The truth Americans drink alot of Bordeaux young

[Howard_Cooper]

@Jeff Leve

It takes a lot of money, patience and a cellar to store wines to maturity. The average young collector does not have the time or funds to lay wine down for 10-20 or 30 years. They drink what is in their cellars.

Not necessarily. I would say more access to good retailers/auction houses. The couple of times I have been able to purchase trustworthy older Bordeaux the last couple of years or so the wines have been cheaper than buying young Bordeaux. And, somewhere in the middle, I have seen good buys in recent years on vintages like 2001 and 2004.

[Larry_P]

Rick really hit it in the 2nd post - the game of drinking 50-year-old wine is from some aristocratic tradition where a cellar was handed down through generations. Very few American collectors have that luxury, and many (most?) of us are 1st-generation collectors. Unless we have a checking account like Bill Koch, we have the choice of either drinking wines (too) young, or postponing our gratification for decades. The current American tradition as I see it is more like that of the farming family who has wine on the table every night, but a young wine made for early consumption.

This has a couple effects, one may be that so-called fine wine that might have traditionally be made to age, maybe too tannic or acidic to approach young, is not so easy to find anymore, because it’s not what the market is looking for.

One I find laughable can be seen in the parade of CT notes, drinking wines released in the past weeks or months, complaining the wine is shut down or too oaky, calling out a drinking window of “wait a couple years” when all that’s really known is the wine was opened way too young. In that world, yes a wine 5 years old has some age on it.

[Ryan_Kilkenney]

@Larry P

Rick really hit it in the 2nd post - the game of drinking 50-year-old wine is from some aristocratic tradition where a cellar was handed down through generations. Very few American collectors have that luxury, and many (most?) of us are 1st-generation collectors. Unless we have a checking account like Bill Koch, we have the choice of either drinking wines (too) young, or postponing our gratification for decades. The current American tradition as I see it is more like that of the farming family who has wine on the table every night, but a young wine made for early consumption.

I like this distinction because it pits against each other two factions I think of as being on the same side of the wino-political divide: natural-wine and old-wine enthusiasts.

[Brian_G_r_a_f_s_t_r_o_m]

@Rick Gregory

… there’s a substantial number of us who view 6 years as ‘aged’.

This always leaves me quite flummoxed, too. Such a proclamation almost always precludes me from giving that note any credence whatsoever. Of course, it’s all opinion, so who really gives, anyways?

[Brian_G_r_a_f_s_t_r_o_m]

@Randy Sloan

The best way to avoid drinking your wines too young is to get together with a group of board members and order the wine even before it’s in the bottle.

[Jeff_Leve]

@Howard Cooper

@Jeff Leve

It takes a lot of money, patience and a cellar to store wines to maturity. The average young collector does not have the time or funds to lay wine down for 10-20 or 30 years. They drink what is in their cellars.

Not necessarily. I would say more access to good retailers/auction houses. The couple of times I have been able to purchase trustworthy older Bordeaux the last couple of years or so the wines have been cheaper than buying young Bordeaux. And, somewhere in the middle, I have seen good buys in recent years on vintages like 2001 and 2004.

Howard… Are you calling 2001 and 2004 mature wine? You find good buys from those vintages because they are not great years. There are some very tasty 2001 Pomerol and St. Emilons and a few Medocs. I own a lot of them. But you cannot compare pricing in 2001 or 2004 with 2000, 2005, 2009 or 2010. Different quality, different price.

Age of maturity depends on the vintage and the taster. While I enjoy many wines young, maturity starts with 20 years of age for good wines from a top vintage.

What is your Burgundy loving palate doing buying Bordeaux? Have you finally seen the light?

[Kevin_Lloyd]

1. Most people are first generation wine collectors, so you’re starting with no “mature” wine
2. Mature wine is really expensive. While it’s true that you can often find early 2000s Bordeaux for less than current offering prices, that doesn’t tend to be the case for wines from the 80s and earlier (and from what I gather from tasting notes, some of the people in this conversation don’t consider many of those wines ready yet). We won’t discuss the cost of buying 1961s by the case
3. Buying older wine is risky
4. How else do people learn? If I want to decide whether I like LLC, the most cost effective way to make that determination is to buy and drink a recent vintage (if your response is tasting, I would note that you don’t tend to be invited to tastings where people bring out mature wines if you don’t own any). With California wines, I would like to determine if I enjoy a wine I can only acquire by mailing list before I have purchased 10 vintages.
5. The drinking is the interesting part of this hobby. I am certainly trying to set things down for longer aging. But if I had spent the last two years of wine collecting consuming nothing but “daily drinkables” and setting everything else down for the long haul, I would have given up by now.

