Old Wine Ullage -- Help Needed

WINE TALK
1

I’m thinking about purchasing the below birth year wine for a friend. It’s a 1971 birth year wine.

The retailer said that this about the wine “Cork is holding snug. Label is fraying a bit, but all-together seems in good/great shape. This bottle was kept at a colleagues’ private residence, in a proper storage cellar. The storage was competent, and then moved to our store facility, where it has continued to be kept in climate/storage controlled conditions. I can personally vouch for the quality of the storage.”

I am a complete novice at buying older wines and have bought exactly 3 wines 20 years old and this doubles that. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated. TIA.
Volnay1971.JPG

2

Looks fine to me, I’ve seen lots of worse looking bottles still show well. That’s a great vintage as well so I’d say go for it if the price is right (but defer to the real Burg freaks here).

3

Ullage looks proper for the age of the wine.

Moreover, ullage is not a good predictor of the quality of the wine. I’ve had highly ullaged (e.g., about 1/3 of the bottle gone) that have been magnificent.

4

Corey, Ullage there is not alarming for a 40 year old bottle - especially since you are able to verify provenance.

5

I’d hit that.

6

+1 [cheers.gif]. If no SOS - go for it.

7

Looks fine. Had lunch yesterday with a mate of mine from the AWRI and we were talking about ullaged older wines. He is of the belief that as long as the cork is in tact in many cases older heavily ullaged wines are indeed fine due to their being nitrogen in the head space.

8

Thank you for all of your knowledgeable replies. I admit I was concerned and was thinking of nixing it. Will purchase tomorrow.

With much appreciation. [cheers.gif]

9

Interesting, when did it become a common practice to use nitrogen in the bottling process?

10

I don’t understand the science Sean but it was along the lines of that nitrogen was formed in the head space as oxygen passed through the cork.

11

Not that I’m an expert but it looks pretty good to me.

12

Firstly, let me say that I hope that the occasion for this wine is a grand event and all involved have a fantastic time. [give_heart.gif]

Even if they did us nitrogen, it would only make up a small faction of that headspace, since the original headspace was much less.

If the wine is still good, it is because the tannins have been able to handle the amount of 02 that has been in contact with the wine. At least as I understand it.

13

I recently took a gamble on some 1964 and 1945 bottles. The 1964 wines had slightly higher fills than yours (3-4cm). The 1945 had a much lower fill (5-6cm). The flawed bottle of the night was a 1964 with a good fill. If price isn’t too crazy, it’s worth the gamble.

Regarding the nitrogen issue, I think the point was that air is mostly nitrogen and only about 21% oxygen.

From wikipedia:
Dry air contains roughly (by volume) 78.09% nitrogen, 20.95% oxygen, 0.93% argon, 0.039% carbon dioxide, and small amounts of other gases

14

Looks fine. Furthermore any bottle of wine younger than me is not “old”.

15

In an old burg pre use of sparging this seems strange or does S02 consume the free oxygen leaving more Nitrogen ?

Calling Alan Rath for a chemistry lesson ?

16

While the ullage of (estimated) app. 4.5 cm (1 3/4 inch) isn´t exceptional for a 1971 it is absolutely ok - and the odds that the wine is fine are very intact - even more so with a definitely good storage.

But the truth is in the bottle … I´ve had Burgundies with 6, 7, even 7.5 cm ullage which were fine … and ones with less than 4cm that were bad …

I would recommend to slow-oxy the bottle for 5 hours, and decant only 5 min. before serving.

17

I agrre with those who say the ullage is appropriate to the age, but I have to ask - How could the retailer possibly tell that the…

"Cork is holding snug.

18

If that were the point, then why wouldn’t we just let there be lots of headspace when we store wine? The 21% 02 is plenty to take part of the the alc in wine to acetaldehyde. If there is not enough S02 to bind it, this will appear as sherry -ish. From what I can understand.

19

Push on it?

20

I wasn’t at lunch with Jeremy (wish I was!) so I don’t know the context in which that comment was made. Maybe the point was that the difference in the amount of oxygen between 3cm and 4cm or even 5cm ullage isn’t that much of a difference since the majority of that volume of air is nitrogen anyways.

I’m sure Jeremy has emailed his mate to clarify and will post the response soon.