Video Transcript: Wine Cellar Management - How Soon is Too Soon?
Written By: Anonymous on Fri, Oct 24th 2008
Brian Freedman: Welcome to ClassicWines TV, I am your host Brian Freedman. Today, continuing our discussion on how to put together a great wine collection, I would like to discuss a bottle that's been sitting in my cellar since it was released, and now all these years later we can open it up, though of course I would like to give it a little more time.
So I am sitting here next to a bottle of 1995 Chateau Léoville-Barton. This is a wine from a great Vintage in Bordeaux. This has been sitting, waiting for the appropriate time, and if you listen to what a lot of the critics say, its just about now entering what we call its drinking window.
A lot of the assessments, at least in the beginning said, drink after 2008. Well, right now it's after 2008 or at least in the second half of 2008, but that doesn't necessarily mean that you have to open it up right away. With a lot of older wines it doesn't necessarily mean as soon as you hit that date its going to be great and then after that its not going to be great anymore. Something like this, it should hit a peak and then sort of plateau for a little while.
Personally, I would like to give this a little bit more time. Just because of past experiences that I have had with Léoville-Barton I know that I, again, like them with a little more bottle age. I like them to be a little bit more evolved.
So you could open this right now, but because I understand my personal taste, to me, I am not going to maximize my pleasure for another couple of years with this. But at least I know that I can most likely open this up right now and not have to worry about it being, with luck, too young.
This is the great thing about collecting wine and putting together an interesting cellar. You can have young wines and midrange wines and older wines, and they all offer a totally different; if you play your cards right, a totally different kind of drinking pleasure, and that's the beauty of the wine world.
The wine world is huge; there is a tremendous amount of variety there. The smart collectors are the ones who will take advantage of all of it. Remember, this wine and all of the other wines we discuss here on ClassicWines TV are available at classicwines.com, and until next time, until I open this bottle of Bordeaux, I am your host Brian Freedman. Cheers!
