I see many of us writing TN on very young wines. Do you try them at release and then keep some in your cellar for a certain length of time to age?
Do you follow what anyone says is the drinking window and find they’re right or wrong ? In your opinion of course.
Randy & I tend to drink most of our wines on the young side but do have some set aside for down the road. We don’t generally buy wines that need 20+ yrs to be ready to drink because at our age who knows if we’ll still be here to enjoy them.
Obviously it depends on the wine. For the super expensive stuff of which I only get a bottle or two I read up on the tasting notes and judge a window from there. As much as you want to taste it as soon as possible, if you only have one bottle you will not get the full (proper) expression of it.
If it’s something that I buy multiple bottles or a case of, I generally will open a bottle pretty early on and experiment with it. Drink about half and judge how much I like it and then save the rest to taste the next day and see how it changed with time.
I like Bordeaux around 15 years, Burgundy around 20 BUT we don’t have many that old so we tend to drink a few young’ns now and again. I like older Cali Cab but I don’t get to drink it often enough to gauge how much age to put the newer offerings so we’re aging some just to see. I LOVE old Champagne and I’m hoping to keeps some around until they’re 30 or so. I’m not really sure how long to age Oregon Pinot, I think it ages well but it drinks so well young it keeps me from opening the Burgundies that are supposed to be sleeping.
Around 15-20 years. I’ve found that virtually all of the wines I like really take off at 15. I’ll very occasisonally sample wines younger but I usually buy a few bottles of everyday stuff and use that to try regions. For example, I’ve a bottle of the 2010 St Cosme CdR in the house and a bottle of 09 Beaujolais. Had a Mayacamas SB the other day. Will I ever cellar any of those three? Nope. But they’re fun to try.
Usually don’t even touch 'em short of their tenth birthday. I, too, buy a range of wines. Some for early and everyday drinking to enjoy while the other stuff slumbers, but I also have a good stock of older stuff to take out when the occasion calls for it. Just about every time I “check” on an age-worthy wine early in its evolution, I regret it because I know that with a little more patience, it would have evolved into something better. At around ten years, I’ll check in and get a handle on how the wine is doing and make a decision as to when I’ll try the next one. I also use CT to see when a wine might be turning the corner.
As far as hope goes, my wish is to buy wines that will age and evolve 40+ years. I don’t like worrying that a wine isn’t going to last. I’d rather look forward to tertiary flavor development. Not all my stuff will go that long, but I’m fairly certain a significant portion of it will. Some has already and is still going.
Syrah 5 to 15 years from vintage
Cabs 7 to 20 years
Barolo 10 to 25?
Riesling 0 to 25
Loire Chenin 0 to forever
Sauternes 0 to forever
Bordeaux 3 to 20
Burgundy - Still trying to figure that one out
Beaujolais 0 to 8
Sangiovese 3 to 15
Pinot (as a general rule) 3 to 15
Zinfandel 0-2, but exceptions eat up the rule.
90% of my cellar can be opened in a moments notice.
10%, I want a few more years on. Just a few.
The primary use of my actual cellar (Eurocave) is to get me through the summer without heat damaging my wines. That’s not to say I won’t open it in Novemeber following that summer…
I love my son, but I really want to die with a used ‘selection’.
When you grow up poor and make it through med school, and then spend years paying off huge student loans, delayed gratification is a way of life. When I buy wine to age, I am NEVER tempted to drink it sooner than I want to. I figure young wine is always easy to come by. Properly aged wine is not.
So, when I buy good Bordeaux, I like to wait 15 years or so depdnign on the vintage. Therefore, I wait.
My california wines, for the most part, I like to drink young, so I drink those right away.
For Red Burgs:
If we have 3+ bottles, we try to drink one early before they close down (unless it is a vintage like 2005 where it is almost a no-brainer that we’ll like them better with some age). If only one bottle then try to watch TNs to get a feel for when a good drinking window would be. We like our red burgs to have emerged from the closed down phase, and picked up some elements of maturity while retaining just a bit of fruit. Depending on vintage, producer and specific wine of course, but for village level wines this may be 5-10 years, then 10+ for 1er and Grand Cru.
For Chablis:
Most we’ll drink them 5 years until prem-ox is solved. If multiple bottles of a Grand Cru, will save one for 10+ years to chance a magical experience.
For Rhones:
We really prefer these with some age on them. For Cote du Rhones, usually will cellar for 2-3 years after release. CdPs usually will cellar until ~10 years old, then start sampling. Rarely drink young CdPs on release (except an occasional bottle in a vintage like '08).
