Wine aging and group think

Nick_Christie · November 11, 2020, 5:16am

Claus_Jeppesen · November 11, 2020, 10:06am

To be clear, I meant drinking them with as much age as Americans do. I have a number of friends who love Barolo from the 50s and 60s, and it’s an common theme; I’ve never seen enthusiasm like that anywhere else for Barolo that old, including from the winemakers themselves. I am happy to be shown to be wrong.
That does not at all mean that people in other countries don’t age Barolo, which is not what I said.

Well, compared to how small country Finland is, we have a thriving community of Nebbiolo lovers here. Every year we have multiple verticals and other tastings that focus only on aged Nebbiolo, i.e. wines from 1980-1950, occasionally even older bottles. Not just Barolo, but also Barbaresco, Alto Piemonte, Carema and Lombardy. And I don’t think we’re the only people in the world doing that.

I’ll try to make myself more clear. I do not doubt there are people in Finland and other places that drink very old nebbiolos. My point was that in the United States, my experience in the wine community is a very significant preference for nebbiolo with massive amounts of age on it. Festa di Barolo, for instance, has almost everyone (except for the producers, interestingly) bring extremely old bottles. That is not, for example, how Paulee works - some old, some young. My European friends simply do not place any kind of similar premium on this amount of age in their nebbiolo. That does not mean they don’t ALSO drink some older nebbiolo. I hope that made it clearer.

I am very sure that among wine aficionados here in Europe the preferred age of Barolo/Barbaresco is beyond 15-20 years
You simply miss to much by drinking them younger

Kirk.Grant · November 11, 2020, 2:40pm

Sometimes I wonder why I sit on all this wine waiting for it to magically transform into some awesome elixir. This weekend I opened a 2011 Bedrock Papera Ranch Zinfandel that had transformed into something that I didn’t enjoy as much as I did the last time I opened one. I mean, it was good and all but it was way better when it was younger. What am I waiting for?

B70B7661-6E5B-4B83-88C8-CA24EDF93151.jpeg

Last night I popped a 1993 Ravenswood Sonoma County Merlot that had the ultimate provenance. It was well beyond its prime and unimpressive for me. I’ll have to open a few more from my mixed case before passing judgement but my experience with other 30 year old Ravenswoods, or other producers for that matter, have been similar and I chocked it up to provenance. Interesting but not satisfying enough to keep me engaged. Just not what I’m looking for in a wine. The Bedrock from the previous evening, while not at that point, was on its way to moving in that direction.

D411E498-1FB8-4967-9507-5B1FB2563B59.jpeg

I’ve had other aged wines that have shown fresh and lively so I know it’s possible and maybe I just had a poor run or perhaps that’s just not what I enjoy. So I ask, what am I waiting for sitting on wines that are “not ready yet” when they may well be ready? Or worse, in decline. I know there are exceptions but not for the wines I have always enjoyed in their youth. I find myself opening the cellar and having a hard time choosing a wine when there are 700+ possible choices staring me in the face.

Tonight I instead told myself to grab the first ‘16 or ‘17 I read on a cork. I opened a 2016 The Bedrock Heritage that is lovely and I think, the heck with all of the wine geeks who think these aren’t ready. Let them wait for the fruit and liveliness to drain out of their wines. I’m going back to being a cork puller. Wine was way more fun back then.

E186656C-430E-4F14-8397-A0947A9BEF8B.jpeg

I truly enjoy opening an old wine and finding it exceeds my expectations but these experiences are too few and far between to make me want to age my entire collection. I’m not alone right?

Maybe you enjoy the fruitiness & youthful vibrance of younger wines. Maybe you’re aging the wrong wines? I tend to not care for aged Zinfandel, it’s fine, and it’s aged…but there isn’t the same transformation that I find in say…Pinot Noir or Gamay. I tend to like Chateauneuf du Pape within 2-3 years of release & then again 20+ years later, but not in between. Figuring out what you like & in what age-range you like certain wines, should help you build a cellar that has a range of differing styles of wines for you.

