FWIW, I know from visiting and talking in 2018 that Aldo Vacca (who runs Produttori del Barbaresco) thinks their wines are ready to drink much sooner than the denizens of the wine web.
While I don’t entirely disagree with the spirit of that statement, I think that’s the wrong way to look at it and phrase it. If a wine is drinking well to one’s palate, it shouldn’t matter what the vintage on the label says, there’s nothing wrong with drinking it at the stage you most enjoy it. It’s not drinking it “too early,” it’s just drinking the wine in a period your palate thinks its showing well.
This is one of the things I really like about the Rioja classification system. It allows winemakers to pretty easily signal to consumers when their wines are ready to drink and how much potential development they can see from ageing it further. I wish more winemakers released wines like that, but I understand that the economic realities make that challenging. One can hope though.
For me it’s been finding that that point where I want to drink them the most, them being the wines in my cellar and not necessarily wine in general, is sooner than I had expected. Believing that they would be better with 8-10 years or more has been driven by the wine community as well as a handful of bottles that were impressive at 20+ years.
Now I can’t speak for all wine and I don’t speak for all wine drinkers. I have Syrah based wines that are pushing the 15yr envelope which are still evolving in a good way. It just pisses me off when I pull a bottle that I’ve been sitting on since release that is now on the decline because I was letting something to happen that, in the end, I now do not appreciate. WTF am I waiting for? Time to pull some corks.
If you read the thread on the Ravenswood Library Release you would think differently. Lots of high praise. I still have 11 more bottles so the experiment is not over yet.
I personally think the sweet spot for zin is between 3-5 years. I drink them for the fruit. I have had much older zins and while they were fine, they taste more like aged cab/claret. Not what I am looking for when I buy zin from the likes of Carlisle, etc.
I think this is a “trust your palate” type of problem. If you’re buying wine by the case, you should be regularly checking in on those wines, either via Coravin or popping a bottle every X years. When the wine gets to a place that is enjoyable, start drinking it more regularly. Could it get better? Maybe, but why risk it if you like how it’s drinking?
I had this thought last night as I was loading a few shipments into the cellar.
Did I drink them too young? Did I miss the youth window and now they’ll be in a shut down phase? Or, will I wait too long?
I think I’m coming around to the screw it, just drink it and stop having FOMO about how great it could’ve been camp. Plus, I’m running out of storage and if I don’t start drinking I can’t buy more!
There a thousand threads on wine aging (many of them excellent, many of them combative, many of them informative) so I just want to address the second clause in the subject:
Understanding one’s own palate is the goal. Always. And that means having a combination of curiosity and confidence and independence. Are you ready, in a group, to love a wine that is other’s least favorite? Are you ready, as a person, to address a fact that maybe you wrote some notes 5 years ago which make you cringe as your own palate has evolved one way or the other?
If I really like Chopin, and you love Randy Newman, that’s fine. Now, if you say “Chopin is overrated” and only famous because of scholarly “group think” I’d suggest you haven’t really applied oneself to understanding Chopin. But in regards to food or wine, keep trying, keep evolving, and keep conversing with your own palate…
Some of us, our palates “seem” relatively stable, so we can then make assumptions as we go forward. But each wine has to be its own experience. The example I always give (in regards to my own internal conversation on curiosity, confidence, and independence) is that I’ve rarely enjoyed/“gotten” the Sine Que Non wines I have tried for the fairly obvious reason (I’m tremendously sensitive to high alcohol wines and massive face-forward flavors). However, I once had the real pleasure of having a fluke, one-off SQN Rose (I think it’s the …And an 8-track i.e. the one offered to list members at a penny), which had all the hallmarks of a wine I would not like (particularly it’s 15.2% alcohol)… and low in behold, I was genuinely impressed. Wanted another glass, wanted to learn about it impressed.
Learning one’s own groupthink (particularly in regards to aging) is more important than the groupthink of others. Classical concepts and theory exist for a reason, but they are by no means uniform. I would politely suggest, however, that there’s a tangible difference between saying that classical theory is a prisoner to groupthink rather than addressing one’s own palate/enjoyment as simply in opposition to the classical theory.
Many winemakers in various regions prefer their wines younger than many of their customers do.
I would go as far as to say most winemakers want you to drink their wines young so:
- You are able to spread the word.
