In observing human nature, Pope John XXIII compared man with wine, commenting: “Men are like wine – some turn to vinegar, but the best improve with age.”

This, in my opinion, is an altogether accurate observation, as only the best wines (and people) with the pre-requisite characteristics do improve with age.

What then are these pre-requisites that allow a wine to improve with age?

The first factor to look at is the quality of the grapes.  This is usually expressed based on the year the grapes were harvested, the vintage.

The quality of each vintage is determined by environmental factors like the climate, and weather patterns.

The variable of influence by human intervention is also to be taken into consideration.   Factors such as irrigation (or lack of it), and yields from each vineyard can be controlled to give the desired quality of grapes.

Fruit intensity, acidity, alcohol, tannins, (and in the case of dessert wines, sugar) and the balance of all these components put together by using the appropriate winemaking techniques, contribute to the age-ability of a wine.

As mentioned earlier, only the best wines improve with age.  This means that the vast majority (95%) of wines that you will find in the market, are NOT meant for ageing (for any meaningful period of time anyway…), and are designed (by both winegrowing and winemaking techniques) for current consumption.

In the process of ageing, the primary fruit characteristics of the wines change from fresh, ripe, flavours (eg. tropical fruits in white wines, and berry fruits in red wines) into tertiary type flavours that remind one of honey, nougat, truffles, mushrooms, forest floor, tobacco leaf, etc.  Typically “brown” flavours, as I like to call them.

Acidity in wine tends to remain as a constant, and keeps the wine from feeling flat, and flabby.  However, a lack of fruit in the wine will leave the wine tasting quite austere and mean.

Tannins in red wine will clump together, and form a deposit of sediment, leaving a once young, astringent, and perhaps mouth-puckering wine, transformed into one with a silky smooth texture.  However, one has to note that sometimes, the tannins may outlast the fruit (due to either a poor vintage, or over-extraction during the winemaking process), leaving a wine that may be silky smooth in the mouth, but totally lacking in flavour!

For dessert white wines, the fruit intensity, and the sugary sweetness tends to fade, and is replaced with complexity provided by both tertiary type flavours and a certain mouth-feel that can sometimes be described as ethereal…

So, with all these factors playing against each other, how does one decide when a wine is ready to be savoured at its peak?

Well, these so-called peaks really depend on what one looks for in wines.

If you enjoy red wines that are bursting with fresh, ripe, fruit flavours, and are big, bold and with a tannic grip and texture, then you do not need to age the wines that you buy.  You may enjoy them once you have purchased them.

If you enjoy red wines that are somewhat more evolved, and with a relatively smooth texture, but still showing lots of fruit flavours, then perhaps ageing your wine for between 5 to 8 years may be suitable.

If you enjoy really smooth red wines that display mainly tertiary flavours, then you might want to wait perhaps 15 to 25 years.

Of course, all these estimates will also depend on a few more variables.  One has to remember to look at the grape variety, origin, and the vintage of the wine.

One has also got to remember to store the wines at the proper cellar temperature of 12º Celsius, and not to place the wines in the cupboard above the kitchen stove…

Tasting The Rewards of Patience

“Mr. Tulkinghorn sits at one of the open windows, enjoying a bottle of old port. Though a hard-grained man, close, dry, and silent, he can enjoy old wine with the best. He has a priceless bin of port in some artful cellar under the Fields, which is one of his many secrets. When he dines alone in chambers, as he has dined today, and has his bit of fish and his steak or chicken brought in from the coffeehouse, he descends with a candle to the echoing regions below the deserted mansion, and, heralded by the remote reverberation of thundering doors, comes gravely back, encircled by an earthy atmosphere and carrying a bottle from which he pours a radiant nectar, two score and ten years old, that blushes in the glass to find itself so famous, and fills the whole room with the fragrance of southern grapes.” — Charles Dickens, Bleak House.

1963 Brown Brothers Milawa Estate Shiraz

Tasted in 1996 at a dinner hosted by Ross BROWN at King River Café in Oxley, just down the road from the Brown Brothers Milawa Estate.  This wine was my first experience tasting a well aged Australian red wine.  This wine also sparked my interest in “older” wines.

