Who Says Older isn't Better?

What’s the longest you have waited to uncork and drink a wine that you bought or received as a gift? One day? One week? One year? Five years? Fifteen years? I’m guessing that you’re like me, which means you drink many of your wines within a week or at most a month of purchasing them. But what if you had a bit of patience and let those wines age? Are older, aged wines actually better? I have the answer for you!

A weekday Coravin tasting of aged library wines

Most wines produced today are crafted to be consumed while they are young, which means within a year or two of their release. This certainly includes most white wines, but it also includes the bulk of red wines as well. Part of this has to do with consumer tastes and a general preference for fruit-forward, fresh, and easy drinking wines among the wine-drinking population. Part of it also has to do with cost considerations – wines that are “built” to age are generally much more expensive because they use grapes with pedigree that come from some of the best vineyards in the world and are crafted by some of the best winemakers in the world as well. This means they are made in vastly smaller quantities, so you pay a much higher price for these wines.

So-called “Library Wines” will usually cost at least $75 on release, with many costing in the $100 to $300 per bottle range and some of the rarest, most sought after wines costing thousands of dollars (and even tens-of-thousands of dollars!) per bottle. And many of these wines continue increasing in value as they age, assuming they are kept in pristine storage conditions. Most of these library wines are red wines made from Cabernet Sauvignon, wines made from a blend of red grape varieties such as Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Malbec, and Petit Verdot (what’s often referred to as a “Bordeaux Blend”), wines made from Italian varieties such as Sangiovese and Nebbiolo, or wines made from the Pinot Noir grape. There are some age-worthy wines that are white wines, but the vast majority are red wines from France (Bordeaux and Burgundy), Italy (Tuscany and Piedmont), and the U.S. (California and Oregon).

So, what is it about these wines that make them age-worthy, and what happens to these wines over time as they age? First, most age-worthy wines have higher acidity, which helps prevent oxidation. They are also higher in tannins (imparted by grape skins, seeds, and stems of the grapes during maceration) which provides the structure and stability to age well. Also, age-worthy wines tend to have intense and concentrated flavors which help the wine to develop and evolve over time. And finally, as mentioned previously, these wines are usually produced using grapes grown in the best vineyards and wine-growing regions of the world and crafted by the best winemakers in the world as well.

As wine ages in the bottle, it changes in significant ways. And the longer the wine ages, the more pronounced those changes become. The tannins, which can be overpowering and off-putting when these wines are young, get softer and moderate over time, making the wine smoother, richer, and silkier as it ages. The fruit flavors in the wine lessen and mellow over time and begin to fade into the background instead of being the predominant characteristic of the wine. Also, more “earthy” and complex characteristics appear in the wine – flavors like leather, black licorice, black pepper, clove, dried herbs, pencil lead, and mushrooms start appearing to complement the fruit. Finally, the wine’s color changes and fades, from red to deeper purple and even brownish in color with longer-aged wines.

Another issue with aged wines is trying to anticipate the time when the wine is at its peak, and how long it takes to age the wine before it starts to deteriorate and degrade. Some wines can age for 50+ years in the bottle and still taste fabulous and fresh. For others, the sweet spot is 10-20 years in the bottle until they reach their peak. I tend to leave it to the experts to help me determine how long to age my library wines – most wines reviewed on-line or in the premier wine magazines (Wine Spectator, Decanter, or Wine Enthusiast for example) include an optimal timeframe for aging the wine.

My personal experience with aged wines is a bit complex. While I’ve always been intrigued intellectually by the notion that wine changes significantly in the bottle as it ages, my preference has always leaned toward younger, more fruit-forward wines. And while I really do appreciate the complex flavors that develop and emerge as a bottle of wine ages, a little bit of leather, licorice, pencil shavings, and earth go a long way for me, and I want them in the background instead of front and center. So, given my intellectual curiosity in learning about and tasting how wines age over time, I frequently age some of my better library-quality wines, but I tend to age them for less time than most wine connoisseurs would.

For example, if I have a $150 bottle of a Napa Cabernet Sauvignon and the expert reviewers all say to age the wine for 10-20 years before drinking, I’ll usually pop the cork on that one at the early end of that range, like at the 10-year or 12-year mark instead of the 20-year mark. I’ve found that when I do that, there is usually still plenty of fresh fruit flavors left in the wine, along with some interesting complexity added due to the development of those more earthy characteristics I mentioned earlier.

In the end, it all comes down to personal preference. And the only way to discover what your personal preference is comes down to including both young and older, age-worthy wines in your wine collection. A good place to start is to buy a few bottles of a nice age-worthy wine and then open the bottles over the course of a few years, recording your impression of the wine each time you open a bottle.  This will take some patience on your part, but I promise you it will pay off in the end!

For example, I’d start by investing in three of the same bottles of either Duckhorn Cabernet Sauvignon (about $55 per bottle) or Caymus Cabernet Sauvignon (about $80 per bottle). Open and enjoy the first bottle soon after you purchased them so you can see what the wine tastes like when it’s young – and don’t forget to jot down your thoughts on the wine – what flavors you tasted, how strong the tannins were, the color of the wine, and what you liked and didn’t like about the wine – and then store those notes away to revisit when you open the other bottles.

Also, try the wine alone on its own, and then with food (a nice grilled steak with a loaded baked potato and grilled broccoli would be a perfect match for both of these wines). Then store the other two bottles in a cool, dark place (ideally a wine refrigerator but if you don’t have one of those, the back of a closet will do just fine). 2-3 years later, open the second bottle to see how it’s changed over time and record your thoughts and observations again. Finally, open the last bottle in another 5-7 years to really experience what an aged wine tastes like and compare it to how it tasted the first two times you tried it. I promise you the wine will taste very different than it did upon release 8-10 years before!

If that all seems like too much work and you don’t have the patience to wait, then you can seek out aged wines at your local wine store, at wine auctions, or on-line purveyors for immediate gratification. But just know that the already-aged wines worth buying will be considerably more expensive than if you had bought them on your own upon release and waited to age them. Also, you need to make sure you can confirm and verify that the wines have been maintained and stored properly as they aged (something that can be difficult to do if you buy them on-line). Your best bet if you go this route is to ask for assistance from your local higher-end wine stores – they should be able to help!

Next week I’ll continue this discussion on aged wines by sharing the results of a recent tasting I conducted of three of my best aged library wines.