The Perfect Time to Drink Aged Wine

You’ve heard that wine gets better with time, but at what time should you open a prized bottle of wine? Whenever you want to, right? Well, that might be one approach to take, but if you’re looking for the best time to open your bottle of wine, then you need a plan. Just like planning for a long-term investment, you need a plan when buying, storing and one day opening a fine wine.

A few years ago a good friend of mine, let’s call her Amanda—why, well because that’s her name (had to steal Sterling’s line, because he writes better ones than I do) called me looking for advice so she could buy a present for her husband, Ryan. Specifically, she wanted to buy him a bottle of wine that would be good to drink in 21 years. They had just had a beautiful baby boy named Hamilton. Amanda had a plan that when Hamilton turned 21, they would celebrate his birthday with a wine that was bought 21 years ago. Now that’s what I call a great start to a great plan. By the way, the wine was:

ELDERTON Shiraz Barossa Command 2000, 97 Points Wine Spectator, Highly Recommended, Ranked #27 wine out of the top 100 wines in 2004, $75 Cost. Big and powerful, brimming with tarry, spicy black cherry, dark plum, blackberry and chocolate flavors. Rich and gooey like a warm flourless chocolate cake, yet it finds a plush balance that keeps it from veering off into heaviness. This has grace, harmony and refinement, without losing an ounce of power. Drink now through 2025. 600 cases imported. -Harvey Steiman, Editor-at-Large, Wine Spectator

Now Amanda needed a place to store the wine, because you can’t just leave a bottle on the counter for 21 years and expect it to age properly. If you do, the cork will dry out, causing it to shrink and let air in. That will allow the wine to oxidize, and when that happens, the wine is done. The proper way to store that prized bottle of wine is to lay the bottle on its side, at a constant temperature between 50 and 60 degrees (Fahrenheit), in a spot that is not completely dry and without direct light exposure. These prerequisites are essential to storing a bottle of wine over a long period of time. Of course they do make wine cellars for that, wine refrigerators, etc., but if you have a concrete basement, you can simply put the wine on a rack in the corner that is the deepest in the ground and let it age.

Amanda knows they have taken all the proper measures to make sure that the wine is stored properly. When his 21st birthday arrives, and Hamilton and Ryan open that awesome bottle of Elderton Command, the wine will have had enough longevity that they should be drinking it right around its peak time. Oh yeah, and wines do peak, which is the tricky part.

Most wines do get better with age, but they also can lose their great flavors along the way. One of the best ways to find out a time range when a wine will drink best is to simply go online and look at its rating. My four favorite wine rating sites are:

Wine Spectator
www.winespectator.com

Robert Parker
www.erobertparker.com

Wine Enthusiast
www.winemag.com

Wine and Spirits
www.wineandspiritsmagazine.com

Each rating will give you a year by which it is best to drink the wine. That just means the wine will most likely peak close to that date and after that it will begin to lose its flavor to the fathers of time. This peak looks like a bell curve, and the curved line represents the life of the wine. Along this line the wine is going to get better with age and reach its maximum potential at the top. Once it passes its peak, it doesn’t mean it is bad wine. The wine is still great, it just starts becoming less desirable the farther down the curve it gets until it ends up becoming vinegar. So what you want to do is catch the curve somewhere near the top, and that range lies on both sides of the curve.

Now that you have some direction on approximately when to open that prized bottle of wine, what is the best way to find its peak? Well, if you have bought more than one bottle of it, you can use the process of elimination. Begin by opening a bottle a few years before the date given on its rating, then wait six months for the next. That is the only true way to find the wine’s peak. If you do open it on its peak and have a few bottle left, well, I don’t have to explain what to do next.

Now, not everyone will be buying multiple bottles of expensive wine, so if you have only one bottle, don’t be stressed about finding that perfect date. Instead, make that perfect date your perfect date. The wine is going to be enjoyable, and half of a wine’s likability comes from the mood, the friends and the food.

I have been fortunate enough to drink some wines at their peak, but have also missed it. Just the other night my dad and I opened a bottle of 1998 Ridge Monte Bello. Well, let’s say we missed the peak by probably two to three years. Even though we missed the peak, it was still good wine, but it was on the downhill curve. You could tell that it wasn’t going to age anymore because the tannins (which are a big contributor to a wine’s aging ability) were gone and the fruit was fading. I like to look at the positive and think that if we had waited much longer, the wine wouldn’t have been drinkable and we in fact saved the wine!

Of course, everyone has one or two bottles of wine that stand out as their favorite, and they can’t wait for the perfect time to open that bottle. I do have mine. I was fortunate enough in the spring of ’05 to get a case of 2002 Sine Qua Non Just for the Love of It. My dad and I kept two bottles and put them right in the cellar. Here is what all the excitement is about:

Robert Parker 100 Pt Rating Drink: 2004 – 2019 “A dead-ringer (at least aromatically) for Guigal’s single vineyard Cote Rotie La Mouline, the 2002 Just for the Love of It is the greatest California Syrah I have yet tasted. A 1,000- case blend of 96-percent Syrah, 2-percent Grenache, and 2-percent Viognier, it is nearly equal parts Alban, Bien Nacido, and Stolpman fruit with a small amount from both Shadow Canyon and White Hawk. It boasts a provocative perfume of crème de cassis, toast, blackberries, licorice, barbecue spice and exotic floral scents. Extremely full-bodied, with fabulous intensity, great purity, awesome length and a finish that lasts over a minute, this classic is a must purchase. Already accessible, it will drink well for 10-15 years.”

Enough said about that one.

Finding the right time to drink wine is an exciting part of the wine experience. It adds to the mystery of how a small fruit can bring so much intrigue. Remember to have a plan in place when buying that bottle of wine that you are going to save for that special date. Whether it’s your own special date or the wine’s potential date of excellence, you are going to have a great experience with a great wine.

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