I think your conclusion about the caramel note might be a stretch. See others perspective from CT, caramel seems to be a theme in the 1999 vintage. I saw nothing in my bottle that indicated it showed any different than a well stored bottle.
Brig - heat issues aside. You bought this wine for a celebration of the 21st birthday of Carly, your goddaughter. And for many years, you stored said wine in a closet, waiting, presumably, for the day that Carly would turn 21years of age, which, in America is a pretty big deal. But then you drank it with âKim, Chris, Rosie and Taylor.â
Wtf? Dude. You didnât share it with Carly?
I donât doubt that it was a thoroughly enjoyable bottle, Brig, and appreciate the report. But I donât think your experience is necessarily generalizable to a wider audience.
With N=1 and no control, thereâs insufficient data to reach any conclusion other than this bottle was fine on its own and offered great drinking pleasure. Which is what this is all about.
Iâve done blind and non-blind comparisons over a number of years with 3 cases of 1983 Prieure Lichine. Half stored in my fatherâs passive basement (~65-75 degree annual swings) vs. half stored in my temp-controller cellar (55-57 degrees) for the first 10 years of its life, then all stored in my cellar. Most comparisons showed the passive bottles to be more advanced. Not damaged, and not noticeably different if not tasted side by side on the same day.
Still a small sample size. My conclusion: it makes a difference. Not a huge one for a sturdy Bordeaux.
Other experiences with 1988 Climens purchased on release vs. secondary market and tasted both side by side and individually suggest it makes a bigger difference for less robust wines. I didnât know the storage details of the secondary market purchase but most bottles were proclaimed wonderful by many experienced tasters when drunk in isolation. When paired with bottles I stored from release the difference in color and freshness was obvious. It was easy for me to tell without looking at the tag which batch a bottle was from by color alone.
Iâve never done this with Champagne but the party line is that it tends to be more sensitive to temperature than most. That said, your experience suggests we do obsess about temperature more than maybe we should.
I do believe wine generally speaking is sturdy enough to survive non-cellar temperatures but I also have found from experience (buying older wines from a wide array of sources over the past 25 years) that there is no substitute for properly cellaring wine.
It kind of goes to what you want to get out of it.
If you are going to buy 1990 Ausone, to pick an example, why wouldnât you cellar it at the right conditions?
Brad pretty much said what I would have going in and expanded on that. The rapid changes and spikes in temperature are to be feared the most.
Champagne corks tend to lose that bounce back with age. Not surprised a cork 20 years in stayed narrow.
Wine is more resilient than many want to believe. But keeping valuable bottles around the house that are meant to be aged 10 plus years does have risks. You are also shifting that aging timeline as others have noted. That wine you wanted to drink at 25 years might be best drank at 15 years under such conditions. You canât really use the same drinking windows as others are.
Glad it was good though. I love Champagne with some secondary notes.
That doesnât really follow unless every wine everywhere pre-1950 was stored in a warmish climate for 20 plus years prior to consumption. Heâs talking about a 20 year old bottle of Dom P. Most people drink their bottles closer to release. Also, the current parameters people use for cellaring wine in terms of temperature and humidity come from typical underground cellars from wineries in Europe. Because wines known to age well were stored in those or at least in cellars below peoples homes and castles, etc. People were not listening to wine collectors that stored their wines for decades in closets in warmer climates because those people were outliers if they existed at all. Chances are most people that did have had poor experiences.
For the folks claiming âN = 1â here, you all must have missed where Brig said heâs never had a(n apparently) heat-damaged bottle from this storage. Sounds like N > 1.
That said, I will continue storing my wines in the 50s.
I was going to say the same thing, Chris. If youâve ever been in cellars in the Loire, Burgundy, Rhone, Germany, Piedmont, etc., they are quite cool and probably never get over 60 degrees even in the summertime.
FWIW I have bought Dom P from unverified storage and it showed fine. Itâs just that for the most part I choose not to do that anymore. And I am very glad that all the wines are doing well for Brig.
That closet makes me nervous. I hope those wines all turn out well. Any specific reason you donât spring for a wine fridge? I donât have room for one so I use off site, and my collection is about 1/2 of yours.