Greg_K · November 11, 2020, 3:33pm

Well, compared to how small country Finland is, we have a thriving community of Nebbiolo lovers here. Every year we have multiple verticals and other tastings that focus only on aged Nebbiolo, i.e. wines from 1980-1950, occasionally even older bottles. Not just Barolo, but also Barbaresco, Alto Piemonte, Carema and Lombardy. And I don’t think we’re the only people in the world doing that.

I’ll try to make myself more clear. I do not doubt there are people in Finland and other places that drink very old nebbiolos. My point was that in the United States, my experience in the wine community is a very significant preference for nebbiolo with massive amounts of age on it. Festa di Barolo, for instance, has almost everyone (except for the producers, interestingly) bring extremely old bottles. That is not, for example, how Paulee works - some old, some young. My European friends simply do not place any kind of similar premium on this amount of age in their nebbiolo. That does not mean they don’t ALSO drink some older nebbiolo. I hope that made it clearer.

I am very sure that among wine aficionados here in Europe the preferred age of Barolo/Barbaresco is beyond 15-20 years
You simply miss to much by drinking them younger

I’m going to try to be very clear again - I’m talking about 55-60 years, not 15-20 years.

Jim_Stewart · November 11, 2020, 3:43pm

back and forth.gif

Dave_McCloskey · November 11, 2020, 3:57pm

^^^This^^^

Markus_S · November 11, 2020, 4:23pm

Ans some use tin-foil hats…

Brian_Tuite · November 11, 2020, 4:26pm

Sometimes I wonder why I sit on all this wine waiting for it to magically transform into some awesome elixir. This weekend I opened a 2011 Bedrock Papera Ranch Zinfandel that had transformed into something that I didn’t enjoy as much as I did the last time I opened one. I mean, it was good and all but it was way better when it was younger. What am I waiting for?

B70B7661-6E5B-4B83-88C8-CA24EDF93151.jpeg

Last night I popped a 1993 Ravenswood Sonoma County Merlot that had the ultimate provenance. It was well beyond its prime and unimpressive for me. I’ll have to open a few more from my mixed case before passing judgement but my experience with other 30 year old Ravenswoods, or other producers for that matter, have been similar and I chocked it up to provenance. Interesting but not satisfying enough to keep me engaged. Just not what I’m looking for in a wine. The Bedrock from the previous evening, while not at that point, was on its way to moving in that direction.

D411E498-1FB8-4967-9507-5B1FB2563B59.jpeg

I’ve had other aged wines that have shown fresh and lively so I know it’s possible and maybe I just had a poor run or perhaps that’s just not what I enjoy. So I ask, what am I waiting for sitting on wines that are “not ready yet” when they may well be ready? Or worse, in decline. I know there are exceptions but not for the wines I have always enjoyed in their youth. I find myself opening the cellar and having a hard time choosing a wine when there are 700+ possible choices staring me in the face.

Tonight I instead told myself to grab the first ‘16 or ‘17 I read on a cork. I opened a 2016 The Bedrock Heritage that is lovely and I think, the heck with all of the wine geeks who think these aren’t ready. Let them wait for the fruit and liveliness to drain out of their wines. I’m going back to being a cork puller. Wine was way more fun back then.

E186656C-430E-4F14-8397-A0947A9BEF8B.jpeg

I truly enjoy opening an old wine and finding it exceeds my expectations but these experiences are too few and far between to make me want to age my entire collection. I’m not alone right?

Maybe you enjoy the fruitiness & youthful vibrance of younger wines. Maybe you’re aging the wrong wines? I tend to not care for aged Zinfandel, it’s fine, and it’s aged…but there isn’t the same transformation that I find in say…Pinot Noir or Gamay. I tend to like Chateauneuf du Pape within 2-3 years of release & then again 20+ years later, but not in between. Figuring out what you like & in what age-range you like certain wines, should help you build a cellar that has a range of differing styles of wines for you.

Actually no, I just don’t like brown
wine regardless if the variety.

John_Morris · November 11, 2020, 4:38pm

There was group think that a Ravenswood merlot should be aged? I missed that!

R_Frankel · November 11, 2020, 4:56pm

Certainly I agree that the most important factor in wine age preference is your own palate. And that requires lots of testing tasting and note taking to figure out what you really like. Early in my wine journey I bought things I liked with a a wide variety of age (yay K&L and Winebid for the onesy-twosy aged wine auctions). This damned wine thing is complicated!

