I taste a lot of wine. I’d have a hard time thinking of more than 6 wines that need 30 years of aging. Most of those are among the most expensive wines in Bordeaux.
Today, wines are being produced in a more forward manner so consumers don’t need to wait as long as previous generations did.
When to drink is of course a moving target that changes based on the wine, vintage characteristics and personal taste. But 30 years is on the far upper end and is not really germane to 99.9% of all Bordeaux produced today.
You guys have my agreement too. Not planning to touch my 14’s, which I went fairly deep on, for a while. A friend of mine tried a GPL over the holiday and paraphrasing him, he was able to work through it and get some enjoyment. I think I will wait.
The highly variable pricing of Bordeaux vintages further clouds the notion of these more moderate vintages being “off.” You can buy 2014 Leoville Barton for $90 today, but you’ll pay $170 for the 2016.
So to the buyer, for your $90, you’re really choosing 2014 Leoville Barton versus 2016 Gruaud Larose (just throwing out a random example, feel free to plug in different producers that interest you for your own sake), which cost about the same. More than you’re really saying “would I rather have the 2014 or the 2016 Leoville Barton?”
I’m not saying or implying you should necessarily prefer the 2014 in that example, but just that the difference in what producer you can get from one vintage to another for the same price makes it even less obvious that one should just buy the highly-rated vintages. Do I want 2014 Cos d’Estournel or 2015 Pontet Canet? Again, not saying the answer should be one or the other, but those are similarly-priced bottles.
2014 VCC was my wine of the vintage, although I never did get to taste Latour. Much more delineated and precise than 2015 VCC, I stocked up on this one. Amazingly still open, but plenty still to come.
I’m surprised not to see Lafleur on that list, personally. Everytime I see anyone post about it, I keep hearing its a 30+ year aging wine to even come to real prime.
FWIW, I am now tasting through maybe 600 in bottle wines from 20108. It is going to be a busy few weeks. If anyone follows me on Insta, you can see pics. I use my own name, so I am not too hard to find.
I wrote that good wines from the alleged epic vintages are commonly expected to outperform the “inferior” vintages at some point far in the future, even if they don’t for the first few decades of life. Even if you don’t share that view it’s hard to argue it’s not commonly held on this board and sometimes held out as a justification as to why certain wines and vintages are exceptional despite not drinking any better than supposedly inferior wines presently.
Sorry, but I don’t agree. Lesser vintages reach maturity quicker, than more age worthy years. But better wines always drink better. The best wines drink well throughout their entire life. They are great young, mid-term and at maturity.
I find it fascinating that this is almost the complete opposite of what many people were saying in the recent thread about the “muted phase” of Bordeaux. I haven’t personally tried the most expensive growths, but here many seem to have the opinion that there is a period of 10-15 years (after the initial fruity primary phase) during which one should not touch many Bordeaux wines. Even a chemistry based explanation for the muted phase was offered.
It seems that someone with a massive experience with these wines disagrees with the notion of a muted phase. I’m wondering if this is still just a matter of taste or maybe has to do with the modern style winemaking. Or maybe I misunderstood what Jeff meant.
I personally have never experienced a proper “muted” Bordeaux wine and am trying to understand this phenomenon.
