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WINE COLUMN
IS IT "CELLAR-WORTHY"?
By Carolyn Evans Hammond, published in Outreach Connection and distributed privately on
There are two kinds of wine in the world. The kind you drink and the wine you sip and ponder. The former is almost all the wine we consume—it doesn’t cost much, it isn’t demanding, and it adds a bit of pleasure to meals and moments.
The other wine not only costs more, we have to think about how we keep it, when we might enjoy it, and how. It’s demanding—quite unlike the mid-week quaff—but it promises the complexity, interest, and satisfaction that come with bottle age and maturity. And when we drink it, such a wine engages us quite unlike the others. And so we cellar. But how do we know which bottles to invest in?
That of course is a huge question. But a good rule of thumb is, if the wine sells for less than $25, it’s been bottled “ready to drink” and should be consumed as close to the date stamped on the bottle as possible. For many readers, that may well be all you need to know. Others, like Rich, a member of my Facebook fan page, crave more information. He wrote asking, what wines cellar well and for how long?
Knowing when to drink a more premium wine isn’t rocket science but it does require a basic understanding of a wine’s four main components—fruit concentration, acidity (or tartness), tannin (generally found in red wine only), and alcohol level. Fruit concentration and tannins diminish as wine ages, while acidity and alcohol levels remain constant. So, a wine with more fruit and tannin than acidity and alcohol can improve with age, developing more complex flavours and aromas than just primary fruit.
In a nutshell, when fruit and tannin taste balanced with acid and alcohol, a wine is ready to drink and can stay that way—or keep—for about a year or two. Taste lots of wines at various points in their maturing processes and you get the hang of this procedure. Or, you can defer to a trusted critic, merchant, or the winery itself for advice—all of which are a quick Google away.
Some grape varieties just naturally keep better than others, aging more gracefully. Generally, it’s because they have thicker skin, which impart more tannic structure and flavour particles. Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah, and Nebbiolo—the grape of Barolo and Barbaresco wines—for instance all have thick skins and age well while Gamay and Cabernet Franc with their thinner skins, for instance, are notoriously best drunk young.
Whites and rosés don’t age as well as reds because they lack tannin, which is also a natural preservative, and they start to lose their fruity appeal within about a year of so of being bottled. That said, some white wines can improve with time in bottle, such as more premium Riesling, Pinot Gris and Chardonnay, as well as fine
Here’s a list of three expensive but seriously cellar-worthy wines being released in
Château Clerc Milon 2006, 5th Growth, AC Pauillac,
Renato Ratti Marcenasco Barolo 2005, DOCG
Fontanafredda Serralunga d’Alba Barolo 2005, DOCG Piedmont,
While you wait for the above three wines to develop in bottle for a decade or more, here are a few stunners that are ready to drink now:
Louis Jadot Combe aux Jacques Beaujolais-Villages 2008 (half-bottle: 0005918 $9.95)
Angel’s Gate Riesling 2008, VQA, Beamsville Bench, Niagara Peninsula, Ontario,
Konzelmann Reserve Gewurztraminer 2007, VQA,
Terredora Loggia Della Serra Greco di Tufo 2008, DOCG Campania,
The wines noted show their
Carolyn Evans Hammond’s latest book, Good Better Best Wines, hits shelves in April. Her critical articles and reviews have appeared in such eminent magazines as Decanter and Wine & Spirit International in the
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