Most wine is consumed soon after purchase by the end consumer, but there is a quite a mystique surrounding ageing of wines.
Wine is among the few products that can improve with age. Most wine enthusiasts have at least a few bottles that they are saving up for a special occasion, or until the wine reaches its peak.
When you get beyond having a few bottles of supermarket wine in the cupboard you will need to make some decisions. You need to decide what wines are worth keeping, where will you keep them and finally how long should you keep them. It worth while doing some planning, wine storage is a long term activity, investing some time and effort early on will add to your enjoyment for years to come.
Which wines can be aged?
It is probably best to explain what wines are worth keeping by defining those that are not. Generally cheap and light bodied wines are probably not worth keeping, so the generic mass produced supermarket wines are the first to be eliminated. Rose wines are generally not worth ageing.
If a wine is bottled and released for sale within a couple of months of vintage you should take the hint from the winemaker and drink it now. Another quick pointer is that if a wine is a clear bottle then it may not be a good candidate for ageing.
Many winelovers don't consider ageing white wines. This is a great pity because the rewards of ageing some whites are often comparatively greater than ageing red wines. Riesling, Marsanne and Chenin blanc are varieties that make wines which are good for ageing.
Most quality red wines will benefit from bottle ageing. Many red wines are released onto the market with some bottle age already, but most will improve further with a couple more years and some will improve for over a decade of further ageing in suitable conditions.
Full bodied wines with higher levels of acid, alcohol and tannins are usually regarded as suitable for extended both ageing.
How wine ages
The process of ageing is not fully understood, but it involves a complex series of reactions between the chemical compounds called phenolics. These are the compounds mostly responsible for the colour, aroma, flavour and astringency of wine. Small amounts of oxygen are involved as well, but as we all know, wine exposed to too much oxygen it will quickly spoil.
Environmental factors, especially temperature, effect how quickly or slowly the chemical interactions in wine take place. The slower these reactions are, the more successful the ageing process will be.
Some tips for successful wine ageing
- Don't expect young wines with faults to lose them with bottle age.
- Store wine with cork closures on their sides. Check them every few months to see there are no leaks.
- Chose a place to store your wine that is relatively cool, dark and has the lowest seasonal and daily temperature variation.
- Choose wines to age carefully. Read the label notes or consult the winemaker as to the ideal drinking time, but remember every wine is different and what happened to a previous vintage may not apply again. You can also get advice from a range of other sources, for example online wine discussion forums.
- Store at least a half a dozen bottles of each wine you are ageing, then you can monitor the progress. If you are storing wine as an investment it is desirable to have dozen lots for sale.
Storing Wine for Investment
These guidelines apply whether you are storing wine for you own use or for investment. If you eventually want to sell your wine you can find some advice in this article on storing wine as an investment
