generally? No.
In contrast, I’m a fan of 2015s (and um, 16, 17) YMMV.
A brief comment on the dull phase experienced by some wines a couple years after bottling… I have rationalized this in my head as being a result of the slow hydrolysis of fermentation-derived esters (short-lived fruity and floral aromas) revealing what is underneath, which takes a couple years. Depending on the variety and how the wine is made, this can reveal varietal characteristic (e.g., Sauvignon Blanc thiols like passionfruit or boxwood may be even more prominent) or make oak usage seemingly more prominent. For varieties that are inherently neutral and made without oak (like the classic example of Marsanne/Roussanne), the wine can seem flat. Then once the tertiary aromas develop things change again. Regardless, the hydrolysis of esters is a major change occurring in the first few years that will certainly impact how a wine shows in a way that depends on the variety, vintage, and winemaking decisions.
Unless you consistently buy in quantity to taste over long periods, you’ll never have the inventory to really know.
I have had great young wines that I held a bottle or two for longer periods that really were better young. I have also bought older bottles on auction sites what people probably thought of as a cheap wine when released that turned out to be glorious 20 years later.
One other major ‘wrinkle’ here is ‘modern winemaking techniques’, especially in places like Napa and Bordeaux, have truly changed how wines are made with a somewhat ‘unknown’ aging trajectory. And here’s what I mean:
Many modern wines from these regions are being picked later, then ‘manipulated’ to achieve ‘balance’ via techniques such as reverse osmosis, micro-filtration to remove VA and other attributes, micro oxygenation, and other techniques to make wines that you normally would not touch for a decade or two quite approachable and drinkable on release. The question then becomes - how do these age? And just as importantly, are most consumers buying these types of wines now aging them as they used to?
I get the feeling that this phenomenon is not happening with most other regions in France or Italy, etc - but I could be wrong about that.
Again, just something else to consider comparing ‘older’ wines and many ‘current releases’.
Probably lower level of manipulation, but absolutely methods are changing in the winery and the vineyards. It has me doubting which nebbiolo wines might make 30-50 years of age, and a few that have fallen over in a heap inside 15 years. The old closing down period is not a given any more.
Then there’s the flipside of natural wines, biodynamic, organic etc. where ‘less’ many be done to manipulate the grapes/wines, but those changes still have an effect, sometimes dramatic and not always for the better.
Great points - newer generation of winemakers don’t necessarily want to just ‘follow in the footsteps of those who came before them’ but instead want to creat their own paths - and sometimes this will lead to a different style of wines . . . and this may lead to wines that may not age in the same manner as before.
And folks have said ad nauseum, there have been winemakers making their wines in a ‘natural’ style for decades with much success - but plenty of others that are not standing the test of time.
Actually, there have been pretty big changes in how young Barolo and Bordeaux are in the last decade plus. They generally seem much less closed, less fiercely tannic, much more enjoyable. And that isn’t just the “modernist” producers in those regions, either.
I think a lot of us are watching with curiosity to see how much better, worse, differently, sooner, later etc. they develop over time.
Just a couple threads that come to mind, but there is much more of this discussion around the board.
I think this comment goes hand in hand with how many ‘hope’ these wines will show younger - the question is whether this should be considered ‘more enjoyable’ or ‘more ready for business earlier’?
When it would drink well is one thing, but how good it would become is the other thing. My post was more about the latter, but I guess these two questions are closely related.
I personally buy 3 each of 10 different wines rather than a bottle each of 30 different wines, so I get less damage from opening one at a wrong time, but it’s terrible if all 3 end up being mediocre throughout the years.
I’m not that good at predictions on newly released wines or those that are in a dumb stage. Forget about barrel samples. If it weren’t for familiarity with the winery and its track record and other people’s early assessments I’d be close to throwing darts in the dark.
Fortunately I’ve got plenty of friends online and in IRL plus a fair bit of experience to help out. There are still good surprises and bad calls.
