Conflicting cellaring advice

[Freo Rachel]

I have recently bought some Baroosa / Adelaide Hills wine for cellaring. I have just started my cellar. I have 2 books - Australian Wine Vintages (the gold book) and James Hallidays companion. They differ on best drinking recomendations by between 5-10 years on nearly every wine. In saying that, they are consistent in the differences. Any advice on cellaring times? Should I simply go with the winery recommendations..? Thanks

[ticklenow1]

Rachel,

I know where you are coming from. I recently did a stocktake of my cellar and decided to try and organise it so my early drinking wines were easily available. I found the same thing as you. Between the Gold book, Halliday's and Oliver's books they all differ greatly on drinking windows and ratings (Halliday's and Oliver's were closer together on drinking windows but sometimes poles apart on ratings). It can be frustrating and unless you email the winery and get the opinion of the person who made the wine, it is a bit of a minefield. Halliday gives a "conservative best by date" and Oliver gives a drinking window. The Gold book states that is is the middle of the drinking window.

I guess that is why the experts recommend buying at least 6 of each wine so you can track it's devolopment. But if you are like me, cost and cellar space inhibit this practice (plus I just can't drink enough wine!). I normally only buy 2, 3 or 4 of what I want due to lack of storage space and the fact I like to try a lot of different wines, it makes it difficult. The wine reviewer is making an educated guess using his/her experience in tasting young and aged wines. I often disagree with them and have been proved right and just as often, wrong! I normally take an average of as many reviews as I can find and experience has taught me this is normally close to the money. It is sometimes wrong but when you see how far apart some critics are, how am I to judge?

Using all the information available I suppose it comes down to how you like your wine, young or aged. I have found that almost all wine benifits from at least 3 or 4 years in the cellar. My wife likes them young and I like them aged so we normally meet somewhere in the middle (though I am bringing her around!).

[rens]

This is a very difficult question primarily because in the end it comes down to personal taste. As has been pointed out it is always nice to purchase a number of bottles. Depending on a number of variables (price, aging potential, experience), I purchase between 4 and 12 bottles. Then I consume one or two of them over time until I find they are within my drinking window (which means at the point I think they taste at their best) and drink up. This is not an exact science but after a while you get pretty good at judging this.
In addition keeping an eye on this forum is good. Many, many wines get consumed here and the notes are posted. You can follow the progress of your wines that way. I also manage my cellar on cellartracker (it's free). There are built in drinking windows (selected by users) and it prompts you when it is time to try another bottle. Cellartracker lets you add tasting notes and you can track the development of your wines by reading other peoples tasting notes for the wines in your cellar.
When starting out you sometimes find you have drunk the wines to early, other times you find that you have left them to late but it adds to your knowledge and soon you will be on the right track and drinking the wines within your preferred window. Armed with this knowledge you can then see how your tastes compare to the likes of oliver and halliday and use their recommendations as a guide in consideration of your own tastes.
I hope this helps.

[daver6]

I too have come across this issue. I use Cellar Tracker to keep track of my wines too. I find two useful bits of info on there though. Firstly, other people have entered drinking windows (although for Australian wine, this is sometimes just lift straight out of Oliver's book). Secondly, as people drink their wine and leave tasting notes, I use those notes as a rough guide and adjust my drinking window accordingly.

[Hindmarsh]

It is a tricky one. If you get a sense for one of the critics tastes and preferences, this can help you on drinking window. Also, the winery, vintage, region, subsection of the region, the way the wine was made, the oak influence, style etc can all assist you in making a call. Reading blogs, reviews, and basic chatter can also influence me.

A case in point is the 2005 vintage in South Australia. Jeremy Oliver has largely criticised it and rated many reds in the 80s citing porty and dead fruit, under/over ripe characteristics, etc. Many of the 2005 reds I tried were ripe, though many were also delicious and more savoury than JO suggested. James Halliday had nice things to say about the 2005 vintage in SA, rating it higher than the 2006 vintage (which I much prefer).

I have since opened some shiraz that according to Halliday should age for 10-15 more years and they are porty and dead-fruited (though they were quite fresh and tannic when I tasted them at the cellar door 4 years earlier). I had monitored the vintage, tried some of the wines with bottle age and have now decided to bring quite a few of my 2005 Shiraz (at least) back home to see how they are going, as I am not confident they will get any better with age. 2004 versions of the same wine are going along swimmingly and have 20 years left in them!!!

It is not an easy thing to get an exact drinking window (and your tastes change over time), but I try and fudge it using intelligence from many sources and my own experiences. Asking other people also helps!!

[Jacko]

Drinking windows are nearly always an opinion....


and you know what they say about opinions....

[Craig(NZ)]

I guess info floats around in your head if you are a wine buff, and it is your "job" to make sure this info does float around in your head like some random soup of data. You can then piece these seperate elements together to form a cellaring window opinion.

1. Start with variety+region/country. eg. Cab merlot 10 years, Pinot 3-5 years etc
2. Whack a bit on for a good vintage/ off for a bad
3. Whack a bit on for a good label or producer (producer may also indicate wine making style which influences ability to age - eg a "reserve" styled wine "built" to age)
4. Whack a bit on if it has been stored well
5. Whack a bit on if it is large format

For example even though it hasnt been released and i haven't tasted it yet, I can already estimate that 2009 Te Mata Coleraine will be probably 18 years in the cellar if well stored 750mls. I know this through benchmarking as above - Variety, Producer, vintage quality.

Of course once released it is valuable to taste regularly to see how your assumptions/ forecast is tracking agaisnt the reality in the glass in front of you. Will my 1998 Coleraine in magnum in 12oC storage last until my kids 21st? using the above method you would say there is a reasonable chance but by being in the right place at the right time over the last 2 or 3 years i have had a chance to taste this wine a number of times, confirming to me that it is extremely likely to be in top notch shape come that day.

The closer you can get to a wine the more likely you will be right for your palate.

Of course to throw a spanner in the works is the random element of bottle variation which increases its influence as a wine get older. Storage conditions you can cover off but quality of the individual closure can affect things esp cork. You can be encouraged to "drink up" after opening one bottle of a wine only to find the next is youthful!!

[rooman]

The only thing I would add to this discussion is that it is my understanding that the vintage guidelines in the Goldbook are provided by the wineries/winemakers rather than the author of the book. I konw Rod Geddess who has taken over the Goldbook so I may email him and confirm this.

[Jay60A]

I guess info floats around in your head if you are a wine buff, and it is your "job" to make sure this info does float around in your head like some random soup of data.

Wine Zen, dude. Personally I use tea-leaves rather than cosmic soup to predict the cellaring of my wine .

How a wine ages is often polarising as the way a wine opens up offers different aspects that are hidden in youth. Many people don't like the loss of primary fruit. So much is a matter of taste and the only reliable way is to - as Craig says - be close to the wine you like and have tried aged examples. Also if you have a few, check out one a year. These days, for a great wine (at good value) I will buy a six-pack and if I like it, buy an extra case so I'll have at least twelve in the main drinking window.

In an emergency, Jeremy Oliver is pretty good.

[Craig(NZ)]

These days, for a great wine (at good value) I will buy a six-pack and if I like it, buy an extra case so I'll have at least twelve in the main drinking window.

Cripes, its hard enough affording a single bottle of all the wines i like let alone buying an extra case of each

Remind me when/if i make it to London to book a very long afternoon/ evening at yours.