What causes wines to “shut down”?

[John_Morris]

Is there that much wine out there that tastes “shut down” because it’s mediocre? Closed or shut down to me means very little aroma and very little fruit on the palate, mostly acid and tannin. Not that being closed is necessarily a sign that the wine is NOT mediocre, I suppose, but when I taste bad wine it usually has plenty of aroma and plenty of fruit and/or oak on the palate, it’s just that those flavors and aromas aren’t very pleasant. I can certainly tell the difference between a bad wine that’s very giving of aromas and flavors and a closed wine that isn’t giving much of anything, but maybe not between a closed wine that will be good when it opens up and a closed wine that will be bad when it opens up.

I don’t know that any wine is shut down because it’s mediocre. When I referred to mediocrity above, I just meant that people sometimes opine that a wine is shut down when it disappoints them. But it might just be mediocre/lacking in flavor (which is different from being actually bad – unbalanced, flawed, etc.)

So if there are wines that are open for business and good, and wines that are open for business and bad, and wines that are closed but will one day open for business (and be good or bad once they do), is there really a fifth category of wines that are all tannin and acid, with no aromas and no fruit flavors, not because they are closed but because they’re bad and they will always taste that way? Seems theoretically possible, but how much is out there that really fits that description?

I’ve certainly had a few like that. I kept waiting for something good to emerge and it never did, even with very long aging. That certainly happens with overextracted wines. Some overly tannic modern style Bordeauxs (perhaps because of reverse osmosis) and overly oaked Barolos of the 1990s come to mind.

[John_Glas]

I’ve heard it speculated that it’s a complex ratio taking into account the cost of the wine, your expectations of it, and your experience with it.

Correct!

[Bryan_Price]

Wouldn’t we have to hear from someone who bought a case, or maybe two cases, of a single vintage / vineyard and followed it’s evolution each year for 10-20 years? I suppose tasting notes over this timespan can help as well but wouldn’t be quite the same.

[Mattstolz]

Holy grail stuff . . .

I do fine it interesting that if a wine does not show well, the initial reaction is often that the wine is ‘shut down’ rather than any other potential reason.

To me, this is like a non wine drinkers claiming a wine is ‘off’ just because it does not smell or taste good to them . . .

This will be interesting to follow . . .

But many wines certainly do shut down… Even individual bottles will open with vibrant flavors or aromatics which then seem to recede with more air. Burgundy and Nebbiolo are particularly known for having a youthful, open phase followed by a phase where they show little fruit but much structure. In time the wines will show more fruit again once the acids and tannins stop being so dominant. They won’t be the same as they were in their youth but will still show with more generous scents and flavors than they did in their awkward adolescence.

I can’t contribute to the discussion of why, but I’ve certainly learned that it’s a real thing and to avoid opening certain wines at certain points in their life.

the bolded is the one that really annoys me. ill open a wine I expect to need some air early and be really excited with the aromatics (and taste) upon opening or decanting, and then at dinner the thing is all closed up and totally uninteresting. a day or two later a lot of times it seems like these wines start to approach their initial aromatics again if they survive the first nights dinner.

[RichardFlack]

I’ve heard it speculated that it’s a complex ratio taking into account the cost of the wine, your expectations of it, and your experience with it.

Complex implies an irrational component.

[Bryan_Price]

This thread is starting to read like the “myth of letting wines breathe thread”?

[RichardFlack]

The wine is taking a nap as Aubert likes to say.

Reculer pour mieux sauter?

[RichardFlack]

Good discussion of a challenging topic, thanks everyone for trying to make sense of this without throwing stones. I think Brian and Tom have really nailed a major difficulty of identifying ‘shut down.’ We typically are not drinking a bottle of a particular wine once or more a year over long periods of time. When those ITB get to do that they can provide interesting examples.