- You deplete your inventory and need to repurchase.
I don’t think know that there is any “group think” to the effect that all wines should be aged. I’m not sure anyone should expect a Ravenswood Merlot to benefit from extended aging.
Some people do like particular zins with age – Ridge is the usual example, because they do evolve and change. Personally, I prefer the Ridges younger, but I understand people who age Ridge zins and I have a few I’ve put away.
I have no experience with Bedrock Heritage with age, but I’d guess they might become more interesting because it has a good acid backbone and isn’t overripe. But few other zins ever gain much complexity with age. They just lose fruit.
So I don’t find anything surprising in the three wines you tasted, and I don’t know what the supposed group think is.
In the Old World, where I’ve met winemakers who like their wines relatively young, it’s genuinely a matter of palate preference, in my experience.
I feel like I understand my palate fairly well. I enjoy a broad variety of styles from high acid/ carbonic to fruit forward/structured to elegant/nuanced but am still sifting through which wines will bring me the most pleasure in their mature years. This is based on my cellar and not the wine world in general. 95% of my cellar is domestic. I don’t buy by the case except for cellar defenders, (What they are defending I am now at odds with) so I can’t experiment in that way. I’ll go three deep, drink one in the first year, 1 at 5 years and another beyond. Just finding that beyond is not doing it like I had hoped.
Brian, you are definitely not alone! Nothing wrong with enjoying young wines if they give you pleasure. But, as you said, the possibility of even greater pleasure if you hold off makes the game more complicated, but also maybe more interesting. I think there is no real answer. I like the middle ground suggested by some, enjoying some wines in their youth, and for other wines delaying gratification and hoping for a good outcome. Neither outcome is guaranteed. Listen to others and to convention, but as you move along in experience find your own balance. It’s possible to get very philosophical about this wine stuff even before the wine is opened and I admit to doing it both ways, but practically speaking I’m with you on erring on the side of pulling corks. Cheers.
P.S. A lot of thinkers on this forum.
It is a great question to ask oneself, Brian. Particularly if the sample size of experimentation is extended over a decade.
I think your instincts are correct. In California, the vast majority of wines that I cellar for extended periods of time are the Bordeaux varietals (and only certain producers). Other than those, I generally would not advise going beyond 10 years. Obviously there are producer and site exceptions, but California wines are built for their fruit and brightness, so why not enjoy them for those attributes.
Regarding the preference of wine makers, I think it was Roy Piper in one his videos who said that he drinks a lot of younger wine. After all, that is what the winemakers are producing and assessing.
I agree that we all need to find the sweet spot for ourselves. And aging is a crapshoot: that old expression that there are no great wines only great bottles?
I really do not age zin past 5 years. Enjoy the fruit. For Napa cabernet, I think the 10-15 year mark is the sweet spot for most. Some drink well earlier obviously, and some are very “interesting” older. For bordeaux, I belong in the enjoy them earlier club.
Cheers 
I find winemakers’ views of their own wines always to be fascinating and eminently worthy of attention. I also find that they, understandably, have a different attitude than most people who drink them do. Every stage, for them, has its own interest. Where we would just avoid someone else’s desultory adolescent, or perhaps think they should be locked in their rooms their parents will have a more involved attitude and it is the same with winemakers and their wines.
I think everything has pretty much been said. When aging wine, the highs are higher and the lows are lower, and you might be going in blind. I have had lots of different experiences, from the ‘I would love to taste this in a few years’ to the ‘I would have loved to have tasted this a few years ago’. The magical middle has been more rare, sadly, but those are the absolutely most memorable wine experiences.
It’s important in my view to consider one major historical reason why wine was aged: it was often underride, acidic and/or tannic. Time took the edge off, and occasionally great things happened. With modern viticulture and climate change, this reason just isn’t as prominent or necessary.
The second motivation is primarily economic. Wine that ages for decades is rare, and each vintage becomes more scarce over time as its production is consumed.
I do age wine and have a good sized wine fridge allocated to aging ‘experiments’. I have a few wines that most likely are 20-30 year wines. But aside from breaking down walls of structure, I’m not convinced the resulting wines will necessarily be superior to their younger selves. Or even wines vinted with less imposing structure that peak earlier in their lifecycle.