This is not an attack on old wine, which I very much enjoy. But sometimes I think comments along the lines of “how can they drink them so young” are made by people who have either been at this for so long they have completely forgotten what it was like at the beginning, or people with such a high willingness to spend that they have little perspective.

[Rick_Gregory]

@Kevin Lloyd

1. Most people are first generation wine collectors, so you’re starting with no “mature” wine
2. Mature wine is really expensive. While it’s true that you can often find early 2000s Bordeaux for less than current offering prices, that doesn’t tend to be the case for wines from the 80s and earlier (and from what I gather from tasting notes, some of the people in this conversation don’t consider many of those wines ready yet). We won’t discuss the cost of buying 1961s by the case
3. Buying older wine is risky
4. How else do people learn? If I want to decide whether I like LLC, the most cost effective way to make that determination is to buy and drink a recent vintage (if your response is tasting, I would note that you don’t tend to be invited to tastings where people bring out mature wines if you don’t own any). With California wines, I would like to determine if I enjoy a wine I can only acquire by mailing list before I have purchased 10 vintages.
5. The drinking is the interesting part of this hobby. I am certainly trying to set things down for longer aging. But if I had spent the last two years of wine collecting consuming nothing but “daily drinkables” and setting everything else down for the long haul, I would have given up by now.

This is not an attack on old wine, which I very much enjoy. But sometimes I think comments along the lines of “how can they drink them so young” are made by people who have either been at this for so long they have completely forgotten what it was like at the beginning, or people with such a high willingness to spend that they have little perspective.

Important points. I do think it’s different to taste and drink some wines young so you can learn, determine what you like etc and to drink an entire case of a top notch Bordeaux (or Burg or…) before its 10th birthday.

Not so much now, but 5 to 10 years ago, you could easily buy well-stored older Bordeaux for the same price as a new bottle. Even now you can do that if you skip the absolute top vintages. For example, 1986 Pichon Lalande is around $200-$250 for a bottle. Given that 2009 is $170 on up, that’s not a huge premium for that age. Yes, different vintages, but the point remains…

[Pau1_M3nk3s]

@Faryan Amir-Ghassem¡

I agree with everything written in this thread.

Well said.
This thread started just after I added a bottle of '89 Lynch Bages to Cellartracker. It was quite surprising to see over 4,900 bottles in inventory!

Further denigrating the usefulness of a drinking window is the myth that that a wine in a drinking window is at some sort of peak, plateau or zone of drinking. Wine evolves quite non-linearly and I don’t think blanket date brackets do an adequate job of conveying that.
In short, drinking windows are pretty useless (just my opinion).

I do disagree with your last sentence! The window is a useful metaphor (for me) to keep me from opening wines too soon and missing secondary development.

[Otto_Dobre]

Walk into most French bistros and you will see nothing but young Bordeaux being offered. I’m not talking Michelin star restaurants, but the type that most French people enjoy.

[Brian_G_r_a_f_s_t_r_o_m]

@Otto Dobre

Walk into most French bistros and you will see nothing but young Bordeaux being offered. I’m not talking Michelin star restaurants, but the type that most French people enjoy.

True, but they aren’t exactly classed growths, either.

[Joe_Hauck]

@Brian G r a f s t r o m

@Rick Gregory

… there’s a substantial number of us who view 6 years as ‘aged’.

This always leaves me quite flummoxed, too. Such a proclamation almost always precludes me from giving that note any credence whatsoever. Of course, it’s all opinion, so who really gives, anyways?

Aged or has some age on it. These are two entirely different things. There’s a lot of wine snobbery that goes on around here.

[ToddFrench]

@Joe Hauck

@Brian G r a f s t r o m

@Rick Gregory

… there’s a substantial number of us who view 6 years as ‘aged’.

This always leaves me quite flummoxed, too. Such a proclamation almost always precludes me from giving that note any credence whatsoever. Of course, it’s all opinion, so who really gives, anyways?

Aged or has some age on it. These are two entirely different things. There’s a lot of wine snobbery that goes on around here.

Put me in the camp that loves nearly all stages of wine development, principally the secondary stages, which would probably be classified in the 6 years group.

[Benjamin_Sullivan_DNA]

@Joe Hauck

There’s a lot of wine snobbery that goes on around here.

Despite the overall goodness of the site; this unfortunately is still present.

[Rick_Gregory]

@Joe Hauck

@Brian G r a f s t r o m

@Rick Gregory

… there’s a substantial number of us who view 6 years as ‘aged’.

