A tale of 2 bottles of 1996 389 cellared differently.

[Brucer]

When Penfolds 389 1996 was the current vintage, I bought a couple of dozen, and also bought a six pack for a friend.

Last week we had lunch, and I asked them to bring a bottle, to compare it one of mine.

Bottle 1.
Tasted basically of stewed fruit. The wine was ok, drinkable but nothing spectacular.

Botle 2
The difference was immense. This had aged beautifully, the fruit was so alive, and it was how this great wine should be.

Bottle 1 had been stored in its cardboard box under a typical Sydney inner west double brick home.
Bottle 2 had been stored in an air conditioned cellar running at around 15 degrees in summer, and around 12 in winter when the air conditioner is turned off.

Makes you wonder about all those bottles of Grange at auctions, bought as an investment and stored under the bed,under the house or in the hall cupboard for a few years.

[Peter Schlesinger]

Fair point Brucer. I admire your foresight and financial commitment to an excellent cellering environment. Our stash (about 130 dozen) is under our floor boards but we've been very lucky with wines we've stored for periods over 20 years. I knew I missed the boat on Grange decades ago when it's price went ballistic so I bought Bin 707s and John Riddochs etc instead. We are now drinking bottles going back to the late 1980s and, apart from the occasional corked bottle, they have all behaved well in the glass. It probably helps being in Canberra, having a house with a N-S alignment, the wines at the South end and a storeage area with very low head clearance. The savior to imperfect cellaring may just be to minimise the speed and amplitude of temperature fluctuations. And yes, the 1996 Bin 389 is a lovely drop - still have enough of those babies to make for a few good nights yet.

[pstarr]

Welcome Peter. Good to see more Canberra people on the forum.

[rens]

Interesting this has been posted.
My brother in law, who drinks wine once a year (christmas) has wine in his pantry. A dozen bottles of chateau de plonk. Each year he brings one out and thinks it's the ducks nuts. Problem is his pantry is here in the western suburbs of Brisbane. The wine has been there for 6 years in temperatures that swing somewhere between ice and hell's furnace.
I have just last week taken 2 bottles of $20 dollar red and put one in my cellar at 14 celcius and the other in my garage (which mirrors the heat of Brother inlaw's pantry).
Every year I tell him the wine is heat effected and evey year he tells me its the best stuff on the planet.
This year I'm going to do a tasting of my plonk from the garage v plonk from the cellar to demonstrate how heat effects wine.
I know wine ratings etc don't matter, it is the individual's taste but surely there has to be a breaking point!

[Craig(NZ)]

mine had been ambient in auckland and have been fine

[dazza1968]

Interesting this has been posted.
My brother in law, who drinks wine once a year (christmas) has wine in his pantry. A dozen bottles of chateau de plonk. Each year he brings one out and thinks it's the ducks nuts. Problem is his pantry is here in the western suburbs of Brisbane. The wine has been there for 6 years in temperatures that swing somewhere between ice and hell's furnace.
I have just last week taken 2 bottles of $20 dollar red and put one in my cellar at 14 celcius and the other in my garage (which mirrors the heat of Brother inlaw's pantry).
Every year I tell him the wine is heat effected and evey year he tells me its the best stuff on the planet.
This year I'm going to do a tasting of my plonk from the garage v plonk from the cellar to demonstrate how heat effects wine.
I know wine ratings etc don't matter, it is the individual's taste but surely there has to be a breaking point!

very good idea but do you think its really worth doing it with someone who shows no respect for wine and drinks it once a year LOL Me I would refuse toi drink it and bring my own bottle or two and see where it takes me

Sounds like a laugh really Why not do the same concept to beer (if thats what he drinks and see if he notices )


Regards Dazza

[rens]

I'll do that. One crown larger into the garage tonight. I'll buy the second fresh at christmas.

[markg]

...it's the ducks nuts....

ROFL, haven't heard that expression in a long time... but seriously, always be aware of wine that does not have provenance... can be deadly to the hip pocket.

[Jay60A]

Mark, I agree and I'm happy to pick stuff up from merchants in London as you know it's been stored in Octavian or similar. My Grange's remain In Bond with the merchant or with FWDC in NZ who have great pro cellars etc.

How do you validate provenance as an auctioneer Mark? Is it proof based or reputation of the owner?