I do find that some wines that were exuberant in youth (E.g. red Burgs in my experience) seem to get quiet 5-10ish years from vintage. So I’ve taken to not opening them in that phase. My most valuable resources on this subject are this board and CT. While there is a lot of junk in CT, wines with multiple tastings over the years usually have enough coherent notes that you can read between the lines and have a good sense of whether a wine is wide open or not. Take a look at 2010 Meo Camuzet aux Brûlée’s. Seems like it is showing some good characteristics but based on the pattern of notes I wouldn’t open this wine in 2021. Poke around and you can find many similar examples.

I was waiting for someone to mention red burg. To me it’s as much a thing there as in Bordeaux.

[RichardFlack]

Mild TCA would be a very common cause of ‘shutting down’, if by that we mean a bottle showing atypically poorly.

I believe shutting down is not terminal. Which does make me wonder how that can ever be assessed other than retrospectively, or in the alternative, optimistically.

TCA is a different kettle of fish (or damp cardboard). While the palate may simply lack fruit the nose will be a give away.

[Marcus_Goodfellow]

But many wines certainly do shut down… Even individual bottles will open with vibrant flavors or aromatics which then seem to recede with more air. Burgundy and Nebbiolo are particularly known for having a youthful, open phase followed by a phase where they show little fruit but much structure. In time the wines will show more fruit again once the acids and tannins stop being so dominant. They won’t be the same as they were in their youth but will still show with more generous scents and flavors than they did in their awkward adolescence.

I can’t contribute to the discussion of why, but I’ve certainly learned that it’s a real thing and to avoid opening certain wines at certain points in their life.

I’m not saying they don’t, but I think the term is now a ‘catch all’ that makes it even more difficult to classify or define.

Cheers

Yes, it can be used to explain mediocrity, and it’s pretty much irrefutable!

The reverse of this is also true, and probably more common. Plenty of people lacking an understanding of wines evolution can simply and irrefutably say a wine is shitty. I think there was a thread relating to this about some Oregon vintage or another…

There are plenty of wines that I’ve seen taste like nearly nothing, both from a dense side (young 1990 La Conseillante that was a dark but practically untastable/non-flavored wine in 1994) and a wan flavorless watery side (1995 Produttori Mocagatta and also 2014 Goodfellow Pinot Noirs from Whistling Ridge and Bishop Creek that tasted like swamp water for two years) that evolve into very good wines with time in bottle.

[Marcus_Goodfellow]

Holy grail stuff . . .

I do fine it interesting that if a wine does not show well, the initial reaction is often that the wine is ‘shut down’ rather than any other potential reason.

To me, this is like a non wine drinkers claiming a wine is ‘off’ just because it does not smell or taste good to them . . .

This will be interesting to follow . . .

But many wines certainly do shut down… Even individual bottles will open with vibrant flavors or aromatics which then seem to recede with more air. Burgundy and Nebbiolo are particularly known for having a youthful, open phase followed by a phase where they show little fruit but much structure. In time the wines will show more fruit again once the acids and tannins stop being so dominant. They won’t be the same as they were in their youth but will still show with more generous scents and flavors than they did in their awkward adolescence.

I can’t contribute to the discussion of why, but I’ve certainly learned that it’s a real thing and to avoid opening certain wines at certain points in their life.

the bolded is the one that really annoys me. ill open a wine I expect to need some air early and be really excited with the aromatics (and taste) upon opening or decanting, and then at dinner the thing is all closed up and totally uninteresting. a day or two later a lot of times it seems like these wines start to approach their initial aromatics again if they survive the first nights dinner.

Sorry Matt, we may need to switch you off the Whistling Ridge…

[Scott_Watkins]

Lol

[Vince_T]

This question has been addressed “scientifically” a couple times before… Mind you, not sure how well these explanations stand up to scientific scrutiny, but I’ve heard this particular explanation about polymerization of phenolic compounds from multiple people. And it seems to make sense.

