This is something I’ve wondered about for a while. Is there any rule of thumb for different varietals, regions, etc… Do they always open up again? and when does this happen. I often see notes that a wine is " shut down right now, don’t try again for 3 to 5 yrs. " is this just a guess or do people know a lot more than I do?
Joe – Good question.
There really is such a phenomenon, but the term is also bandied about as an all purpose, irrefutable excuse for a wine that’s simply boring. People use it when they’re simply disappointed by a wine.
I don’t think you can say from tasting a wine alone whether it’s in a dumb phase or not: You need to know about the history of wines of that type and how they’ve tended to develop. You really need to have tasted one vintage of one wine over many years to have witnessed the process, or at least experienced the same phase with one wine from different vintages.
It was certainly a stage that was clear in some vintages of Bordeaux and Burgundy historically. (Now that Bordeaux is made to drink younger, I don’t really know if they go through this so much.) The most extreme example I know of is Northern Rhone viognier such as Condrieu, which tastes great for a couple of years on release and then tends to be utterly boring for 10 or 15 years or more. That’s why some people dismiss the idea of aging it – they simply haven’t waited long enough to get past the dumb phase.
The explanation of the actual phenomenon is pretty simple, I think. In some wines, the primary flavors and aromas (the immediate byproducts of fermentation) dissipate before the secondary components (the products of the slow changes in the wine’s chemistry with time) have produced another set of flavors and smells. If you have a lot of tannins that haven’t softened, that intermediate stage may be particularly unrewarding.
As I said, though, I think a high proportion of the time when people say they think a wine was shut down it’s meaningless. Either the wine was all up-front fruit and is simply past its prime, or the wine wasn’t decanted long enough, or was decanted too long, or whatever. I approach the label with great skepticism unless the person using it has some real historical basis for thinking that’s what’s going on.
I can only speak for burgundy and the following is just a guess on my part:
In many red burgs the flavor compounds in the wine seem to go through a chemical process in which they change molecular structure and dont register in the taste buds anymore. Oxygen then can cause a further change that makes them register on the taste buds again. Thats why giving a burg oxygen in a slow and controlled manner can “wake up” the wine. When this re-oxygen takes place slowly in a still-closed bottle there can be additional chemical transformations that can significatly alter the flavor and tannins also go through a transformation that softens them. When this flavor transformation coincides with the flavor compounds re-awakening then people call the wine “mature”.
The only thing that keeps burgs from being more expensive are people trying to pop and pour them when the flavor compounds are “shut down” and people thinking “WTF, why would anyone drink this?”
Thanks for the responses,
John,
I think your right about people stating that a wine is shut down because it’s “simply boring” and might sometimes use the the term when it’s just tannic and tight.
Berry,
Now we’re talking, can you give me an example of your method of slow-ox.
I would love to see a proven scientific explanation of what is happening. I certainly have experienced this happening but it would be great to know why. What are the variables, how will fill level, storage temperature, sulphur, etc. all contribute to this effect and how can we predict a wine will exit this stage short of having to opening a bottle.
This topic has intrigued me for some time. John, I’m buying that what you’re talking about (fruit diminishing, secondary aromas not yet present) might have something to do with this sometimes, but overall I do not think that’s what causes a wine to shut down. It seems to me (with my very limited experience) that when wines reemerge from such a period their fruit can become more pronounced than it was when they were shut down. That seems to go against what you’re saying. I also just don’t think it’s nearly that simple. I have never seen any scientific explanation for the phenomenon, but I doubt that it’s because no one has looked into it.
Berry, are you saying that a Burgundy in this state can be “awakened” with aeration? That is also not what I have found or heard from tasters with a lot more experience than I have.
I pour out a 1/2 glass and leave the rest in the bottle. I take teeny little sips until the fruit seems like its a good place and then I drink up. Its hard to predict how long this will take. Some wines are ready to go when popped. Sometimes it takes all day.
People with much more expeirence than me have said they have found wines that would not wake up with air. I have not experienced that but I wouldnt rule it out as Ive never slow-oxed a wine older than 1990. The chemistry might different with much older wines or vintages I dont have experience with.