Dry, with dried sour plum notes and hints of cocoa, earth, leather and dried tobacco leaf.   Medium-bodied, with balanced acidity, and with a silky smooth texture.  Finished long and dry.

1964 Grands-Echézeaux, Domaine de la Romanée-Conti

Tasted on the eve of the Millennium, at a dinner party hosted by a few very, very generous friends, who wanted to end the 20th Century with some of the finest wines of the century.  This was by far the most memorable wine that evening.  This is also the red Burgundy that I’ve enjoyed most, and still remains unsurpassed to this day.

Complex, red cherry and raspberry fruit with hints of undergrowth, lovely balanced acidity, a medium body, and with a very clean, pure finish.  Absolutely ethereal!

1971 Château Coutet, 1er Grand Cru Classé, Barsac

This was the first and only case of wine that I bought off the London secondary market in 1999.  First tasted in 1999, and several times later with consistent notes.

Sweet, with ripe candied peaches and Crème Brulée notes.  Lively and well balanced, finished clean and long.  Definitely quite stylish and very enjoyable.

Unfortunately, I don’t have any more left…

1969 Kopke Colheita Port (1998 Bottling)

There are several main styles for Port; Portuguese, English, German, French and Dutch. This wine is in the more elegant Dutch Tawny style, and is aged in large wooden vats for a very long time.

I bought this particular bottle during one of my trips to The Netherlands in 2001, and shared it with a group of wine-loving friends over dinner in October 2006.

Medium sweet with balanced acidity, medium weight and great concentration of dried raisined fruit notes mixed with caramel, spices, nuts and a hint of smoke.  Finishes long and dry.  Quite exquisite.

1945 Graham’s Vintage Port

Tasted in 2004 whilst I was Cellarmaster at Raffles Hotel during the 2004 Edition of Raffles Hotel’s Wine, Food & Arts Experience.  The tasting, conducted by Graham’s owner Paul SYMINGTON and moderated by Serena SUTCLIFFE MW, featured seven vintages of Graham’s Vintage Port from each decade of the 1940’s to the 2000’s.

The 1945 was immensely rich despite its age.  Still showing luscious ripe plum fruit supported by complex spice notes, and displaying both lively acidity, and rich, treacly textures.  A truly hedonistic wine.

This wine was also memorable, because it was one amongst the series that was double decanted at 2am in the morning, about 12 hours before the tasting.

Tasting The Folly of Inertia

“We may lay in a stock of pleasures as we would lay in a stock of wine, but if we defer tasting them too long, we shall find that both are soured by age.” – Charles Caleb Colton

1971 Zeltinger Schloßberg Riesling Aüslese, Winzergenossenschaft Mittelmosel - Wehlen, Mosel-Saar-Ruwer, Germany

1971 Zeltinger Schloßberg Riesling Aüslese, Winzergenossenschaft Mittelmosel – Wehlen

One of three bottles that I won in a Melbourne auction at Langton’s in 2000. It was only in 2006 that I finally managed to make it back to Melbourne, to catch up with some friends, and to collect the wines.  Tasted in September 2006, whilst having dinner with a group of wine-loving friends at the excellent Sel de la Terre restaurant on Toorak Road, South Yarra.

Still relatively pale in colour for its age. Almost dry, with sour plum and prune flavours, and loads of mineral notes and hints of dried grass (straw).  Delicately structured, with fine acidity and a dry finish.  Rather thin and still alive, but only just so.

1963 Wynns Coonawarra Estate “Hermitage”

This is another of my purchases from Melbourne, this time when I was there for the Wine Australia show in 2000.  I had always thought that this bottle would be quite a risky buy due to its age.  However, I decided to take that risk, as I had previously tasted another 1963 (the above-mentioned Brown Brothers Milawa Estate Shiraz) in 1996, and it was still very much alive then.

By the time I remembered that I had this bottle and had tasted it in October 2006, the wine was just barely alive.

Very dry, with loads of tea leaf characteristics and hints of earth, leather and other animal notes melded together with hints of underlying sweet fruits.  Smooth as silk and very clean on the finish. Unfortunately, marred by volatile acidity.