At What Point is a Wine "Over the Hill"?

I’ve been drinking some older wines recently (very generally I like wines to be “middle aged”) and had a couple older wines that I thought were “shot” or “over the hill”. But it occurred to me, that maybe they were just old and not to my liking.

So what distinguishing characteristics make a wine over the hill/shot/past it’s prime/etc.?

When they’re no longer enjoyable, either intellectually or sensory?

So it’s not a lack of fruit, it’s just personal taste?

I don’t mean this as a swipe in any way, but it seems that for some (Francois comes immediately to mind) no wine is ever too old. I can’t believe that’s the majority view.

Bingo. There’s people who are baby killers and enjoy, or are immune to, tannins (Alan and his rants on aged _________ pop into my mind first and foremost), then there’s people who enjoy a little to some bottle age (quite a larger group than the first, maybe Pobega fits here), then you have the ones who like a decade or two (Alfert, Neal, David, Stuart, me, and probably a large percentage of the membership), and finally there’s the category who want ancient bottles (like Francois).

I think it also has a lot to do with the type of wine you like. Many Cali Cabs can be very enjoyable in only two to four years or even on release. Grand Cru French wines usually take 15 to 20+ years.

It’s clearly not the lack of primary and secondary aromas and flavors associated with fruit, for some people. But for most, there is an expectation that something will be there for sensory stimulation. When there is simply nothing or only structural components but nothing tertiary, I would think most would consider the wine to be dead.

Oxidation is one obvious flaw from age, but people have different tolerances for that. So unless it’s extreme, you’ll get a difference of opinion.

In some cases, wines go over the edge when the fruit fades and the tannins and/or acids don’t. The wine can just be harsh.

Wines whose appeal is based on their up-front fruit may just become bland without gaining any complexity. That can happen with Beaujolais, dolcetto and barbera and many zins.

Many old reds take on a coffee note that I don’t like. It seems tired to me. Others love that.

That coffee thing is an example of a larger category of over-hill-wines – wines that have lost their personality so they just taste like generic old wine, red or white. If you can’t tell if it’s Bordeaux or Burgundy or a Cote Rotie or a Chateauneuf, it’s probably past its prime.

I’ve had old cab that tasted like apple cider. Old pinot that tasted like rose water. To me those were over the hill.

I would say that lack of any freshness is my tale tell.
I generally like older wines, especially vs too young.

Wines can still be drinkable and fascinating when over the hill, certainly can be educational too.

I suppose there may also be some differences in what we mean. Some may mean ‘past peak’ whilst for others it’s aged past the point the wine is enjoyable.

For me ‘shot’ is clear though - it’s so far gone there is no meaningful interest.

I do like aged wines, so I have great tolerance for faded fruit & more than a hint of oxidation, if there is interesting tertiary complexity. The reasoning is that these aromas/tastes are more rarely experienced and can still hold interest in a wine that has developed over-mature flaws.

Though in moderation, these are acceptable: muddy, mushroomy, sherried/madeirised would be the aromas/favours that point towards OTH for me, but it can also be represented by wines that have fallen permanently out of balance e.g. a wine that has lost fruit flavours but retained oak related flavours, or where the acidity is fierce/shrill/sour and overpowers what remains of the rest of the wine. It could even be a wine that had low acidity and now is fat/flabby. I don’t count as OTH a wine that has developed somewhat strong balsamic/barnyard aromas, but others would object to these.

regards
Ian

When you used to like the wine when it was younger, but no longer do

All wines “ages,” it’s just that wine doesn’t necessarily age “well” after a certain point.

Unlike traditional Bordeaux, for example, that might require 20+ years to come around, MOST wines that are made are intended to be consumed upon release or within a few years thereafter. A relatively small proportion of wine made today is intended to be cellared beyond 10 or 20 years, for example.

Bruce

Of course there will not be agreement on a specific feature or character of a wine that classes it as over the hill. Take champagne, people here have extolled the virtues of 50 year old champagne that has lost all carbonization yet they love the remaining flavour profile, nobody would be shocked to find out that i would consider champagne at this stage to nothing more than dead bad still wine. Who is right ? if you bought a bottle of coke and opened it and got no fizz it would be returned as bad, yet champagne has aged gracefully ??

Dennis made comment to me being immune to tannins, thats not really it, the choice i make is that i accept the tannins because i really enjoy the fresh vibrant attack of big young fruit. I have had young bottles 13 Napa cabs that i just dont enjoy because the fruit has not developed yet they are just tannic at this stage, now i struggle with the concept of older cabs because i dont know where the fruit i love is coming from. I understand that tannins will integrate making the wine smoother but if the fruit is not there at day 1 where does it come from ? just drinking a fruitless wine with resolved tannins then coming out with the classic review of " it once had great fruit " is my issue with older wines

So " over the hill " to me is when youve lost that primary fruit, the integration of tannins is what i believe Dennis was talking about and this is the shelf of the wine but once that fruit has gone or the bubbles in champagne you have nothing left

The French use a term as a swipe against the English, who, to my understanding, helped sculpt modern perceptions of taste in the world of wine:

Gout de Anglais = Gout de Mort

The 1996 Steele Mendocino Chardonnay wine I tasted with a local British doctor in ~2006 gave tremendously potent flavors of “catfish”. I could not swallow it. The good doctor loved it!

Hi Alan
We probably occupy opposite ends of the spectrum on this topic, yet I fully understand your position and have no problem with it. In answer to your question “Who is right?” I offer “the person who is drinking the wine” as the answer. [cheers.gif]
regards
Ian

When the only thing you can write for a tasting note is, “tastes like old wine.”

One of my favorite wine lines was uttered by one of the local winos at a dinner over some totally shot wine thar almost everyone else dumped. I really wonder if he believes wine can be over the hill.

He said: " It’s lost all of it’s primary, secondary, and tertiary flavors, but I like it."

Old wine is like pornography, you know it when you taste
It.

Totally get that.

And this too.

That said, I’m convinced that one man’s “shot” is another man’s “quaternary development”.

Its subjective. Lots of people want an old, over aged, senile wine. Mand they think they are GREAT.

Good for them too because at some point i will own some old overaged wines i forgot to get around to and post them on commerce corner.

When it is too old for Francois Audouze.