Most recently from Doug Hein here: https://www.wineberserkers.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=3153685#p3153685

Regarding the shutdown, much of it has to do with chemistry. Many of the phenolic compounds in wine, like tannins, can and do polymerize. They also bind with other aromatic compounds that effect taste and aroma. The polymerization process is the start of the shutdown. These polymer chains continue to grow and link, binding up much of the flavor of the wine. At some point, they become to long to remain in suspension and start falling out as sediment. They also become unstable and weak and start breaking apart, releasing the other compounds that have been bound up. When this occurs, the wine starts opening up. It seems to happen fairly rapidly at both ends.

After the wine reawakens, then it’s really a matter of continuing evolution of the aging process and all of the slow reduction reactions ongoing in the bottle. The first phase is prominent primary fruit, integrated tannins and the lovely earthy nose of Bordeaux. Beyond that is the shift to more of the interest tertiary flavors and the gradual fading of primary fruit. Of course, all this and the timeframe is dependent on the structure of the wine. For example, that 2005 Leoville Barton that is drinking so well now, doesn’t have what it takes to be the wine at 35 years old that the 1982 Montrose was I recently had was. But it’s a wonderful Bordeaux to drink now and for another 10 years.

[Marcus_Goodfellow]

I worked weekends at a winery tasting room many years ago. This is important because it means I got to taste the same wines and often multiple bottles of those wines every week. Most of the wines never changed during the entire time I worked there. Yes, there would be the occasional off bottle or just a bottle that tasted slightly different.

But we had a Merlot that was shut down hard when I started working there and stayed that way through up until my final few months. Until it opened up, I thought the wine was just a poorly made wine, probably the worst wine we sold. The two vintages that came after it were much better, more complex, better red fruit, some nice spice. This wine was a muddled black fruited mess with no acidity and offered little interest. Then it started to open up. The nose became more fragrant, the flavors more defined, the whole wine gained a harmony that it didn’t have before. It stayed that way for about a month and shut down again. It stayed shut down for another month or so at which point things get even weirder. Not sure if it was bottle difference or if the wine was really changing that much but each week seemed different than the one prior. Sometimes, it seemed more open and then back to shut down. Eventually, it settled out into a nice wine, nothing spectacular but much better than I originally thought it would ever be and it maintained this new profile up to the point when I left.

That experience has convinced me that talking about shut down is difficult when we generally only drink a few bottles and often those bottles are separated in time by months. I don’t know how we know shut down from those few data points. We as wine drinkers often build up a belief that a certain type of wine shuts down at a certain age but do we really have enough data to make those claims? The three merlots that the winery made were all from the same vineyard and treated basically the same. The ripeness was similar and yet only the one wine shut down and the other two didn’t. Why, I have no clue.

The vascillation of the shut down bottle between open and shut down may be due to closure.

Corks are all unique and individual corks have different densities and porosity(in addition to differing amounts of TCA). It’s reasonable to guess that at the point it was always a shut down wine, none of the bottles had reached the evolution of being “open”. And it’s unlikely, given variability of corks, that all the bottles would suddenly reach the “open” state at the same time. Since you were tasting them very, very regularly, random chance would give you that see-saw of open and closed until the wine reached a point of evolution where a high percentage of bottles had reached the open plateau and your likelihood of whichever one you open being good would be high.

[Marcus_Goodfellow]

This question has been addressed “scientifically” a couple times before… Mind you, not sure how well these explanations stand up to scientific scrutiny, but I’ve heard this particular explanation about polymerization of phenolic compounds from multiple people. And it seems to make sense.

Most recently from Doug Hein here: https://www.wineberserkers.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=3153685#p3153685

Regarding the shutdown, much of it has to do with chemistry. Many of the phenolic compounds in wine, like tannins, can and do polymerize. They also bind with other aromatic compounds that effect taste and aroma. The polymerization process is the start of the shutdown. These polymer chains continue to grow and link, binding up much of the flavor of the wine. At some point, they become to long to remain in suspension and start falling out as sediment. They also become unstable and weak and start breaking apart, releasing the other compounds that have been bound up. When this occurs, the wine starts opening up. It seems to happen fairly rapidly at both ends.