I do like aged wine. Most consistent for me is Bordeaux: 20 - 25 years is where they really start to bloom into something magnificent for my palate. I’m still buying 1985/6/9/90/96 and mostly drink them up. Two bottles of 1989 Clerc Milon on K&L (current bid $145 for the lot) today are calling out to me. Certainly not a ‘top’ wine but solid, reliable, utterly enjoyable. Must … resist …

Most Barolo (and Barbaresco more so) are rough very young, so seem to start to crank open in the 15-20 year range. But very vintage and producer dependent. Tasting through ‘16s I found the Vajra Albe and Fi. Alessandria Barolo Classico to be deeply enjoyable now, though a bit tannic. Probably will let them sleep though. I would and do open any Barolo before 2006 now, except perhaps my teensy handful of Monfortinos. Other than 1999/2004 I doubt any of them will improve a vast amount over the coming decades.

Red Burgundy is a delight young and I am opening more and more within a year or two of release. Yes they also age beautifully (again vintage and producer dependent) so I’m also sitting on most of mine. White Burgundy I drink within 10 years of vintage, Bourgogne Blancs within a year or two of release. German Riesling is super interesting because I mostly drink them very young - less than 5 years old. I’ve enjoyed some older ones, up to maybe 30 years old, but haven’t had an aged Riesling epiphany. Opened a 1996 JJ Prum Wehlener Sonnenuhr Auslese GK with a 2016 of the same wine just last week. They were remarkably similar. I will continue to experiment but this is a place where really experienced tasters have found something my caveman palate hasn’t seen (yet).

California is complicated. Give me lots of 20+ year old Dunn and Ridge Monte Bello. Most Cab I drink in the 5-15 year range. Pinot the same. I like Cali Zinfandel and drink it up within a year or three of release .

My point is - there’s no simple right or wrong answer. I’ve learned some things about my palate and look forward to lots of future study.

Markus_S · November 11, 2020, 5:30pm

FWIW, I know from visiting and talking in 2018 that Aldo Vacca (who runs Produttori del Barbaresco) thinks their wines are ready to drink much sooner than the denizens of the wine web.

Whoa…how very cool to have met him. My all time favorite Barbaresco is from Produttori, the Rabaja Riserva…the last vintage I bought was from 2000. The last bottle of the case I had was drunk in 2011 and it was just as lively as I remembered all the rest. I’m definitely a fan of aging my wines. I’ve only had 1 fall flat on it’s face, a single vineyard Cab from Berenger. But like the OP, I’ve had a few that were on the downhill side of things. But thankfully, most of my patience has been rewarded. Smoother, more supple tannins being among the most noticeable traits I enjoy in aged wine. But agree with many others here, some wines are better for aging than others.

Did Mr. Vacca say what the ‘sweet spot’ was for drinking Produttori offerings? I’m sure there’s a lot of variables being they are a co-op of sorts.

It’s very vintage dependent. He said that he prefer most of the wines 7-10 years from the vintage, but more structured years (e.g. 2008, 2013) could be 10+.

If you had tried the 2006 normale in that time frame it would have been a hot mess (as witness the 2 angry bottles I tried of it!).

David_Bu3ker · November 11, 2020, 5:40pm

Whoa…how very cool to have met him. My all time favorite Barbaresco is from Produttori, the Rabaja Riserva…the last vintage I bought was from 2000. The last bottle of the case I had was drunk in 2011 and it was just as lively as I remembered all the rest. I’m definitely a fan of aging my wines. I’ve only had 1 fall flat on it’s face, a single vineyard Cab from Berenger. But like the OP, I’ve had a few that were on the downhill side of things. But thankfully, most of my patience has been rewarded. Smoother, more supple tannins being among the most noticeable traits I enjoy in aged wine. But agree with many others here, some wines are better for aging than others.

Did Mr. Vacca say what the ‘sweet spot’ was for drinking Produttori offerings? I’m sure there’s a lot of variables being they are a co-op of sorts.

It’s very vintage dependent. He said that he prefer most of the wines 7-10 years from the vintage, but more structured years (e.g. 2008, 2013) could be 10+.

