Uavwmn,
This comes down partially to individual tastes and partially to oxidation chemistry. Boiling both of those down, here's what we have for 'peaking:'
- World-renowned wine reviewer "The Bob" (Robert Parker) will divinate that wines will peak during certain times based on their tannins, acids, pH, and varietals. He does not, however, give an exact date, but instead provides a range of drinkability and uses descriptors like 'early, mature, late, et cetera' to describe the life cycle of a wine.
- Commercial winemakers keep a 'library' of their wines to test ageability. Good wineries will sample these with some frequency and have available tasting information regarding different vintages (Verite, for instance, does hit - call them up and ask how the 1998 La Muse is drinking and they will have the information straight away). The point of these libraries is to see the effect of time in the bottle on the wine.
- Wine kit manufacturers, just like wineries, want you to drink their wine, enjoy that wine, and buy more, so there is a business side to things here that cannot be ignored in the big picture but is going to be otherwise ignored in my statements below.
- A peak moment differs between different people as flavor preferences do. If you like your wines to have less fruit, they may need to age longer to let the fruit fade compared to someone who likes really fruit-forward (younger) wines.
Given all of that, a 'peak' moment for wine would be when the wine has hit its highest potential. The challenge is trying to divinate this using what would otherwise be a crystal ball. When speaking with Fred Fisher of Fisher Vineyards in northern California, he applied a tasting approach to determine when to harvest grapes and this can be applied to your wine bottles for peaking as well. He would taste some grapes off of the vines and when he felt they were peaking, he would harvest them. His cautionary statement was this: "Jim, you have to wonder when those grapes seem perfect - will they be better tomorrow? This is the challenge."
So, the best way to determine when a wine 'peaks' is to hold bottles back and keep tasting. The hedonists will disagree, saying that a wine should be consumed before it could go downhill at all. And in that case, they should keep buying/making wine on a regular basis and being happy with what they have. Here is my own personal examination into aging and peaking...
The first wines that I made were started in March and April of 2007. While I have made many wines since then, I still have roughly 10-12 bottles remaining of these original wines. These being the first wines that I made, I was curious to see how they evolved and was opening bottles at a somewhat increased frequency originally. I can't say that I was pleased with the taste at six months. At one year it was okay, but still nothing special, so I figured I would wait a minimum of one year for my future wines. When the wine hit 18 months, it tasted even better, so I figured I would wait 18 months minimum on my new wines. At two years - noticeably better. And so I continue with my own library, determing what the peak of the wine is for me.
- Jim
In the order catalog for the wine kits at the bottom will tell you the wine is ready at (ex) 3months, "Peaks" at (ex) 1 year.