After the wine reawakens, then it’s really a matter of continuing evolution of the aging process and all of the slow reduction reactions ongoing in the bottle. The first phase is prominent primary fruit, integrated tannins and the lovely earthy nose of Bordeaux. Beyond that is the shift to more of the interest tertiary flavors and the gradual fading of primary fruit. Of course, all this and the timeframe is dependent on the structure of the wine. For example, that 2005 Leoville Barton that is drinking so well now, doesn’t have what it takes to be the wine at 35 years old that the 1982 Montrose was I recently had was. But it’s a wonderful Bordeaux to drink now and for another 10 years.

This is a good explanation.

Polymerization also increases mouthfeel. Bigger molecules typically equal bigger texture(this is why mannoproteins are so important). But this also explains why many ageworthy wines will go in and out of phase(shut down, then open, then back to closed, and back to open).

When I picked up a set of older Willamette Valley wines from the Herbfarm cellar sale, I purchased a number of 2001 Pinot Noirs. 2001 was an understed vintage, that was a bit more old world than the more heralded 1998, 1999, and 2002 vintages. But while seeming a little flat from 2004-2006, they really were brilliant from 2007-2010. I only had a smattering of bottles from 2010-recently, but of the four of the 2001 bottles we have tried from the lot I bought, only one bottle (2001 Hamacher) has been “open”. The other three showed zero inclination to being tired or over the hill. Rather they showed the sort of wound up state that I usually think of shut down wines. I have a few more and am just going to wait 2-3 more years for them. Especially since the 1990s wines we purchased have been mostly excellent to superlative.

[Marcus_Goodfellow]

Wouldn’t we have to hear from someone who bought a case, or maybe two cases, of a single vintage / vineyard and followed it’s evolution each year for 10-20 years? I suppose tasting notes over this timespan can help as well but wouldn’t be quite the same.

I believe this exists in Burgundy, Bordeaux, Piedmont, Loire Cab Franc, and many Willamette Valley wines.

That said, I know it definitely happens in our wines, and taste them on a frequent basis. While it happens, it is not universal between bottlings in when, how intensely, for how long, or any other aspect that I can see. For some vintages, like 2016, it’s hard for me to believe that anyone not extremely familiar with the wines would recognize that they are actually in a “quiet phase”. It’s a delicious vintage with excellent balance and enough fruit quality that the polymerization process may have bound up some of it but the wines still show well. 2017s on the otherhand definitely appear to be showing signs of shutting down, with the exception of the Fir Crest Block 11 bottling, which is somehow more open than ever.

Ultimately, to me this is one of the real benefits of CT. In addition to our own experiences there’s a catalogue of others experiences with the same wine. I use it quite a bit for the bottles I don’t have pallets of.

[G_D_y_e_r]

That said, I know it definitely happens in our wines, and taste them on a frequent basis. While it happens, it is not universal between bottlings in when, how intensely, for how long, or any other aspect that I can see. For some vintages, like 2016, it’s hard for me to believe that anyone not extremely familiar with the wines would recognize that they are actually in a “quiet phase”. It’s a delicious vintage with excellent balance and enough fruit quality that the polymerization process may have bound up some of it but the wines still show well. 2017s on the otherhand definitely appear to be showing signs of shutting down, with the exception of the Fir Crest Block 11 bottling, which is somehow more open than ever.

This raises for me the question of what one should define as a great vintage. Is it the vintage with the highest phenolic content and tannin concentration, so much so that the structure binds the primary esters and aromatic compounds in a lengthy dumb phase? Or is it the vintage with excellent balance and precision, significant but not dominant structure, and a relatively continuous open phase?

The former perhaps are the wines that will live for decades–and appreciate in value as an investment. But does the net window of optimal drinkability differs much from a wine that evolves gracefully from release to age 15-20?

