Age Is Wisdom
Written By: Dylan York on Mon, Jan 14th 2008
Before purchasing a wine, people often ask me how long they should
age it. The best answer I can give them is: "it depends on your
tastes". To fully understand how a younger wine will age you have to
drink older wines. This is the only way to train your palate on the
flavors that an aged wine offers. Since everyone's palate is
different, take your own notes and compare young wines to older ones.
Look for flavors like tea leaf and wet wood in older reds and nutty
(sherry-like) qualities in whites. These descriptions may vary
depending on the varietal, but it's a good place to start. Older red
wines lose their dark tones, become lighter bodied and exhibit a more
complex earthiness. Older white wines become darker in color and take
on oxidized flavors of dried fruits and nuts.
The best way to discover this is to experiment with older wines. This
is a fun and safe way to discover your taste before investing the time
and energy into cellaring. I recently was craving the taste of an
older vintage red wine and purchased a bottle of 1997 Paul Jaboulet
Croz-Hermitage, and a bottle of 1994 Marque du Caceres Gran Riserva
Rioja. Keep in mind that purchasing older wines is a gamble so choose
a good source. Even then you may get a bad bottle. For example, when
I opened the bottle of Croz-Hermitage, I immediately smelled V8 juice,
a sign that the wine had spoiled. The 1997 vintage in Northern Rhone
was ripe, rich in fruit but low in acid. The wine had simply run out
of life and due to the lack of acidity, the fruit had fallen apart.
The Rioja was quite the opposite. The 1994 vintage in Rioja was a
difficult vintage and not many quality wines were produced, however,
this wine showed quite well. It had flavors of wet cedar, cinnamon,
red cherry, a peppery spice and a slight metallic note on the finish.
It wasn't the best aged Rioja I had ever had but it was interesting
and fun to drink. You can learn so much by drinking wine when you
consider the life cycle.
The birth of a wine occurs when it's bottled, then it starts
developing with age. It later peaks and then begins the inevitable
decline. Throughout its life the wine will show you many sides of
itself. Drinking older wines will give you the wisdom you need to
create your collection and enhance your palate. Enjoy tasting!
