Wine doesn't always get better with age
By By Stan Torgerson / wine columnist
August 18, 2004
One cliche that is accepted as fact and gospel is wine just gets better with age. It is a saying so strongly believed that it is used in relation to everything, from people to furniture to cheese to whatever like wine, they just get better with age.
Sounds good, but it is not necessarily true. Most wines do get better with age, but only to a point. Somewhere along the way they peak out, and from that point on, go downhill.
I have two bottles of 1967 Italian barolo wine remaining in my cellar. Originally, I had a full case, but we drank most of them. Until last week, I had three. In its prime, it was a magnificent, deep red, full-flavored taste of cherries, everything the great barolo should be. But I kept those three too long, saving them for special occasions which never came.
One year ago, we opened one and it was still relatively youthful and a pleasure to drink. The wine we opened last week was tired and brownish in color. The fruit was simply not there. The wine was over-the-hill, and we poured it out. What the remaining two bottles will be like is still to be seen, but they will be opened shortly. There is no point in saving them any longer.
There are three keys to aging wines. One is the wine itself. Was it made for long-term aging? Some are. Some are not.
Two, the storage condition. Has it lived its shelf life in a dark, cool room, away from heat, away from light and particularly sunlight?
And three (and this is beyond any collector's control), has the cork held up or is it a cork that had a tiny vein, a flaw unseeable to the naked eye, but one which permitted air to get inside the bottle and spoil the wine? When I opened the '67 barolo, the cork fell apart when the screwpull was inserted and I knew the wine was in trouble.
Sam's Club, soon to open here, will not offer wine in Meridian, but they do in many of their locations. They've just hired an experienced wine and spirits manager and sent e-mails to announce it and some of the classic wines their members can order by mail. Ordering (alcohol) by mail is not possible in Mississippi. It is against our state law.
But mail order wines will be available elsewhere, and the list includes such greats as a 1978 Chateau Lafite Rothschild at $324 per bottle, a 1982 Chateau Haut-Brion for $496 per bottle and several others in that class.
If I were going to invest that much money in a single bottle of wine, my first question would be how and where has it been stored? If the bottle was just for show as a centerpiece of a wine cellar, that question would be unnecessary. But if you were buying the bottle for personal consumption or as a gift, its history would be a necessity. If they couldn't or wouldn't tell me, I wouldn't buy it at any price.
Time and again people approach me and tell me about this supposedly rare bottle of wine someone gave them five or 10 or more years ago they recently discovered in their closet where they had put it away. They want to know if it really is wonderful, and second if it is still drinkable. There's only one way to know. Pull the cork and taste it. But if the closet has been warm with temperatures in the mid-70s or higher, chances are the owner will be disappointed.
It is that crucial.
For next week's Meridian tasting, we were offered two apparently classic bottles of wine. One was a 1993 Clos d'Estournel, a distinguished French Bordeaux, and the other a 1993 Beringer private reserve cabernet sauvignon from California. Reviews showed both were rated as outstanding wine, but both were 11 years old and a lot can happen to a wine in 11 years.
The owner offered to open one of each to verify the wine was still drinkable, still memorable and worth purchasing. The Cos d'Estournel was $112 per bottle and the Beringer $99.95. That's a $211.50 taste test. We agreed and the wines were opened to a panel of wine connoisseurs. The wines were everything they were supposed to be, fresh, fruity and wonderful. I bought the remaining bottles on the spot, just enough for perhaps a smaller than usual tasting next week, but irreplaceable and an opportunity for the attendees to taste older expensive wines at their peak. That's an opportunity that doesn't come along too often.
We added four more outstanding wines in the $30- to $44-price range, some dating back to 1998, in order to complete a public tasting unlike any we have ever offered before.
The price for the tasting is $35. Reservations are being accepted at 482-0930 and because the amount of available wine is limited, seating is also limited. The date is Aug. 26.
