Oldest to youngest or vice versa?

[sjw_11]

Picking this out of the thread on the Sangiovese tasting as I think it is an interesting topic in its own right.

In a tasting (particularly of a single or dominant variety) do you subscribe to tasting the youngest first or the oldest first?

This is always an interesting debate ... I think the view of oldest to youngest is somewhat aligned to the idea of lightest to heaviest that would apply when tasting across varietals (e.g. Pinot before Shiraz before Durif), or with a variety like Sangiovese maybe the idea would be to taste in reverse order of tannin so the firm grip of the younger wines doesn't dry out your palate too much before you get to the wines that are more resolved?

[Waiters Friend]

To add to the questions, what would you apply in the following circumstances?

1. A vertical tasting of the same wine
2. A tasting of the same grape variety
3. A tasting of different wines from the same region
4. A tasting of wines of a general style, and not necessarily the same grape composition.

The Grand Cru tasting group in here in Perth generally go for youngest to oldest in most circumstances. The wines are served blind with only the vintage known.

For vertical tastings of the same wine, I prefer to go youngest to oldest, to watch the evolution of the wine over time. There's another logic that suggests going from oldest to youngest shows the evolution of the vineyard over time, as well as any winemaking changes or fine tuning.

Let the debate rage

Cheers
Allan

[Ian S]

Youngest to oldest is pretty common

[Polymer]

I think for most whites, I'd do youngest to oldest...allowing the complexity to build and it not outshine the younger wines...

For many reds I'd probably do the opposite...since the tannins sometimes even the fruit would get in the way of tasting the older wines and overshadow the complexity...Of course if that wouldn't be the case I'd go younger to older...

[JamieBahrain]

Subscribe to youngest to oldest whites. Oldest to youngest for reds.

However, in a blind tasting event especially, it isn’t that simple. It becomes vintage and stylistically dependant. I’ve seen it done well based on a ridge line in Barolo and Burgundy. I don’t believe its very hard to do nor requires fastidious attention to detail because of so many vagaries. Yet a vertical of vintage wine can be presented very badly if ignorant or careless.

[brodie]

Great question and seemingly no right answer. In the group I organise in Akl we have gone back and forth on this.

The strongest tradition seems to youngest to oldest. But if you serve young tannic wines before mature softer wines, there is a risk the subltety of the older wines is lost. For a while we were going oldest to youngest, this tended to mean the best wines were served 1st and then younger wines were less interesting and a bit two dimensional in comparison. So we went back to youngest to oldest so the young wines got their moment in the sun before the older mature examplars were served. This is where we are now.

In this group, the older wines come from a couple of cellars and generally are the better wines overall.



Brodie

[Mahmoud Ali]

Let the debate rage.

Okay, let it begin.

Before anyone gets annoyed let me start by saying that I am only going to make my opinions known about dinner tastings and not the free for all wine tastings that involve innumerable wines that mostly involve sipping and spitting. Not that they do not have some intellectual interest but are not what proper wine drinking is all about.

Wine is meant to be had with our lunches and dinners. They are meant to accompany food. In almost all circumstance we go from appetizers, to fish and seafood, and then onto fowl and red meat. The wines are therefore similarly matched, going from sparkling, to white, to red, and then dessert. In the same way we go from lighter to fuller wines, and from young to old. The food itself cleanses the palate and makes us able to discern and appreciate the wines, the only handicap being the amount of food, and more importantly, the amount of wine - how often has it been that our cogent memories of the last few wines have been hindered by the amount we have consumed?

So, white before red, lighter styles before heavy,and young before old, and of course the sweet relegated to the desert courses.

There, I've said it.

Cheers ........................... Mahmoud.

[Ian S]

Fair point Mahmoud

In the days of our tasting group, we'd do a 1st taste of everything (and it was this my comment was based on), before food was served up and we polished off the remaining ~ half of all the bottles. How would I describe the ordering of that 2nd half? A feeding frenzy as we made a grab for what we were interested to try with food / again, or simply really liked 1st time round. No need to vote on winners, as the order in which the bottles were emptied was a good reflection on what we thought of them.

[Duncan Disorderly]

An interesting question…

In my opinion it depends on the gap between youngest and oldest. If it’s a flight of say 2012-17 then youngest to oldest is unlikely to be an issue. However, if for instance it was 2017, 2012, 2004, 1998 and 1986 where you would likely see a marked difference in primary v tertiary flavour, I might be tempted to show a young vintage then go to the oldest for contrast and then maybe back to youngest to oldest.

This process could be useful where young wines are either notably tannic/or acidic i.e. Cabernet/young Riesling, which could cause the subtlety of older wines to be lost. It may also help with understanding if wines are ‘dormant’ - if such a thing really exists.