A couple quick thoughts that popped into my mind while enjoying two “past peak” '86 Napa Cabs last week:
Seems without this experience it’s (nearly) impossible to say when a wine is drinking at its peak, no?
Additionally, just because a wine is “past peak” doesn’t mean it doesn’t have a lot to offer in the way of hedonistic or intellectual pleasure.
A corollary to point 1…peak is in the palate of the taster. My prime drinking may be your infanticide. I’ve also found many wines to go through a transformation where they seem to be “past peak” but later show tertiary flavors that I really enjoy. Admittedly, the “old wine” experience can be more homogeneous, so I don’t intend to keep all of my past-peak wines until they reach dust just because I enjoy the occasional dusty bottle.
Cheers,
fred
I guess it depends on how far past peak we’re talking. One sweet brown tired wine tastes much like another. To my palate anyway. They love it in London though! 
Firstly, many people have different ‘peaks’. Your past it’s peak might be just entering it’s proper window for some. Beyond that, many wine seem to last and live for a long time past their peak. Some will fall off quicker but I think that is related to how long the wine should have been aged in the first place. I’ve had older Cabs that were clearly beyond where they should have been held to but then one next to it of the same or similar age that was in a great place.
I would suggest that you look at “drinking windows” as relative indications of size and structure only. I.e., one wine needs “more time” than another. Given decent storage conditions, good wines will last and likely improve for a LOT longer. My problem is getting my wines to AGE! '70 Bordeaux are still tough, in some cases, though '66s are drinkable! ![[wink.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/0/04707e6a7bbb03e0153e349d8a9270d30e1e9525.gif "wink"){kind=small}
Burgs from the mid-'80s and before are usually “ready”, but anything younger could use more age. I had some '91 and '92 “Napa” Cabs recently (i.e. just the generic Napa bottlings) and even the Mondavi Napa was excellent, likewise Newton, Stag’s Leap, Groth, etc.
Btw, I find the slow-O treatment to be very useful for older bottles, as it encourages the fruit to develop and deepen but preserves more vitality and freshness than would be the case with decanting, which can “soften” an older wine into something bland, or even encourage excess oxidation.
Besides the huge amount of subjectivity, peak recognition is no easy feat. For example: White rhones. They baffle me. Too young and they can taste over-the-hill. How does that happen? I’ve loved a couple that have been on, but guessing the peak? If a wine doesn’t come around in 15 - 20 years, will it ever?
RT
I consistently see notes on CT that say a wine is past its peak and is now on the downside. Usually has to do with the fruit starting to recede. To my palate, this is very often when a wine starts to become a lot more interesting.
“Peak is subjective.”
I totally agree with that statement, and I think it matters not that such is the truth. My point is that it’s valuable for people to taste wines that they consider “past peak,” as they define the term. If someone has never had a Barolo that he or she considered “past peak,” then how could that person ever say a Barolo is “at peak” until they’ve had one they considered to be “past peak?” Example: I’ve very little Burgundy experience. That little experience does not include ever sampling a bottle that I felt was past its peak; therefore, I am not currently able to say with much certainty that any given Burg. is drinking at its peak – I could guess - sure - but that guess would be lacking the confidence that such “past peak” experience would bring.
I think the whole idea is quite wrong, either pre-, at- or past-. Wine doesn’t behave like that.
Tom, I get what you’re saying – I really do – but you’re being difficult. ![[tease.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/c/c5b32b76bebaa359b0452ae247b61189ffe5fa7e.gif "tease"){kind=small}
Interesting subject. When I think of ‘peak’ I think of a bell curve … at Peak (for me) there is still significant fruit but a bunch of secondary aromas and flavors have added complexity and interest. On the way to the Peak there is more fruit and less secondary. On the way from the Peak there is more secondary and less fruit (let’s not get started on tertiary here). If Peak = most enjoyable moment of drinking, than on both sides of the bell curve there are equal qualitative moments … but most people seem (no evidence introduced here to proof this assertion) to state that they prefer a wine ‘on the way up’. I’m not clear why this is the case.
Peak windows aren’t just subjective, but really just a total guess that are attractive because they give the impression of some sort of numerical precision. Especially with very young wines.
Sure, I’ve had wines that have great midpalate density, fine tannins, good acidity and great length and it’s clear that they’ll be long lived. Also wines that were soft, weak fruit, no length and I knew they probably wouldn’t age. But that’s different from me knowing the first will be best 2025-2043 and the latter now-2013. That’s just me making numbers up. Wine is unpredictable.
I think it’s similar to weather predictions. They’re ok for a few days out, but if you look several weeks out they’re not often very accurate, and you can’t go further than that. So guessing where a wine will be in 20 or 30 years? I put about as much credence in drinking windows as I do in horoscopes or fortune tellers.
Cheers,
-Robert
Robert, Nicely controversial but really? You said in a different thread that you’ve been drinking Burgundy for 15 years. You are telling me that you can’t provide a reasonable approximation of the period of time that you are likely to enjoy wines from a producer with which you are familiar for a particular vintage? Are you really saying you have no idea that 2005 Burgundies from D’angerville are likely to be peaking at least 15-20 years after the vintage compared to 2000’s which are drinking nicely now? Really?
