I’m just sayin’ that I am particularly enamored with Carlisle wine, not just for the wonderful wine, the decent prices, and the great customer service, but also because they have the most comprehensive and up-to-date drinkability chart I have ever seen. I keep my wine cellar (also known as my basement) on an Excel spreadsheet, and I try to enter a “drink by” date for each wine. Carlisle makes that super easy. Why can’t other producers do the same?
I’m not saying that Carlisle’s dates are flawless and unassailable, but it sure is nice to know what the guy who made the wine thinks about when it ought to be opened. Other people might have their opinions, and those opinions might be hugely variable, or might be very accurate, but the guy who made the wine, and who has been making (and drinking) wine from those same sites for decades ought to have a better idea than most other people. I’m just saying . . . . .
Phil Jones
This is so much a matter of personal preference that I don’t give a lot of weight to any person’s projected drinking windows unless I know their leanings and can adjust for that in making my decisions about when to open the wine.
I find that in California most wineries give drinking windows that are far earlier than I prefer. That’s certainly true of Ridge, which has been recommending drinking windows for decades.
I suspect that’s partly for commercial reasons – they don’t want potential customers to think they have to wait forever for the wines to come around. And lots of people just want the tannins in reds to have softened a bit and care less about tertiary development.
Or it may be the winemakers like younger wines. In France and Italy, winemakers very often prefer their wines much, much younger than I do.
So, I guess it’s an interesting data point, but I don’t give winemakers’ estimates extra weight at all.