As with most others, it depends on the wine. Also, I like to occasionally do blind tastings of newer vintages with family and friends. Generally, though, for the wines I drink the most frequently:
Chianti - 5-15 yrs. post vintage
Brunello - 10-20 yrs. post vintage
Barolo - 12+ yrs. post vintage
Cotes du Rhone and the like - 2-5 years post vintage
Chateaunuef du Pape - 7-12 years post vintage
CA cabs and blends - 7-8+ yrs post vintage (although I’ve recently been opening a few sooner, specifically to try wines that I bought on reputation/recommendation for the last 2-3 vintages but hadn’t yet tried myself)
Most of my big aging wines I bought in 1999-2003 before my son was born and are wines I want to get at least 15 years past vintage. At the time I was also a relative noob and wanted to try aged verions of everything, so the bottles are an eclectic mishmash from all over the world and almost all singles. My preference is to get as many of those wines (still around 10 cases worth) into their true ‘mature’ stage, erring on the side of older if possible. For most of my really nice bottles I bought a few lesser wines from the same area to allow me to check in on the vintage without busting out the big guns. Nowadays I buy maybe 3-4 bottles a year that I want to age that long, with most of my purchases for short term drinking and to help play defense for the long term agers that are starting to look more and more attractive.
Regarding the “recommended” drinking windows, I find the major wine publications to err on the early side, so I tend to ignore their windows as more often than not, the wine starts to become “ready” at the very end of the window the publication recommends. Beyond that, my learnings, which obviously vary by vintage and producer look something like this:
CA Cab: 10-20
WA Cab: 7-20
OR Pinot: 10+
CA pinot: 4+
Chard: 4-7
Syrah: 7-20
N. Rhone: 15+
+1
I’m a relatively young collector with a modest cellar of young, ageworthy wines. My goal is to be able to open a high quality bottle with at least 10 years of age on it about once a week. That means my buying will have to significantly outpace my consumption for at least another 5 years. I don’t know how my wife puts up with me. I’m thinking of putting a stereo system in my wine room that plays Guns ‘n Roses’ “Patience” on endless loop.
The wines I bought for the kids (birth year stuff) will have to wait 20 to 40 years.
The stuff we bought for us, we like our Bordeaux and Northern Rhones after 10 years,Red Burgs and Chateauneufs after 8, Italians & Spanish after 6. For California wines, we would drink them right on release.
We would like to age our whites for similar amounts of time, but the whole premox thing has us a little worried, so we rarely age a white past 10 years.
Dessert wines, a lot of these can last for a very long time. They offer nice drinking from the start, so there’s no real minimum aging and there’s no hurry either.
Still cellaring my Bordeaux from 1986 and younger, Red Burgundy from 1989 and younger, German Riesling from 1990 and younger, Austrian from 1997 and younger, Alsace from 1988 and younger, Piedmont from from 1989 and younger, Rhone from 1990 and younger. Drinking mainly California from late 1970’s amd mid 1980’s, Bordeaux from the early 1980’s, Burgundy and Rhone from 1988 and earlier. I like older wine and am fortunate to have started cellaring 30 years ago.
I see many of us writing TN on very young wines. Do you try them at release and then keep some in your cellar for a certain length of time to age?
Do you follow what anyone says is the drinking window and find they’re right or wrong ? In your opinion of course.
I try them when I buy them and then try them later. Sometimes I keep them way longer than I expected and that’s how I end up w 20 year old stuff I never expected to have.
Drinking windows - I don’t follow anyone’s drinking windows. A lot of what I have is Spanish - there’s no credible critic who’s had more than I. Some is Hungary - ditto exponentially. Some is WA and there’s little history - I have some from the 1990s and those are in fact the data points. Some is Italian - we know what we’re doing there, same w the N. Rhone. And some is CA/Napa and there’s disagreement there - I prefer them young for the most part, young meaning 10 years or less.
The question got me curious about the reality vs. my perception of this. I think I drink a lot of old wine, but the reality is that I also drink a lot of younger wines. My avg appears to be around 11 years overall. That includes whites, Roses, lighter reds, party wines, restaurant wines, tastings, etc, which drive the number down.
Well, I don’t count wines that I don’t ever cellar. That is, I’m not counting the 2010 St Cosme CdR I just had, nor do I really count any everyday wine that I buy and drink within a short time. For the same reason, I don’t count restaurant wines, etc.
Agreed. That was actually my point. I don’t think about these wines when I see a question like this…but the reality (numbers don’t lie) is that I don’t just drink older wines (reds typically 15-25+, whites 10-15). When I actually look at what I’ve drunk, I’m surprised that there are also a lot of younger wines for a variety of reasons.
