How should a wine age???

Hi everyone- Just cracked open a 1998 Puligny-Montrachet from SommSelect that I thought was wonderful; it was deep gold and full of nutty, slightly oxidized, and stewed fruit flavors. On Cellar Tracker, reviewers wrote that this wine was “on the decline” and advised to “drink up”. To me, it was perfectly appropriate for a 20+yr old white; it unquestionably tasted like it had age on it, which it did. It provided an aged wine experience, as opposed to a non-aged experience. But somehow, this counted as a negative to reviewers on CellarTracker.

Which begs a a larger question. How should a wine age? One frequently hears praise that a wine drinks “much younger than it is”, as if it is a good thing that a 25 yr old wine drinks as if it were just 5 yrs old. I have wondered why so many consider this to be positive. If someone wanted to experience a 5 year old wine, why not buy a 5 year old wine as opposed to a 25 year old wine? To me, older vintages provide a fundamentally different experience. I personally don’t want to pay the extra money and put the extra effort into obtaining older wines, and then find that they just taste like a recent release. What’s the point?

Am I alone here? What do you all think?

If you are interested, here is my review, along with the others: https://www.cellartracker.com/wine.asp?iWine=455268&searchId=2A35A213%23selected%253DW455268_13_K3a636cd25af9ba1ca1e3d56eb68bc89e

Noah, here is my answer to your 2nd question. Some “small” wine collectors, and I am a couple of notches below that, get more utility out of owning a wine rather than drinking that wine. So if people post that a wine tastes young that means more storing, owning, and bragging rights to owning that wine. If you drink it, you don’t get the satisfaction of owning that wine any longer. And also no one wants to hold wines deemed over the hill.

Just want to make sure that I do not offend anyone. Rich, large collectors can open up any wines without a second thought. But for a “small” collector, a $1000 bottle of wine is a big deal, so where do you get more satisfaction: owning or consuming.

I don’t think “on the decline” necessarily means the wine is bad. It’s a descriptor for oneself + others reading your notes that it’s time to drink a bottle rather than put it away. The wine OP describes sounds wonderful, but slightly oxidized can turn into just plain oxidized, and who wants that…

There’s also bottle variation, especially at 20+ years. Your bottle may have simply been better stored than another for which you are reading a review

Good question.

You also need to add on the dimension of perosnal flavour preferences to bottle variation.

The other thing is, if someone has a dozen bottles, and they track it on an annual basis after 10 years, they should be able to give good insight into when the bottle peaks, rather than just is it any good at a particular point in time. The bottle in question might have been better 5 years ago (for example), but still good now?

Interesting question. Aged (and I am talking about properly aged wines, not those faultily stored) taste different than young wines. Some wines, of course, really need to be aged. Others shouldn’t be. Then there are those that give different expressions over a long life (I personally am thinking of German Kabinetts starting at say 3 years up to 20+, though there are many other examples).

Not everyone likes how older aged wine tastes, and yet there is often an implicit assumption that great age, up to a certain point, in a properly stored fine wine, means a great drinking experience. I suspect that those who write things like “this drinks like it is 5 years old” and mean it positively about a 20-year old wine are people who feel they should prefer the taste of a 20-year old wine to a 5-year old wine, but they simply don’t. At the same time, they have “learned” somewhere that a 20-year old wine should be greater than a 5-year old wine. And of course, that is personal preference.

As others have said, not everyone like aged wine. Parker, for example, was notorious for declaring wines dead which other people loved. Also bottle variation can be a big factor with 20+ year old wines. That said, the reviews seem to indicate that the wines were very similar. You enjoyed them much more than the other reviewers (and I suspect I would have been in your camp for any of the bottles reviewed).

Though it is worth noting that “in decline” and “drink up” don’t mean a wine can’t be delicious. For example I’ve been following the 1979 La Dominique over the last decade or so from a stash purchased from TCWC. More recent bottles are still lovely, I’m glad I have a few left, but they are not as good as they were 5 years ago.

… - double post

Age in terms of “years old” and Age as in “Evolving” are not always the same thing

Some wines evolve with age. Some just last (maybe with some mellowing, etc).

A 20 year old tasting like a 5 year old implies to me that the wine has lasted well, but isn’t going to (or hasn’t yet) evolved at all.

There is an idea that there is a “Peak” time (or even “moment”) to drink a wine.
Even if this idea is true the evaluation is relative to an individual.

When a taster’s wine note describes a wine as “on the decline”
I translate that as “This wine would have been closer to MY Peak a while back”.

I prefer to look at portions of the description that are more easily generalized across tasters
eg. “The wine has a distinct Sherry quality” or “the fruit is gone”

Interesting question - and such a fascinating concept to me that is truly ‘in the eye of the beholder’. As others have noted, many do not like the characteristics of ‘aged wine’ and therefore knock them for having those characteristics. Many would see you note stating ‘sightly oxidized’ and take that as a negative, which is not what you were implying at all.

