I mostly drink Bordeaux and Brunello. However I have some limited experience with excellent Burgundy and Barolo. I thought for my first foray into older wines I would stick with Bordeaux or Brunello since I know them better. I want to pay around $100 total. Anytime I buy on auction I add 35% for auction fees, taxes, shipping. That’s why I was looking in the $60-80 price range. I will look into the 1980s years you all mentioned.
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I have been buying a fair bit of older wine from the 50s, 60s and 70s over the past few years, but personally I do not go that far back on auctions.
I find that the best retailers are often getting the wines from cellars in Europe where the wines have sat for the entirety of their lives. If the retailer does their due diligence, the provenance is much more ‘knowable.’
Although in recent vintages I suggest buying by winery, rather than by vintage, when it comes to wines that old, I find vintage more important (in Piedmont at least). You would be surprised at how many 67s are doing fantastic today.
I could care less what happened to the label, unless it hints at seepage. I even bought a Suduiraut with no label once! I avoid signs of past seepage. I also avoid protruding or depressed corks. They are not always a problem, but not worth the risk imo.
Good luck!
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Find a good Chateau Meyney 1983. Less than $100, and a good bottle is still very enjoyable.
Unlike EricJ I have had much better experiences buying older wine at auction. But vintage selection and region of production make huge differences. My success rate of older bottles is more like 90% or even better. I can only guess at why, here are some stabs.
Condition - I mentioned above my condition criteria, and I stick to them. Pushed/pulled corks, seepage, very low fills all are absolutely to be avoided.
Region - This matters a lot.
- Bordeaux, for me, has a great track record. I’ve bought quite a bit from the 80s, and a decent amount from the 70s. Very little before that, and I would expect bottle quality will decline pretty rapidly as you go further back. These wines had a history of appropriate long term storage in Europe, and also brought into the US in large volume, so stored decently in the US as well. Storage is everything!
- Burgundy has a very good track record as well for me, though on lower volume, and only back to the 80s. But perhaps this is irrelevant as pricing and access for older Burgundy has become lunatic/prohibitive. Italy is where things start to get a part more challenging.
- My success rate on older Italian bottles (Piedmont and Tuscany/Brunello) is much worse, especially before the mid-90s. More like 50% or worse. My vague guess at why is that refrigerated storage in Italy before the late 90s was basically nonexistent. So poor storage has led to wines that are no longer in good shape. If you can find bottles that were shipped to the US upon release, or perhaps stored in professional cellars in Northern Europe, you will have a much better chance of success. But knowing storage conditions is pretty much impossible. Asking for proof of storage on small purchases (heck, or even big ones) will draw blank stares.
Vintage - Also really important. Things have changed a lot in Europe, both climate and wine making ability/knowledge/budget. Nowadays we have 7 or 8 very good vintages per decade in these regions. In the 70s and 80s there might have been 3 or 4. And the bad vintages were very bad. Horrific. Totally worth avoiding except by true die hards.
- Bordeaux. You’ve already gotten some advice about this. I still am buying Bordeaux from the 80s, and I’ll look at 1983/85/86/89. 4 out of 10, not bad! 1981 and 1988 were decent as well, but to my palate the bottles are now getting too old and fading. 1982 I usually avoid (even though it produced excellent wines) because it is quite a bit more expensive than the others (this is the Robert Parker moment, and collectors chase it). 1980/84/87? Terrible. Avoid. Don’t risk your money.
- Bordeaux Part 2. What about the 90s? 1990, 1995, 1996, and 1998 all produced some great wines. 1997 and 1999 were not disasters, and you can find some real deals from those vintages if you choose carefully, but I have mostly avoided them. 1991/2/3/4 were disasters. Avoid, avoid avoid.
- Bordeaux Part 3. Older Bordeaux? Maybe 1961, 1970, 1978 can still deliver, but this is getting outside my experience.
- Italy. Someone else will have to comment on these. But I wouldn’t buy anything older than, say 1997/1999/2001/2004 - these were good or better vintages in both Piedmont and Tuscany that I have bought and enjoyed in the last 10 years. Others will tell you that 1961/1964/1967/1970/1971/1974/1978 and 1982/85/89 were great vintages in Piedmont and the bottles can be amazing. But as much as I am curious about these, my success rate is very low and the lower risk bottles are getting pricier. And the other vintages from those decades are to be avoided.
Good luck!
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I have had a great track record with older wines from Italy. I don’t think it is an issue with storage in Italy, but rather the companies doing the sourcing.
Since 2021, I have had 5 of 28 (1988 or older) bottles from Italy with issues. 17 of them were 1971 or older even.
I could be wrong, but for me the key has been finding trusted sources who do the same with their sources. Recently I was reimbursed for a 1964 Pio Cesare Barolo because it was oxidized. I wasn’t really even asking for money back.
The 5 bottles that did not survive for various reasons were:
1955 Antonio Vallana e Figlio Spanna Castello di Montalbano
1959 Antonio Ferrari Solaria Jonica
1964 Pio Cesare Barolo
1969 Barbi Brunello di Montalcino
1983 Maculan Cabernet Sauvignon Breganze Palazzotto (never really expected this to be alive)
I would argue that your best “deal” (availability and price) for getting into old wine might be aged Rioja. If you poke around you can find reputable websites/importers that periodically get shipments directly from the winery.
Ex. SommSelect routinely has pretty reasonable Rioja offers from the 1970s.