John,
Why do you think that Bordeaux, made today, is meant to drink younger?
Just curious, not trying to ![[stirthepothal.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/f/f40faec63ca1018898a40805efbf9f0066a3d205.gif "[stirthepothal.gif]"){kind=small}
For what it’s worth, I asked our Science Editor at the New York Cork Report to check out this thread and let me know if he had any thoughts. He sent a terse note this morning:
“I like John’s explanation. Berry is WAY off the mark.”
I generally trust our science editor; he’s had extensive training at Cornell and he’s a bit of a not-quite-mad scientist, experimenting with wine in the lab all the time. I wish I had more to contribute, but certainly I respect the ideas presented here. Very interesting question.
Id be curious to hear why he thinks so.
There’s a lot to what you say here, I think. Had dinner with Jacques Lardiere of Louis Jadot on 11/14 and he went through a lengthy explanation (of which I got about 50%) which involved the molecular chain and the closing/opening of wine. But his main point was this contraction/expansion of the wine and how winemaking involved managing the process to maximize the wine.
I have also never had a shut-down wine improve with air. But I agree with John that the label is overused, usually just an excuse for a wine that’s disappointing for one reason or another. A truly shut-down wine can be described as smelling like water and tasting like tannin and/or acid. Air won’t help. If it’s going to come out of that condition, significant bottle age is the only way.
I never really understood this whole idea of a wine ‘shutting down’ before either, but I’m understanding a little better after these posts. It’s still a little confusing though. It’s crazy when you think about all the factors that go into determining a how good a wine will taste, or when it is ‘ready’, or how to catch it at its ‘best’. Its pretty impressive if you think about it actually
Berry -
Checked back with him (Tom Mansell, blogs at New York Cork Report and Ithacork). His response:
"Wine “opening up” has nothing to do with oxygen. His explanation is either overly simplistic or misguided.
Reactions with compounds in wine and oxygen simply do not happen on the time scale of a few hours.
Aerating wine improves its perception by blowing of hydrogen sulfide, which decreases perception of fruit and other pleasant aromas.
As for my take on wine “shutting down” there is likely a much more simple explanation: bottle variation. Many drinkers operate under the pretense that all bottles bottled are the same (and as such will age in a similar manner) and that is just not true. Ask anyone who pours the same wine week after week in the tasting room. Bottles vary widely.
Also, I grimace when people personify wine, e.g., “waking up”, “shutting down”, etc. As if the wine decided to do such things - just a little pet peeve of mine."
Hope this helps, Berry. I’m certainly open to more discussion. Cheers.
How do you know this?
I’ll try and keep an open mind but attributing the lack of aroma and flavor in a just-opened wine on the existence of hydrogen sulfide seems a bit far fetched. Wouldnt we smell the rotten egg odor?
The flavors and aromas we detect in wine are to a large extent from a group of chemicals called esters. The main ester in Pinot Noir wines is ethyl anthranilate. It prodoces a cherry like aroma and taste. Lets say we take a bottle of 2006 burgundy and open it. Clearly the ethyl anthranilate chemical is in there because with air we are able to detect it but at first it simply does not register in our senses. Is this because the existence of hydrogen sulfide even though we dont smell it at all? Im fairly ignorant of basic principles in chemistry so I’ll keep an open mind, but that seems like a strange answer. It seems more intuitive that the ester is bound with something that keeps it from being volitle?
Ester schmester. Closed wines are a myth. A MYTH I say.
Here’s my theory… instead of using fancy-shmancy scientific terms, I use logic.
You get a big wine. Lots of fruit, lots of tannin. Open up a fresh one - yummo! Fruit fades first. Couple years later, can’t taste fruit - where’d it go? Wine “shut down.” Few years later the tannins fade. Hey, I can taste fruit again! The wine wasn’t “shut down,” it was out of balance for a while.
There’s your answer, without the benefit of a single college chemistry test.
How do you explain white wines that are “shut down” or whatver you want to call it?
Who ages white wines? Over the hill. Or bottle variance! Hey, my theory is a work in progress. (Isn’t “closed” or “shut down” really used 90% of the time as a phrase to explain away bad wine? “It’s great wine, it’s just closed.”)