I do not believe you will find ‘consensus’ here on this board because of the broad array of tasters, experiences and expectations, and that’s okay. Those who consume older wine on a regular basis will probably be most ‘relevant’ for you to follow/listen to.

I also am convinced that so much has to do with ‘expectations’ as well - I tend to go into consuming older wines with ‘low expectations’ and am rarely ever disappointed.

Bottle variation is of course a huge issue as well - even from your own stash/same case over time. That’s the double edged sword of older wines - that, and taking into account that each bottle you open, you are most likely in a different setting / mood / lighting / food / company, etc. So many variables to consider.

Cheers.

“Drinking younger than it is” to me implies something about the wine’s fruit characteristics. Let’s say someone has a lot of experience drinking white Burgundy of all age ranges. So in their mind, they have a vague idea of what Puligny-Montrachet with 10, 15, or 20 years of age ‘should’ taste like. So when someone notes that a wine is, “drinking younger than it is” it usually means that the wine tasted different from what they expected a 20 year old wine to taste like.

You question as to why that may be a good thing is certainly interesting. Most that enjoy aged wines enjoy them because of the aged characteristics. So is claiming a wine is drinking younger than it is actually a good thing? To me it doesn’t necessarily imply that there aren’t any of characteristics common to aged wines, but rather than in addition to that the wine still has some of the fruit profile and acidity that a younger wine would have. I also see it as an indicator of a wine’s drinking window and how it may peform going forward.

I am with Larry in that I look at older wines as a crap shoot, so my expectations are kept fairly low and therefor tend to get surprised only when the wine exceeds them. As wines age like people they tend to loss energy and vitality and that is the thing I am talking about when I suggest a wine seems younger then it is. You don’t love grandpa any less just because he needs a nap after dinner, even if you miss him being the life of the party. To further this analogy we all know some octogenarian who still works harder then people half their age and quick with the wit even late into the evening. So when I say grandma acts more like she is 35 then 80 it is to celebrate her energy and vitalities, not to diminish her wisdom.

Interesting. I prefer many wines on the older side. But I have frequently written in CT notes that a wine is ‘drinking young.’ I don’t mean to put any value on that statement either way. Usually, for me it is not a good thing, as it means the wine is not as developed as I would prefer. Sometimes, especially with an older auction bottle, it means that the wine exceeded my expecations and is still drinkable. So I am not sure you can infer anything about preference from that statement alone.

Interesting point. An old wine drinking young I think more points to its potential economic value to age much longer than a typical wine. For personal consumption, as others have noted, it is a waste of space and time for a wine to simply hold indefinitely, aside from the curiosity value of a wine developing at a glacial pace.

Realistically, well-made, structured wine bottled with an impermeable Stelvin closure and held at 45 F to 50 F probably should rather uniformly last for a decade or more. There isn’t any meaningful way to separate intrinsic age worthiness of a wine from the quality of its closure and storage temperature.

I’d say that dried fruit and oxidation, by themselves, are not something I’d consider positive in aged wines. Harvest late, run a hot ferment, don’t top of the barrels as the wine evaporates, and that’s it, it’s ready to go ‘pre-aged’ with raisiny flavors, aldehydic character, and a bit of VA perhaps :slight_smile:

Since I have budget and space constraints, I land on the side that wines with balanced structure and concentration that don’t shut down offer the greatest reward/risk balance. The upside of a 30-50 year aging curve is absent, but massive walls of tannins and dumb phases result in windows of drinkability that can only be guesses given cork and storage variability, as well as vintage character that only appears after years.

Gracefully!

It is both a fairly complex and broad question, as just about every wine, including wines made from the same grapes, age along different arcs. The beautiful thing is to a follow a wine that you like very much over the course of its lifetime. On Thursday night I had a bottle of 1999 Chateau d’Armailhac. This is not an old wine by Classified Growth Bordeaux standards, but it was perfectly mature at this point in time and drink ever so well. I have probably had a full case of this wine since release, it is one of those unique Bordeaux that I have enjoyed at virtually every stage of development. I’m curious to see where it goes from here, even if later it is on the backslide. I also had a bottle that night of the 1982 Château La Louviere. It was quite lovely, but definitely on the backslope of its existence. If you have any left, drink it up.

I’ll admit, as someone relatively new to wine appreciation, I don’t completely understand what people mean when they say a wine is oxidized like it’s a bad thing. I often love when old whites have some nutty/rancio notes as long as they don’t otherwise taste like vinegar or are too sour. Is this a difference in preference or am I not understanding what people mean when they disappointedly say a wine was oxidized?

I think Oxidized and Oxidative is very different. The first is used to describe a flaw, the other is used to describe a desired effect of aged wine. What you describe would be oxidative.

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+1

If a wine feels oxidized, it’s getting past its peak.

If a wine feels oxidative, it’s showing tertiary characteristics related to slow, controlled oxidation that happens over the years.

At least this is the way I’ve been using the terminology.

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So much this! It would appear that those wines are usually the product of sunnier climates/vintages, but correct me if I’m wrong.