I’ve drunk a lot of Chave and Jaboulet La Chapelle (side note sigh needed here … I could cry about La Chapelle for it is mostly dead) covering about 25 vintages … I’ve a pretty good idea of the window of time that I’ll enjoy them best. Perfect projections? Of course not … but reasonable projection? Of course. Combine your own sensibility with those of critics with even more experience and producers who have likely tasted 20-40 years of their wines and there is no way to forecast?
Steve,
I think that if you reread what I wrote, it’s pretty clear that I’d separate '05 d’Angerville from '00 d’Angerville for a variety of reasons. I think I was pretty clear in saying that some wines are clearly more ageable than others. My point was just that coming up with exact windows is a joke. Saying that the '05 needs more time than the '00, will live longer, etc., I totally agree with. I was only objecting to people pretending that they know the exact year that a wine will peak and the exact year it will start to decline, especially when they’re a decade plus away.
I’m cool with approximations. If you say, not ready now, needs at least a decade more, I’m cool with that. But tasting a young wine now, and saying it will be “at peak” from exact years (maybe 2018-2026) just seems like the person is taking a fair impression and making up numbers to please readers.
So yes, that’s what I’m saying. At least to the first part of your question. I’m pretty sure that I can’t accurately predict within a 12 month period when a particular wine will hit its peak and will also die off. No one can predict that. A great Bordeaux can peak for over 100 years. So yeah, I can’t at all predict, upon tasting a young wine from a producer I’ve had a lot of experience with, when it will hit it’s peak.
If I taste a young Musigny, can I really tell if it will start to peak in 2025 or 2027 or 2031? Picking one of those numers is a joke. It’s not an accurate prediction that someone should bank on, it would just be a guess. Drinking windows are always that, and people shouldn’t think that much about drinking past them, as this thread is concerned with.
Cheers,
-Robert
Personally, I have no clue on burgundy’s drinking window. It might have an over-arcing bell curve, but includes lots of peaks and valleys along the way. Bordeaux and Nebbiolo have much smoother curves, IMHO. I’m also clueless about aging most new world wines.
To the original question, wines caught before peaking often have an energy about them that I enjoy. Post-peak wines might be interesting, but sometimes seem flat in comparison. And if left long enough, they lose their complexity and all converge on sweet browness.
Have to concur with Prof. Thornton here. Trying to pin-point a wine’s “peak” with any degree of accuracy is largely a fool’s errand, and that’s not even taking into consideration personal preferences as to what constitutes a wine’s “peak” and/or variables relating to the condition of the wine in question (e.g., basing a “peak” estimate on a barrel sample compared with a “peak” estimate for the same wine based upon a bottle that may have been purchased in the auction market several years after release). I can only hope to enjoy each bottle for what it is at the time consumed and learn something from the experience.
I agree with a lot above. Wine is multi-dimensional. One facet may be too early and another facet past “peak”. Even for a particular facet, wine development is not straight line. Wines can show older, than more youthful, than older again. Add to that bottle variation and its a crap shoot. Enjoy the bottle for what it delivers to you when you open it and make the best guess as to when you will like what it is offering. I don’t mind an older wine any more than I mind “the last glass is the best” knowing that it might have been better. I try not to get too wrapped up in hitting its peak.
Robert, sorry about the D’angerville example.
Robert and others, of course picking an exact peak year is absurd. But I don’t know any serious reviewer who does that so it’s rather a straw man. Of course, when picking a range, one must pick the beginning and end of the range. I don’t get the issue about that … and yes, that beginning and end are just estimates which any serious review such as Meadows would say.
Several have pointed out that the aging curve is not a smooth curve, there are mini-peaks and valley’s along the way … to our ongoing drinking wonderment. True. But I’m trying to keep things simple here on one point … Brady, you are a great example of my point that many people say they ‘prefer wines on the way up’ to the way down. Then perhaps you don’t have a symmetrical bell curve … it must drop off rapidly after ‘peak’. Or perhaps your peak is earlier than you think it is. It get’s confusing here.
Oooh, I hate when the last glass is the best, particularly when the bottle is singing. That last taste is a very bittersweet feeling. I couldn’t care less when the bottle is just good.
To the original comment regarding drinking a wine “past peak”, I concur. The only way to know you like your wine younger is if you’ve tried it older.
Not sure what drinking windows have to do with any of that. Drinking windows are someone’s guess as to what may happen in the future. I don’t want to put words into Brian’s mouth, but I didn’t read his OP as saying anything about drinking windows.
If a wine is past peak to you, who cares about what anybody said about a drinking window several years earlier? As I understood the post, Brian was suggesting that drinking a wine, which at that moment seems to you to be past, has value.
I completely agree. It’s a direct experience not dependent on any drinking window and it’s not dependent on whether one person’s definition of “past” is different from another’s.
The way I found out that I like certain wines at a certain state was drinking them both before and past that state. For example, drinking Rieslings on release, then at five, ten, fifteen and twenty years showed me that I like them younger rather than older. Same w Napa cabs, Rioja, CdPs, etc. My peak may not be someone else’s. But it was very valuable to drink Rieslings past the point at which I found them peaking because without having done that, I’d have saved them and not liked them as much as I did earlier.
Matter of fact, it comes down to specific wine - e.g. some Cabs from Napa I like with more time, some with less. But the only way to know is by trying them earlier and later.