My interpretation is this has quite a lot to do with critical perceptions of great vintages–the wines/vintages with ‘more of everything’ at release are deemed better. The 2005 vintage in France seems a potential case study. Are the better wines bound up in a shell? Or are they tracking a more monotonic progression?

[Fred_Daniels]

I agree CellarTracker is a great resource for this kind of research. Having been involved with wine for like 40 years, I have seen the “shut down” phenomenon a number of times. Some producers are known for it…De Montille for example. In the US, wineries like Arcadian and Culler (the 2004 Syrah is still barely drinkable, but it’s been improving)…I’m sure others can contribute. In my experience, shut down wines can be shut down hard…and taste like tannic water. Almost nothing on the nose or palate but structure. And then 5-10 years later they evolve into beautiful wines.

Some of these are individual wines or cuvees…CellarTracker gives us some evidence…if 10 people try the wine around the same time and it has these “shut down” characteristics in whole or in part, and then 10 years later there are glowing tasting notes…that is a sign. Others, like above, might be winemaker or winery related. Even Aubert has a great example…that nasty 2005 Lucia Cab that caused a revolt among subscribers, some asking for their money back. Even my own tasting note was 80 points which on my scale means physically go outside and pour it in the gutter so it doesn’t contaminate the pipes. But a decade later there were signs of life, and today some have evolved nicely. Michael Broadbent had a great story about a friend of his who was drinking 28 Latour as his house wine because “the wine will never come around in my lifetime.” “Alas, he was right” Broadbent opined.

[Bryan_Price]

Wouldn’t we have to hear from someone who bought a case, or maybe two cases, of a single vintage / vineyard and followed it’s evolution each year for 10-20 years? I suppose tasting notes over this timespan can help as well but wouldn’t be quite the same.

I believe this exists in Burgundy, Bordeaux, Piedmont, Loire Cab Franc, and many Willamette Valley wines.

That said, I know it definitely happens in our wines, and taste them on a frequent basis. While it happens, it is not universal between bottlings in when, how intensely, for how long, or any other aspect that I can see. For some vintages, like 2016, it’s hard for me to believe that anyone not extremely familiar with the wines would recognize that they are actually in a “quiet phase”. It’s a delicious vintage with excellent balance and enough fruit quality that the polymerization process may have bound up some of it but the wines still show well. 2017s on the otherhand definitely appear to be showing signs of shutting down, with the exception of the Fir Crest Block 11 bottling, which is somehow more open than ever.

Ultimately, to me this is one of the real benefits of CT. In addition to our own experiences there’s a catalogue of others experiences with the same wine. I use it quite a bit for the bottles I don’t have pallets of.

Not sure if this correlates but thus far 2017 pinot noir (mostly from CA) I have yet to clique with. Although I would not prefer to drink them this young, but was left with no choice after drinking my older vintages on hand during Covid and then went on a buying hiatus as I was not emotionally invested in this hobby while the world felt like it was burning down around me. Now 2011, 2012, and 2013, I have had lots of memorable bottles and know that 2014’s have not held up well. I hope you are able to hold lots of older vintages of your wines, Marcus, to revisit as the years go by and remember what each was like

[Bryan_Price]

I agree CellarTracker is a great resource for this kind of research. Having been involved with wine for like 40 years, I have seen the “shut down” phenomenon a number of times. Some producers are known for it…De Montille for example. In the US, wineries like Arcadian and Culler (the 2004 Syrah is still barely drinkable, but it’s been improving)…I’m sure others can contribute. In my experience, shut down wines can be shut down hard…and taste like tannic water. Almost nothing on the nose or palate but structure. And then 5-10 years later they evolve into beautiful wines.

I am lucky enough to consider Joe Davis a friend, and have tasted a lot of the older Arcadians and can agree with you. Although Joe typically does not sell his wines until they are “ready”, and some bottles like the Pisoni and Francesa have incredibly long lives past when he’s initially offered them. I’ll post a tasting note from his 1997 Pisoni and let you know how it’s doing.