Would love to hear examples
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are you saying that only 3 or 4 out of every 25 bottles of 70s and 80s wine you have bought have been been not spoiled or ruined? To me that is a shockingly bad experience compared to mine which is closer to the reverse of that. And I have bought a lot of older 60s and 70s and 80s cali wine form various places, including a lot from WineBid.
My feeling is that, almost no matter where you buy it I wouldn’t put ANY stock in a written provenance description of a wine that old. But at least on WineBid you get very good and detailed photos to help you make some visually educated guesses about whether its generally likely to be good or not.
[quote=“Mark-C, post:1, topic:320253”]
I understand that is the level of the wine. When those of you that buy old wine do so what do you look for? [/quote]
Loads of people have already given you tips on what to look for.
At the end of the day, while diligence and common sense helps, with old wines, “You puts down your money and you takes your chances.”
Perhaps I missed it, but what is your definition of an old wine? 5 years, 10 years, etc.,
A few from memory, and I’ve seen the middle 3 myself:
- Those 198? believed to be 1982 listings… very easy to scratch a 4 off.
- Invisible bidders picked out by the auctioneer to move the bidding along
- People bidding on their own wines to bump the bidding up
- La Tour de By called out casually as ‘The LaTour’ by the auctioneer
- Dodgy bottles buried under better looking ones in dual layer cases… and the reverse of an eagle-eyed buyer burying any good bottles in a larger mixed case, below more cruddy commercial ones, to reduce the chances of others spotting them.
Outside of wine, I was told by someone trading in antiques, that there was a local syndicate (illegal to team up in a syndicate over here) threatening her with either joining them or … else.
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https://www.winebid.com/BuyWine/Item/9387065/1981-Duckhorn-Vineyards-Napa-Valley-Merlot
43 yrs young
BTW, Woodland Hills has 95 and 96 Lynch Bages for +/- $200, and either will give you a far better experience than the 68. And that’s an understatement
I won’t purchase anything below base neck for fills, no signs of seepage, no sunken or protruding corks and I try to avoid bin stained labels.
Looks like exaggerated a bit (was typing from memory while enjoying a few glasses of wine). Not including port I’ve had 18 bottles that I kept notes on from before 1990. 3x were private sales, 2x came from Benchmark, 1x from a local store, and the other 12x were from WineBid. Of the 18, 3x were really good, 1x was pretty good, 5x didn’t have notable flaws but were dead, and the remaining 9x were clearly flawed wines. I bought a lot of these when I first discovered WineBid and was just taking a shot on older wines to see if I might like any.
1975 (2x) Bertani Recioto della Valpolicella Amarone Classico Superiore - Completely Oxidized, wasn’t expecting much though (parent’s anniversary year)
1977 Cantina Terre Del Barolo Barolo Riserva - Wasn’t flawed, but tasted of nothing. Again wasn’t expecting anything and took a flyer for a friend’s birth year
1982 Château Sociando-Mallet - I don’t remember the specific flaw, but it was terrible
1982 (2x) Calon Segur - These were great
1983 E. Guigal Hermitage - Completely cooked
1984 Groth Cabernet Sauvignon (3x) - Two were dead, the other was flawed
1984 Ceretto Barolo Zonchera - Bad cork
1984 Silver Oak - Tasted of wet cardboard
1984 Dunn - One of the best wines I’ve ever had
1986 Marques de Murrieta - Somewhat oxidized which was the only thing anyone tasted.
1987 Marques de Murrieta Castillo Ygay - Oxidized
1988 Robert Mondavi Winery Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve - Cooked
1989 (2x) Beringer Bancroft Merlot - One was dead, one was pretty good
1989 (2x) Drouhin Chassange-Montrachet - One was completely oxidized, the other might have just been a wine I didn’t like
I have a few bottles with really good provenance that I’m waiting for something to celebrate or other people who are really into wine to share: '82 Haut Brion, '82 Dujac Charmes-Chambertin, and an '84 Monte Bello.
And 3x left from WineBid: '84 Ridge Jimsomare, '89 Beringer Bancroft Merlot, and a '89 Drouhin Chassange-Montrachet.
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Adding to Eric’s comments.
Whilst those sound mostly cut & dried, my experience tends towards a greater spread, with plenty of enjoyable & interesting wines but which were also showing cracks. I suspect this is **partly a palate thing and partly a mindset thing, as one of the reasons I like older wines is for the unusual, at times ethereal aromas and tastes they can offer. That they sometimes come with negatives is a risk I willingly accept.
** and not discounting provenance issues.
The few I’ve had that have been in good shape were good enough that it hasn’t deterred me from buying older wines. I am trying to be a bit more judicious in which bottles I buy though. My spouse hasn’t been thrilled at the number of bottles we’ve dumped out over the last couple of years.
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That is a ludicrous number of failed bottles.
I assume most of your purchase were from the US. It’s worth remembering that there were very few wine cellars in the eighties, and it’s difficult to imagine how through the years, wines could have escaped being cooked… It does make for more of a crap shoot when you buy from US sources.
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Yes it seems like you had terrible luck. For comparison, I’ve opened about 150 bottles from
the 80s in the last decade, all bought after 2010, and mostly from US auction houses. Bordeaux, Burg, Piedmont, some other stuff. 8 failed bottles.
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Haven’t bought nearly as much as you but I’ve had enough bad experiences to not want to ever buy old wine again. Probably 50% bad. Last was a 1990 Margaux. That was the straw.
Edit: Although I did get a '67 Heitz MV from K&L that was remarkably fresh and amazing so I may dip back in at some point…
have people found differences based upon auction house?
In short: no. They are all pretty good at describing conditions. Bid carefully and they all seem to be about the same.
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