I had the good fortune to attend a SQN tasting hosted by Jeb Dunnuck in 2016 with wines direct from the winery, and was impressed enough to buy a number of bottles on the secondary market. I remember thinking at the time that nothing under 10 years of age was fully ready, and even the 2004s and 2005s seemed like they might get better with time
Fast forward a couple of years and I’m wondering whether to take the plunge with what I’ve bought. What’s the consensus on aging Sine Qua Non? Has anyone had good results from holding these for 10/15+ years? Is there any danger that the fruit declines to the point where the palate starts to crack up? Any advice would be muchly appreciated
How many folks purchase enough of these to open them young and then sit on some for later to ‘compare and contrast’ like many do with other wines? Just curious . . .
I dont drink that style of wine very often at all, so I have tons in the cellar aging. In fact, I have OWC of the last 3 EB vintage releases that have never been opened.
I like them 1 to 2 years from release and 10 to 12 years. I have older ones that thru the years I feel aren’t ready yet. Thankfully I get enough to test frequently and sit on a bunch if I want to age them.
We drink thru the regular releases, I don’t seem to open the EBA wines in wood, and have never opened a magnum…not sure why. Need to fix that soon.
I’m trying to. I buy what they offer, I open one of them in the first year. I like it. I leave the rest alone. I keep the bottles on a shelf in my dining room so I remember what I opened (except for those I forget to bring home from restaurants). My next foray will be this Sunday, when I will open one for friends for the Superbowl.
I recently had the 2002 JUST FOR THE LOVE OF IT, and the 2004 INTO THE DARK and both were singing. A few years ago I had the E RAISED and it, too, was singing. I’ve yet to have a SQN red that is over the hill, and I’ve been thoroughly impressed with them both young and up to 15-years old. At this point I’m thinking that these are 20+ year wines, and it will be interesting to see even beyond that.
As a data point, I opened a 2005 Atlantis Grenache over last Thanksgiving, and it was stunning. I thought it was much more complex and interesting at age 13 than it was when it was released. While it was also great upon release, it was much more hedonistic and full throttle.
A friend of mine has (maybe one of the largest) SQN collection in Austria … and he quite often brings a bottle to dinners/tastings - so I´ve tasted some 12-15 year old … usually superb !!!
I drink them young, soon after I get them. Same with Saxum and Alban. I also have had aged versions of these and while good, I prefer them younger versions.
Mark, I definitely agree. Based on my experience (almost 20yrs) with the SQN wines, I think that they can age very well and most often do much better after at least 4-5 years from release and often much closer to 8-10yrs after release. It will certainly be fun to age them and see how many keep improving and drinking well past age 20+. Also, in my opinion, even though the early bottlings were excellent, the quality improvement moving from the 90s bottlings and early 00 bottlings into the mid-00 and more recent ones has been stunning. As a result, I’d guess that many of the recent great bottlings will age even better than the early vintages.
On reflection, I cannot remember a single instance where an experience with one of the bottlings when it was young was better than later experiences after cellaring for at least 5-7 years. I used to open one bottle pretty soon after arrival (mostly out of curiosity) but stopped doing that since waiting always provided a noticeable benefit.
Thank you very much Don and Mark and Gerhard. I grately appreciate your comments.
It probably won’t satisfy Larry’s overwhelming “curiosity”, but I appreciate your comments and thoughts.
Manfred
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