Relatively new to the wine collecting scene and have recently started to try and back fill my collection with older, more approachable wines via auctions, collections, etc. while I wait for my recent purchases to age. It got me thinking as to what factors and how you rank those factors when considering how a wine will age. Assuming the number one factor would be the grape varietal,then maybe region or producer, or reputation etc. Or maybe there’s really no simple factor/solution, other than trial and error (or cellar tracker). Just curious on thoughts and if there was a general rule of thumb (Barolo Nebbiolo - forever, US Syrah 20 yrs, Cab Bordeaux 40 yrs etc).
I think the biggest factor is the structure of the wine – is there enough concentration, tannin and acid to sustain it through the years? It’s those elements that explain the longevity of classic Bordeaux and Cal cab and Barolo and the best Cotes de Nuits reds.
Also, is the alcohol high enough that it might become conspicuous with age?
Certainly, the grape type is a big determinant in structure, but the site and winemaking choices are very important. You can make a cabernet that can be drunk with pleasure on release at two years old (by limiting tannin particularly), or you can make one that will last for 30 years. Same thing with pinot and syrah.
Producer, producer, producer. Then other factors.
Far too simplistic. Take Piedmont. Would an iconic producers minor variety wine (Gavi, Cortese, Arneis, Dolcetto) age as well as a medium-level producers reserve barolo from a top vintage?
Hi Mike and welcome as I don’t think I’ve seen you before. I think so far you have three answers and they’re all right.
Some grapes are known for making long-lived wines. Does that mean every wine made from those grapes will be age-worthy? Nope. You get a Nebbiolo from Mascarello or a Tempranillo from CVNE and those pretty much outlast anyone who buys them. But get a Nebbiolo or Tempranillo from California and will it have the same life span? Not yet. In the future, as people better understand where in CA to plant those grapes, maybe.
And then there are some grapes that are not known for making age-worthy wines just because not many people have done it, or not many people have heard of them. I’ve had pretty old Barbera that was quite delicious. Some people said that Zin couldn’t make age-worthy wine but you’ll find a lot of opposing views on this board and elsewhere. And if you look at central and eastern Europe, from the 1920s through the 1990s, they were kind of off the world stage, so you won’t find many western collectors looking at their wine for aging. But today, with the knowledge that they’ve picked up from the rest of the world, some of those places are turning out beautiful age-worthy wines.
And then you have some wine makers who’ve been making wine for a long time and who have a track record. There are a few wine makers in Spain and I’d bet on anything they put out before I’d bet on an untested newcomer to a known region with known grapes. And BTW, guys like Mariano Garcia will tell you that they really don’t know exactly what it is that will make a wine age. He’s probably put out as many as anyone in the world and he knows what he looks for in a good wine, but predicting the future is a crapshoot.
So the grapes are important, the place or the site of the grapes is important, and the wine maker is important. The grapes and the site can provide the potential, but it’s up to the wine maker to screw it up!
And BTW, the noun is “variety”. “Varietal” is an adjective. One of my pet peeves.
I thought that “variety” referred to the grape and that “varietal” referred to the wine.
+1
Absolutely on the money.
Beat me to it.
I think there is merit to both of these. If you’re trying to assess whether to purchase and age a wine you’ve never tasted, then producer matters greatly. In terms of what’s in the bottle, I think John nails it: structure.
I think it´s a combination of variety (is this correct? grape-variety?) and terroir, of course with vintage and producer in addition.
I doubt that Pinot noir planted in the Enclos of Chateau Latour will yield exciting results.
On the other hand Cabernet Sauvignon in Romanée-Conti …? Even if vinified by DRC …!
French vignerons have explored the virtues of certain parcels of land for centuries … hard to imitate that in a few years …
Thanks for the responses (and have updated the title). Basically what I would assume that there’s no real “cheat” sheet but need to find the combo of producer, structure, grape and region. I guess it’s a bit more of an semi-educated trial and error buying some back vintages, etc.
Welcome.
The track record of the same wine/producer over history is the best gauge. This plays into all the points mentioned above.
I have really started to question this lately. My wife buys a lot of wine herself and then some of it ends up not getting consumed within what I would consider to be the optimal time frame. While I try to keep my nose out of her wine, I just can’t help myself. So every six months or so, I sort through her collection and pull out wines that she should drink soon as I fear they are reaching the past prime state. Usually she ignores my attempts to help her. But lately she has been starting to open some of these wines that I pulled for her years ago. With very few exceptions, the wines are in fine shape and most are better than they were when young. Her preferences lean towards lower acid, higher alcohol, and plush tannins, what she likes to call juicy. Not what one expects to age for a decade and improve. Last nights example was a 9 year old (I think) albaranio from Lodi made by Mark Herold that I assumed would be dead but was quite drinkable.
