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May, 2011:

The Perils of Ageing Wine

May 24th, 2011
by admin.
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The Perils of Ageing Wine

Aged wine doesn’t come my way that frequently. Apart from a few cases bought and stored with merchants, what I buy I tend to drink pronto, even when my best intentions are to cellar and imbibe when said vino has hit it’s apogee. Maybe if I actually had a cellar, things would be easier, but with my general lack of will power, and weakness before the charms of Mrs. Vino, I somehow doubt this.

This said, I found in my possession recently two cases of decent plonk  that were starting to look old enough to drink. They were wines I had bought with my mother who is now sadly deceased, and which had been stored at hers and then with a friend when I left the UK at the end of 2007  to live in New Zealand for two years. So it would seem the key to storing wine is distance between one and ones wine, 12000 miles probably being the optimum!

The two cases were a mixed affair. Two Burgundies from the ’99 vintage and two 1998 Larrivet Haut-Brion  probably the pick of the bunch, but accompanied by eclectic peculiarities such as a 2000 Chianti Classico and a bottle of 2000 St. Andrews Australian shiraz.  In addition to these there were two  bottles of 2003 Cantenac Brown and a fair amount of similarly aged interesting numbers from Bordeaux and Burgundy, wines starting to get on a bit, but by no means at their peak. As I have said, wine doesn’t usually hang around too long when at arms length, but the obvious game plan was to start with the older wines and try and leave the younger ones for as long as possible giving them time to improve. However, despite my best intentions, the game plan rapidly changed, and I would happily confess to the charge of infanticide if probed, and here’s why.

The bottom line is that so many of the older wines just didn’t cut the mustard.  They certainly showed interesting aged characteristics that you don’t find in younger wines, but many were thin, had lost their fruit and to be frank were passé. We started with the ’98 Larrivet Haut-Brion which although a wine of obvious quality, failed to really fulfill it’s potential and found the same with a 1998 Duhart-Millon. Even the robust oz Shiraz seemed to have given in against the ravages of time, showing heavily oxidative traits.

With countless disappointments I started to throw caution to the wind and began opening the younger ones, and found in general that they were more reliable. A 2001 St. Emilion Grand Cru Classe showed the freshness and purity of fruit you would hope for, and although there was potential for further improvement that perhaps three more years bottle age would bring to life, it was certainly drinking well and packing lots. The same was true for the first of the two Cantenac Brown. A Margaux if ever there was, with lashings of spice and liquorice, packaged in bramble and wrapped in big tannins.

I’d be foolish to imply there is no point in aging wine, but maybe there is no point in aging wine badly. My Mum’s cellar, a rack under a hi-fi in the coolest room of her house was obviously not an environment free from temperature fluctuations, or vibration for that matter. In addition, all the older wines had lived through the 2003 heatwave stored in these conditions, so who knows what effect this would have had on them. It would be interesting to track down a few of these disappointments from more venerable sources and do the comparison, but next on the list are several cases from the 2000 vintage that are currently stored with berry brothers that are approaching readiness. At eight pounds a case a year, I’ll be hoping these don’t disappoint too!

JJS