This always leaves me quite flummoxed, too. Such a proclamation almost always precludes me from giving that note any credence whatsoever. Of course, it’s all opinion, so who really gives, anyways?

Aged or has some age on it. These are two entirely different things. There’s a lot of wine snobbery that goes on around here.

Snobbery? My immediate comment isn’t printable. I’m not being a snob, I’m saying that fine wines are not AGED at 5 or 6 years. If you read my comment in its entirety instead of trying to make yourself feel superior, you’ll get that what I was noting were comments I’ve seen that explicitly DO term wines with just a few years on them as older/aged. Is this universal? Of course not. Do I see it, esp among the people who drink a lot of Cali wines and have recently gotten into wine? Yes. I see it among Euro-centric tasters too, again usually among people who are newer to wine and simply don’t have the exposure to older wines.

What I didn’t say was that it was wrong to drink wine at that point. I don’t give a rat’s ass when you or anyone else wants to drink their wine… but in the context of the thread topic, I was making the point that a lot of people seem to consider 5 years to be aged and 10-12 to be old. That perspective informs how people view drinking their Bordeaux and other fine wines. Again, I was discussing the topic of the thread, unlike yourself. Next time, pay attention.

[Rick_Gregory]

@Todd F r e n c h

@Joe Hauck

@Brian G r a f s t r o m

This always leaves me quite flummoxed, too. Such a proclamation almost always precludes me from giving that note any credence whatsoever. Of course, it’s all opinion, so who really gives, anyways?

Aged or has some age on it. These are two entirely different things. There’s a lot of wine snobbery that goes on around here.

Put me in the camp that loves nearly all stages of wine development, principally the secondary stages, which would probably be classified in the 6 years group.

No, 6 years won’t usually be secondary. Among some wines it might, but for Barolo, N Rhones, much Burg, or Bordeaux etc that point’s not reached until closer to 12-15. To be clear, by secondary, I’m talking about the emergence of developed aromas and flavors, but still with the presence of noticeable fruit. Secondary doesn’t, to me, mean that point where a tightly wound wine has started to loosen up a bit. I don’t really have a name for that.

ONce again, I don’t particularly care when someone drinks any of their wines… but I dislike being labeled as snobbish when I’m pointing out that 4-6 years is in no way aged.

[Shannon_Perdue]

Just reading the 2003 thread and looking at some TN"s, we Americans drink Bordeaux young, in general. But enough of the infanticide comments, it is what it is…I think its just curiosity? Impatience? Or that’s what is around at the time. Probably all three. But who cares, its our wine, right?

So what? Drink what you like.

[Joe_Hauck]

@Rick Gregory

@Joe Hauck

@Brian G r a f s t r o m

This always leaves me quite flummoxed, too. Such a proclamation almost always precludes me from giving that note any credence whatsoever. Of course, it’s all opinion, so who really gives, anyways?

Aged or has some age on it. These are two entirely different things. There’s a lot of wine snobbery that goes on around here.

Snobbery? My immediate comment isn’t printable. I’m not being a snob, I’m saying that fine wines are not AGED at 5 or 6 years. If you read my comment in its entirety instead of trying to make yourself feel superior, you’ll get that what I was noting were comments I’ve seen that explicitly DO term wines with just a few years on them as older/aged. Is this universal? Of course not. Do I see it, esp among the people who drink a lot of Cali wines and have recently gotten into wine? Yes. I see it among Euro-centric tasters too, again usually among people who are newer to wine and simply don’t have the exposure to older wines.

What I didn’t say was that it was wrong to drink wine at that point. I don’t give a rat’s ass when you or anyone else wants to drink their wine… but in the context of the thread topic, I was making the point that a lot of people seem to consider 5 years to be aged and 10-12 to be old. That perspective informs how people view drinking their Bordeaux and other fine wines. Again, I was discussing the topic of the thread, unlike yourself. Next time, pay attention.

Did I direct this statement at you? You may have been quoted, but it was a blanket statement aimed more at Brian who claims to ignore notes on 6 year old Bordeaux.

[Eric_Ifune]

Patience and good sense is all it takes to develop a cellar of aged wine. I was fortunate to catch the wine bug early. I celebrated college graduation by buying my first full case, 1978 Leoville Barton. Still have a bottle. I was also fortunate to be ahead of the price curve for the wine I own, and stocked up good volumes. I purchased wines with the intent of cellaring, and bought those wines that could or needed age. Now, I probably couldn’t affort many of the wines I own; but the caveat is that if I did buy a horrendously expensive bottle, I’d want to age it to gain it’s maximum enjoyment. Boards like this should be the best source of information as to when to open.

[Benjamin_Sullivan_DNA]

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