With regard to varietal and variety, variety is the noun form. Varietal is an adjective. The only accepted use of varietal as a noun is to refer to a wine made of a single variety, probably as an accepted shorthand for a varietal wine. And even this is usually in reference to an American wine (one really does not call a Burgundy a varietal wine, even though it is technically correct to do so). All grape varieties, like all other biological varieties are,well, varieties.
In order, I would rank it producer, terroir, vintage, grape variety. If grape variety was #1, then why do some California Cabernet age effortlessly for decades and others never evolve.
As a newer wine collector, read Adventures Along the Wine Route by Kermit Lynch. Probably will give you a different way of thinking about wine that will save you from making a bunch of mistakes.
Don’t buy wines to age until you understand the difference between aging and holding up.
+1
Yes, “varietal” is – or was – an adjective rather than a noun. But, as you know, words evolve in meaning. Those of us (and people like Greg and you in particular) who are fastidious about such things have pretty much lost the battle in this case. The truth is, “varietal” is widely used as a noun in the American wine business. It’s a common evolution, where an adjective attached to a noun (e.g., “varietal wine”) is shortened and the adjective shifts to become a noun.
For the record, and to establish my grammatical bona fidea, I cringe when people use “less” where they should use “fewer.” I don’t get riled up about “varietal” as a noun.
Well both bother me!
So there!!!
Anyway, it is actually a cultivar, which means a “cultivated variety”. I think I’ve posted this before. I’m willing to give up on that one because if you’re not in horticulture that would confuse people.
But if you’re interested, a variety is a distinct version of a species that should produce true to type. So if you plant a seed, you’ll get that same plant. They occur in nature. A cultivar usually wouldn’t. So you come out to your rose and find that your five petal rose named Dr. W. Van Fleet has a branch that is producing flowers with many petals and you cut that branch and root it and you have a new rose and you call it New Dawn and you patent it and have the first rose patent in the US. In other words you find a sport on a plant and you propagate that, or cultivate it. Or you find something naturally growing and you cultivate that. Yesterday I noticed new growth on two twigs I’ve been trying to root, so I’ve successfully propagated a lemon tree that I like. Until people actually took little brushes and painted pollen on flowers, those are the ways cultivars were found and continued. They are clones. And they have names that are capitalized when written, e.g. Merlot, Zweigelt, New Dawn, Forest Pansy.
But it’s actually harder because there are naming conventions and breeding conventions and a lot of people refer to cultivars as varieties so I tend to leave it at that. But a grape like Merlot is not a varietal and it is capitalized when written.
A monovarietal wine is a wine made of a single variety. People in the wine biz started using the term “varietal” to sound all cool and like they have their own jargon, but to me it sounds like a Khardashian fan where literacy was never really in the cards.
This is the one usual response to this correction. It is true that words evolve, it it is not true that this one has gone farther than wine business lingo. It has roughly the same status as business people referring to writing as wordsmithing. It marks the user more than the usage. That might change. Language does what language does. But it would be a shame because it would mean a special, pointless, wine lingo anomaly. I would rather fight against that than shrug my shoulders, blaming evolution. If people end this silly linguistic bit of meandering, that will also be evolution.
Yes, there are two ways to do this
- Study the structure (tannins, acidity) judge how much depth the fruit has, then understand the grape and what happens to wines made from it as they mature, then guess at the longevity
OR
-
Understand how wines under this label have previously aged, the sort of positive longevity they endure, and also whether they tignten up for a while before the ideal drinking window starts to emerge. Now consider the vintage variation / wine profile of a young bottle and adjust accordingly e.g. usually a 15-20 year wine, but this was a warmer, more fruit forward vintage, so adjust to 10-15 years.
-
is much easier than 1) and it’s the technique most critics will fall back on. A bit like having an open book exam, or one where you have to remember everything.
However beware of taking drinking windows too seriously, as tastes vary greatly. One person’s end of the drinking window is another’s still in a dumb phase and not ready yet (Red Burgundy seems to suffer this more than most wine styles). As you journey onwards, you’ll get a feel for whether you like wines earlier or later.