Tips for Adding Wines that Age Well to Your Cellar (2/4) -

This entry is part 2 of 4 in the series Wine

Series Navigation<< Evaluating Investment-Worthy Wines (3/4)<< Stylish Storage for Your Wine Collection (1/4)

Perhaps you just purchased a new home with a wine cellar, and you want to stock its empty racks. Maybe you are passionate about wine and are interested in starting a collection of your own. Or you see wine collecting as an investment opportunity and are looking to make a profit. No matter your motivation, one thing for certain is that collecting wine takes time and resources. But if you have the capital, a willingness to learn, some patience and a place to adequately store your wine, there are a number of ways to make putting your collection together a little easier.

For starters, you will need some personal perspective. Jamie Ritchie, Worldwide Head of Sotheby’s Wine, suggests asking yourself a series of questions, including:

What is your budget?
Is your priority drinking now as compared to laying down for later, for yourself or buying as an investment?
What regions and varieties do you gravitate to most?
Are there any special years (anniversaries, birthdays, etc.) your collection should cover?
When it comes to your consumption habits, how much will you need for everyday drinking vs. dinner parties vs. special occasions.

How you answer these questions will help you build a collection that best matches your needs. For example, if you love to entertain, do not just think about the wines you like to drink, consider stocking up on bottles that will cater to the tastes of your guests as well. And if you want to have a cellar filled with amazing vintages for special occasions, consider buying wines young that you can age yourself. You can find great value this way as opposed to always having to source older wines from the secondary market. The idea that a collection must start with very old or expensive wines is limited. Instead, focus on starting with a set of bottles that you can experience throughout the aging process.

So, how do you know which wines to cellar and which wines are ready for drinking? For the most part wineries take the guesswork out of aging by handling it during production. This gives you a ready-to-drink product that does not require any additional time in the cellar. That means the majority of wine we see in stores today will not age for very long at all. That is great news if you plan to drink your wine shortly after you buy it. However, finding wines that will actually improve with age is not quite as straightforward.

So, if most wines are not meant to be held, what makes a wine worthy of cellaring 10–20 years? The truth is, determining if a wine will last is not an exact science. While many wine experts rely on their past experiences to deduce which wines will age well, finding wines that will improve over time requires a keen focus on the wine’s structure, balance and producer. Here are some tips to keep in mind as you are tasting wines and deciding whether it is one you want to hold in your cellar and enjoy years from now or serve at an upcoming dinner party.

Structure

Acidity – Wines with higher acidity tend to last longer. As wine ages, it slowly loses its acids and flattens out. A wine that starts its existence with lower acidity will probably not make it in the long haul. Basically, a wine with higher acid has a longer runway as it ages.

Polyphenols (Tannin) – Bold tannins give wine the structure to age well. They stabilize things like color and flavor, acting as a structural component. What do they taste like? Tannins can be dry or a bit bitter. They can make your mouth pucker up, somewhat like a sip of strongly steeped black tea. Red wines with higher tannins tend to age better than lower tannin red wines. Tannins come from contact with the pips and skins of the grapes during winemaking and also from oak aging. A wine with well-balanced tannins, where there is a balance between ‘grape tannin’ and ‘wood tannin,’ will slowly smooth out over time as the tannins break down. Despite the fact that tannins can help make a wine age well, it is important to note that if the wine is not well balanced to begin with, it will never improve over time.

Sweetness/Residual Sugar – This component of a wine is often overlooked because of the popularity of aging dry wines. In addition to its obvious sweetening power, sugar also has a bonus effect – it can help wines age well. Residual sugar can bring out some of the most exciting tastes as they evolve over time. The sugar compounds change shape and we perceive them less directly, so the wines even seem to dry out a bit. For this reason, it is of little surprise that some of the longest-lived wines tend to be sweet wines, including Port, Sherry, Sauternes and Riesling.

Alcohol Level – Alcohol is one of the primary catalysts that causes wine to break down. Strangely enough, it also acts as a stabilizer in higher amounts, for example, fortified wines and some dry wines with >15%+ ABV. So for aging, you either want lower balanced alcohol levels or high alcohol levels.

Volatile Acidity – Often referred to as VA, volatile acidity is a measure of a wine’s gaseous acids. The amount of VA in wine is often considered an indicator of spoilage. A wide range of acids contributes to a wine’s total VA content, but most winemakers are concerned with acetic acid, which is associated with the smell and taste of vinegar and ethyl acetate, which causes off-flavors like nail polish or nail polish remover. Since VA is detrimental to age-worthiness in wine, it is suggested by experts to avoid wines with VA levels around 0.6 g/L and above.

Fruit – Having sufficient fruit is critical in a wine, both in easy-drinking everyday wines as well as age-worthy wines. Wines with insufficient fruit are weak in flavor, thin, insipid, dilute and even hollow. The fruit concentration is akin to the ‘flesh’ that fills out the other more structural components in a wine.

Balance

Balance is the relationship between the components of a wine – fruit flavor and fruit intensity, acidity, sweetness or lack of it, alcohol/weight, texture/tannins and is not about absolute levels. It also involves the integration of those components to create a whole. After you have evaluated a wine’s structure, it is important to determine how balanced the attributes are. In other words, are all the attributes of the wine in balance with one another? According to Wine Folly, “if a wine has tons of tannin, acidity and moderate alcohol but has no fruit then it’s not really in balance.”

Producer

You also want to be sure to look into the producer’s history. Ideally, grapes are grown on the producer’s estate and the winery has a solid track record of winemaking with many vintages under their belt. Of course, there are many well-made age-worthy wines made by producers who do not fit this profile, so this alone should not deter you. Wine Folly states, “that the biggest red flags for producers would be inexperienced winemakers who do not have a scientific understanding of oenology at the helm. These wines are no problem upon release, but subtle flaws will become exacerbated with age.” They go on to share that “Another deterrent is white label wine brands. These wines are relabeled or rebranded wines created out of the bulk wine market. While some are good, many are nothing more than relabeled bulk wines from the world’s largest wine producers and are usually made to drink now and will not increase in value.”

There are many factors that must be considered when determining whether a wine will age well. Assuming you have done your homework, tasted a bunch of delicious wine and found the perfect bottle to add to your collection, it is important to remember the role that storage plays in the outcome of that wine. In order for wine to age properly, it must be stored in proper conditions. Temperature can alter the aging process. Excessive heat can catalyze undesirable reactions and prevent normal aging reactions from occurring, leading to unwanted changes in taste and appearance. In order to prevent outside variables from disrupting the aging process, it is important winemakers store their wine in specific and stable conditions. Read Stylish Storage for Your Wine Collection to learn more.

A Few New Listings this Week