For example hypothetically I have a temperature controlled cellar with some 389 in it along with a whole bunch of premium or ultrapremium gear. I show you my cellar. I say the 389 has been cellared there since I bought it in 1997 but I lost the receipt ... actually it game from my Nan's Bro's Nephew six months ago and has been stored in a warm kitchen for 10 years and I'm offloading it. It looks okay and the fill level is also reasonable ... but it's probably cooked.

How can you tell?

Can I sell some 389 through you ?

[markg]

Can I sell some 389 through you ?

Hmmm... a deal if I can sell you a bridge ?

I provenance grade each lot;
1. Guaranteed - I have checked receipts, inspected the cellar and otherwise completed some form of due diligence on the wines purchase and storage history and satisfied myself, hence I gaunantee its provenance.
2. Verified - About the same level that other auction houses take, essentially the owner is queried and questioned about provenance.
3. Unknown - Purchased at auction previously or unknown.

Details at http://www.wickman.net/wineauction/wine ... enance.htm

[Roscoe]

The difference between the two wines could result from the different cellaring conditions, but let us not forget that tree bark is a pretty big variable as well.

[Roscoe]

We are now drinking bottles going back to the late 1980s and, apart from the occasional corked bottle, they have all behaved well in the glass. It probably helps being in Canberra, having a house with a N-S alignment, the wines at the South end and a storeage area with very low head clearance. The savior to imperfect cellaring may just be to minimise the speed and amplitude of temperature fluctuations.

I agree with you Peter, passive cellaring can provide excellent results. Speed and amplitude of temp fluctuations are also probably important. Yet Canberra has bigger diurnal variations than coastal areas (which is where the majority of Australia lives). It also has bigger seasonal variations, but probably this is not so important. Canberras maximums are similar to, if not higher than parts of Sydney in Summer, yet the nights are cooler. Obviously the diurnal variation is much less in the cellar. A Sydney cellar should have less diurnal variation than a similarly insulated Canberra cellar, yet the overall average in the Canberra cellar is likely to be less. Maybe these two factors cancel each other out

[quip]

Interesting discussion, I am paranoid about heat and wine and store my plonk in temp controlled storage.

Frustrating though, ordered wine in Jan to be sent to Vic from well known WA winery, ask it to be shipped when temperatures are not excessively hot, and it arrives on a 39 degree day, with it having been 44 the day prior.....if wineries deal with their plonk in this fashion, the damage may be done before the consumer even gets it

Also wandered in to a couple of wine warehouses in Melbourne a month or so back, had a range of pretty expensive gear (Armagh, Grange, St Henri etc etc) sitting in a warehouse doubling as their sales office....must have been 30 degrees in there, and it wasn't an excessively hot day. There is no cooling so on a 40 degree day it would be downright oppressive in there...no way I would risk buying in those conditions irrespective of price

Maybe I am being too concerned about the heat impact?

Rgds
Andrew

[markg]

Maybe I am being too concerned about the heat impact?

I dont think so; you should be concerned, especially if it is wine that you intend to keep yourself and drink at a much later date.

[TiggerK]

Totally agree, the average consumer is regularly taken for a heat affected ride I feel. All too often I see wine kept in too hot conditions, fo robviously too long, and offered for sale at high retail prices. And then there's endless cases of beer and wine sitting outside one of my local retailers (who I no longer buy from) in their side 'garage' mostly in FULL afternoon sun on 35+ days... just evil.

Hard to avoid completely I know in this sunkissed land, but something to be very aware of. Good to see Mark taking a firm stance on provenance labelling in his auctions. Nice work. Will check it out.

Cheers
TiggerK

[odyssey]

I was curious about one of the more prolific ebay .au wine merchants "grangesrus" in Killarney Heights, so drove by to see what the store conditions were like.

It was a muggy and humid February Sydney day and the store is basically wide open to the outside conditions (kinda like a garage with the door open). Walking in from the outside it was as stuffy and uncomfortable inside as it was out, didn't appear to be any noticable air con. I was expecting a slick air-conditioned cellar but was almost like a converted drive-through bottlo.

Now admittedly there wasn't a lot of top shelf stuff available in the store, in all possibility the good stuff might be stored in optimal conditions, but it doesn't set up a lot of buyer's confidence and I personally wouldn't be buying anything off the shelves worth more than the price of a draught beer.