If you had tried the 2006 normale in that time frame it would have been a hot mess (as witness the 2 angry bottles I tried of it!).

Depends on which version of the Normale.

Adam_Frisch · November 11, 2020, 5:57pm

I totally agree. More often than not what develops in a wine with age are all the things I don’t enjoy as much. For each year they march ever so slightly more towards the Amarone/Marsala/raisin-world and I keep missing the freshness and vivacity. Yes, tannins do sometimes need time to integrate and soften, but if it’s not happened after a few years, then I find they probably won’t resolve that much anyway. Now, this is mainly for CA wines, I don’t have enough experience with European wines and they might behave differently.

Peter_Valiquette · November 11, 2020, 5:58pm

Should a well made wine need age to become drinkable?

2015 Bartolo Mascarello was fantastic when i opened a bottle last month. 2013 Produttori Rabaja however was acidic and tannic earlier this year.

2018 Ridge Geyserville is awesome and i’d open a bottle anytime without hesitation. A bunch of 2018 Bedrocks i’ve had were coarse and tannic in comparison.

Seems to me that it has as much to do with producer as it does variety.

Brian_Tuite · November 11, 2020, 7:01pm

I guess you did.

https://www.wineberserkers.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=2913130#p2913130

https://www.wineberserkers.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=2879787#p2879787

https://www.wineberserkers.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=2869478#p2869478

https://www.wineberserkers.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=2862719#p2862719

https://www.wineberserkers.com/forum/viewtopic.php?

Chris_Seiber · November 11, 2020, 7:36pm

In the OP, you wrote:

“I truly enjoy opening an old wine and finding it exceeds my expectations but these experiences are too few and far between to make me want to age my entire collection. I’m not alone right?”
I don’t think anyone really ever says to age your entire collection. I don’t even think Francois Audouze would endorse that idea.

I think nearly all of us would agree that the decision to age wines depends on your personal tastes, and the producers, vintages, vineyards, varieties and styles in question on a case-by-case basis. Understanding that even then, there are going to misses of varying degrees (opened this too young, opened that too late), just because the effects of aging are not knowable with exactness, bottles and storage vary, and ultimately how subjective it is whether the changes in an aged bottle are better, worse, or just different.

It’s challenging, and it can be frustrating at times, but this is also one of the reasons wine is so endlessly fascinating. Every experience can be different. Even the same wine is different from vintage to vintage, at different ages, with different amounts of air, in different contexts, paired with different foods. In the modern parlance, this is not a bug, it’s a feature.

Brian_Tuite · November 11, 2020, 8:09pm

My rant in the OP involved the wines I listed, how the group think on this board swayed how I treated these wines and my experience this week. I wasn’t rolling all California wines into one statement. That would be foolish.

In the OP, you wrote:

“I truly enjoy opening an old wine and finding it exceeds my expectations but these experiences are too few and far between to make me want to age my entire collection. I’m not alone right?”
I don’t think anyone really ever says to age your entire collection. I don’t even think Francois Audouze would endorse that idea.

I think nearly all of us would agree that the decision to age wines depends on your personal tastes, and the producers, vintages, vineyards, varieties and styles in question on a case-by-case basis. Understanding that even then, there are going to misses of varying degrees (opened this too young, opened that too late), just because the effects of aging are not knowable with exactness, bottles and storage vary, and ultimately how subjective it is whether the changes in an aged bottle are better, worse, or just different.

It’s challenging, and it can be frustrating at times, but this is also one of the reasons wine is so endlessly fascinating. Every experience can be different. Even the same wine is different from vintage to vintage, at different ages, with different amounts of air, in different contexts, paired with different foods. In the modern parlance, this is not a bug, it’s a feature.

I shouldn’t post on a board full of lawyers. They’ll pick you apart word for word.

Markus_S · November 11, 2020, 8:21pm

I’m not too sure of this. If there was ever a person who keeps scads of ossified wines around, it would be him.

John_Morris · November 11, 2020, 8:30pm

Well, all be darned! I missed those!

Chris_Seiber · November 11, 2020, 8:42pm

Among your long list of great qualities is your willingness to tolerate my kind. Cheers, my friend!