The Ageablity of Wine as a Marketing Ploy?
We have all opened bottles past their prime and been very disappointed and been even more disappointed when we realize we have eight more in the cellar that are over the hill. Happens all the time. If there is one part of accepted wisdom in this peculiar hobby, it is that if we are told the wine ages 10-20-30 years, it will. No questions asked.
When I first started buying for my cellar I went straight for Bordeaux, as I was led to believe that this was a good cornerstone for my cellar because the wines would age seemingly forever. Even the little wines I was buying like Potensac, Pavie-Macquin, Leoville-Poyferre and Clos du Marquis were backed up by the idea that they would be long agers. I also bought German Riesling, spoofy and traditional Barolo (more spoof in the beginning of my purchasing days) and other odd wines that I heard would age like Bandol, Cote-Rotie and Ridge, etc.
Now I do not want to make blanket statements, which I am known to do every now and then, but as I am digging into my cellar more over the past three years, a lot of these wines have not performed up to my expectations and made me question the whole concept of wine ageing. Which led me to the idea that it may have been something that was touted as a unique and true aspect of wine when it first started being sold commercially, but as winemaking has changed, so has the character of wine and especially the character and idea of ageing.
The windows that wine critics give are not set in stone as one would think. When Jay Miller gives drinking windows for new wave Washington State wines, Spanish wines, Chilean wines and Aussie wines, can we really take those as the word of an expert who knows that these new-wave wines will age? Do we really want a cellar full of Cayuse, Clio and Clos Apalta in thirty years? Even based on the small amount of evidence so far, it seems that some of these newer style wines are not ageing as the retailers and critics would have you believe. We more than often tend to be left with wines that will be soupy, oaky, structureless messes and will not have aged (changed for the better and gained in complexity).
Can we really trust Antonio Galloni when he says a new-wave Altare wine will be at its best between 2015-2030? I had a 1995 Clerico Barolo Ciabot Mentin Ginestra in 2003 and it had seen better days. Granted I was just “checking in” on the wine but it was on its last legs. Young, this wine was typical new-wave de Grazia stuff. Oaky, rich, dark, and maybe a hint of Nebbiolo character. Now what I was hoping would happen with age was that some of this wood would integrate with perhaps more Nebbiolo character showing. What I got was a soupy wine with oak, acidity and stewed fruit. Not good. Not closed either, A wine that seemed to be propped up by fancy cellar treatment and then just dead. With that small bit of empirical data plus tons of other times I have had new-wave Barolo that falls way short of my expectations at the beginning of their alleged drinking windows, I would not want to be opening that last bottle of my 2004 Altare Vigneto Arborina Barolo in 2029, much less 2016.
The new-wave wines are designed to be drunk young. With the emphasis on design. There is a reason for this: a lot of the traditional wines were undrinkable when young. There used to be very long maceration periods that enabled the wine to suck out all of the compounds that create tannin, which enabled the wines to age. Unless you liked a wall of tannin that scraped your mouth like sandpaper then these wines needed to be aged.
Bordeaux from the 40’s and 50’s would be thrown in cellar to age for decades because these were wines that could not be drunk young. And back then Bordeaux was the name of the game. Nobody bought Rhone, SW France, Languedoc, Spain, CA, especially not to cellar. And Burgundy is the ultimate crapshoot in taste and cellaring, plus not many people were doing it then….
Giacomo Conterno, Cappelano & Bartolo Mascarello still employ these old-time methods are their wines are tough to taste young. With new-wave Barolo and the trend of short maceration times and getting color through other methods (roto-fermenters, small barrique), these wines cannot age like they used to, yet reported ageing windows are the same. Retailers are still saying that these wines will be better in 10-15-20 years. For people with unlimited resources, ageing wines is a fun hobby for them and if they have nine bottles of $210 a bottle wine that is over the hill it is part of the risk of the hobby and is shrugged off like a bad investment in Bernie Madoff. But what about the wine geek who scrapes together some money for a case of say Azelia Barolo or Cayuse Bionic Frog and then there they are sitting in 10 years with over the hill Madoff wine. They did not know jack about wine and got suckered into buying some wine that was not meant to age. There are countless articles and references these days to how wine is being made in a style to be drunk young. We live in an instant gratification society and the changes in winemaking, vineyard management, etc have reflected in the main style of wine these days, which is wine to be drunk young.
So why are numerous retailers, winemakers and critics touting the ageability of these “new-wave” wines? Well the answer is easy. Retailers need to sell wine. The more wine they sell the more money they make. It’s pretty simple. Wine ageing is a built in, almost bulletproof ideology that sells more wine than if wine did not age. It is one of the most unique aspects of any type of beverage out there. There is also an inherent sense, wrong if you ask me, in the wine world that older wine is always better than younger wine.
As is usual with all blanket statements in wine, this is false. Some wines are better younger and some wines are better older. Some are even better in-between. There is also a near-obsession with hitting the wine in peak form, that perfect moment when all of its components are in harmony. It’s nice when you do, don’t get me wrong, but from a rational/economic wine-buying perspective that is ridiculous. From my experience with old wine you have a 1/2 to 1/3 chance of the wine being good. It can be bad due to provenance, winemaking techniques and/or character of the vintage.
To buy numerous bottles of that one wine hoping for that peak experience in the life of that wine is pretty irrational. Get a life! If it happens in passing at a dinner, then it’s great that the wine shows well, but the joy of wine is not every bottle showing perfectly well all the time. That’s too Huxley-like. It means you are not drinking something that is alive. If your case of Duck Muck tastes the same, all 12 bottles, wouldn’t you be a little disappointed? All of these e-mails with six and twelve bottle prices are to get you to buy more wine that won’t necessarily age. No one really knows how wine will age with these new ways of cellar practice. From my limited sample set, not too well.
Wine meant to be aged, which there still is a lot of, (traditionally made Bordeaux, Mosel and Rheingau Riesling, traditionally made Northern Rhone wines, some Burgundy, Port, Madiran, Bandol and Irouleguy) will continue to age. I specifically leave out White Burgundy as that is the ultimate crapshoot due to the premature oxidation phenomenon. I know very few collectors who still actively engage in extensive White Burgundy buying for ageing. They are lovely young of course and the marketing needs to go more towards enjoying them young and possibly maybe prices coming down on the top bottlings as a result. One can only hope. Chevalier-Montrachet for $100! But the wines that are marketed to age, especially the new-wave ones from Spain, Australia, Washington State, California, new-wavey Bordeaux, sexed-up Burgundy, high-octane Chateauneuf and new-wave and oaky Northern Rhones, plus some others I am surely have forgotten should be looked at closely. These are the wines that people seem the most skeptical about. Close tabs should be kept on them through communication on the Internet (posting TN’s on verticals of wines like Pingus, Valandraud, Ball Buster, Amon-Ra, Perrot-Minnot, Scavino) and wine writers’ assessments of their ageability and styles through their platforms. Hopefully retailers and critics will be more honest with themselves and their audiences when assessing these wines.
Retailers have a vested interest in creating false dreams of a wine nirvana 10-20 years in the future where all wines lose their rough edges and all you are left with is fruit, perfume and integrated oak. As with most purchases, my only advice is caveat emptor.
What has been your experience with ageing wines, both from traditional and “new age” producers? Are you getting bang for your buck or have you had better luck drinking ‘em while they’re young?