wine ageing debate

[jamesngalveston]

I read on here about wine that is 1 2 3 4 etc years old.
In my 30s, keeping a wine for a few years seemed like nothing.
I am 61 now, and thinking of aging a wine for a few years is not even fathomable to me.
Everyone says well, i tasted a bottle 6 mos ago and it was good, now after 2
years its better....holy smoke.
I cant remember where the heck i laid my glasses down 30 minutes ago, let alone what a wine tasted like 2 years ago.
7 mos I have bottled something like 170 750ml.
I let family and friends sample before I bottle, if all agree its good, I bottle.
Not sure how long I will be around, so when I feel like wine. I look at the rack and ask myself, blackberry,fig,pineapple,dragon blood,,,,etc.
I fast track all my wines now, even have my ferment down to 4 are 5 days,
and clear in about 10.
I do not care if its a year old, if it taste good, I pop the cork and enjoy while I can, are at least while i can still use a cork screw.

 

[rob]

James,

I some what agree with you. I think the forum is split in two, one side likes whites at 4 months and reds at 8 months and the other side is into the multi able years. I keep looking at the commercial wineries and how they go about it, for the most part whites are bottled ( at least in the Midwest ) in 4 to 6 months and red a bit longer. Like it was said here many times do you like a white that is more crisp or more mellow. Myself I am not sure if I would be comfortable drinking anything over 3 years old. If you do everything correct and spend the time degassing, clearing and racking then you can and should be able to make excellent wine in 6 months....How do I know because I have done several times!

 

[jamesngalveston]

I like mine about a month after i bottle, just the month makes a diffrence.
I make every batch as if it was dragon blood..

 

[cmason1957]

Each to his (or her) own taste. Dragon blood doesn't really need much time to age. It is what it is when you bottle it. I generally let my fruit wines clear on their own schedule which means at least six months before bottling. Force clearing does work, but I think it strips out some of the taste elements. Wine kits , I use the clearing agents and then let them sit for a bit longer than the directions call for.
Red wine kits, there is a marked difference in taste of you take about 6 months to a year to bulk age and then try a bottle every month. That's just what I do, your mileage will vary. It has taken me three years in this hobby to come to that realization. And some patience.

 

[FTC Wines]

Rob, there may be a third group, like me. I make SP, fruit wines, & lower end kits to drink NOW. But I also make high end kits, fuller fruit wines to age 2-5 yrs. the more fast drinkers we make the longer our other wines can age. A 3-4 year old Apple Wine is really good, not to mention the 3-4 year old BIG Reds. Roy ps the only thing we do differently is use better corks.

 

[seth8530]

I am in the camp of letting most all of my wines with a few exceptions age at least a year before I consider putting them into a bottle.

 

[Elmer]

I bulk age kits.
But SP and DB, I bottle and drink (daily, {drink, not bottle mind you})

I did just open a 2007 bottle I had hidden away, it was not as bad as I thought it would be, but being a cheap kit it was on its downward spiral.

However I am all for hiding a bottle or 2 away and fogetting about them for a good long while.

I do have a secret box that is hidden, where I have put a few bottles of homemade for people to find after I am gone. Just so they know what I did and can potentially enjoy something after I am gone. ( that is if the bottles dont tank, or I live longer than I expect)

 

[bkisel]

I tend to be in the same camp as the OP. Partly because I am 69 years old and started this hobby just last January. Also, my wife and I have been very pleased with the results of our first two 4-week RJS VDV kits. Bottled at 4 weeks and then started to drink after a month (or was it 2 months) in the bottle. I've got 3 new kits brewing now and they are being bulk aged for a few months before bottling and waiting a month or two in the bottle. We'll see how they turn out. I don't see myself involved with making wines that I can't enjoy without waiting a year or more. I'll just have to settle for less which judging from my first to kits ain't bad at all.

 

[JohnT]

Folks,

It all depends (gee, I say that quite a lot lately).

The biggest part of aging wine is to allow the tannins to soften through micro-oxydation and to allow any additional residual sedement to fall out prior to bottling. If your wine does not have a strong tanic structure, and some great wines do not, then I do not see much of a point in aging a wine beyond a year or two (in the bottle and bulk).

I bulk age my wines for two years in SSVC tanks. Most of my wines have that strong tanic structure. Over the course of two years, I can taste how the wine goes from slightly bitter to soft and "velvety". Once we bottle, however, it is ready to be consumed.

Just recently, a friend of mine discovered a small cashe of my 1996 san gio. This vintage was one of my best, so when he pulled out an entire case of it, my eyes just about popped out of their sockets.

We found that just about half of the bottles did not age well at all. What a shame! Instead of enjoying it, he saved the wine only to pour it down a sink.

I guess what I am saying here is this.. There is a benifit to aging wine to a certain degree based on the wine you are dealing with. A neuveax Bojoulas [sic] is not meant to be aged at all, while I have heard of "generational" varietals that age well at 60 years or more.

Of the wines you have listed, (DB, Fig, Etc), I would think that they are great right away and would only fade over time.

Live it up kid! Enjoy it while you got it!

Sorry if this post is rambling.

johnT.

 

[dlriggins]

Being fairly new to this hobby I like to drink mine fairly quick. I have noticed that some are much MUCH better wit some age example one of my first batches was a dandelion peach that at bottling was (for lack of a better word) horrible I did however pop a cork on a bottle about a week ago just to sample and although not perfect was very nice. I did try my batch of blackberry this morning while racking and had to refrain from drinking a glass or five. Taste to me is everything and if I like what I taste I will drink it regardless of age. I do put away a bottle or two from each batch to keep for a year or so .

 

[jswordy]

It's no debate to me. Drink your wine whenever you want. I recently read that 90 percent of all wine produced in the USA is consumed within 9 months of release (meaning it is generally from 1 year 3 months old in total to 2 years 9 months old, as most USA wines are aged 6 months to 2 years before release).

Like I say, drink it when you want, but there is no wine I have yet made that does not improve at least to some degree after 6 months from ferment, and there are very few that do not then improve again after a year. Six months to a year seems a very reasonable amount of time for at least a few bottles to wait for what quite often turns out to be a revolutionary evolution in taste.

My best example is berry wines! If you have not saved a bottle of your berry wines (triple berry, blackberry, blueberry, etc.) for a year to compare what a solid 365 days of aging does for it, you have not truly had a berry wine the way it is supposed to taste. The difference is stark and remarkable.

If you have trouble remembering what it tasted like, take tasting notes in a wine log just like you do when you are perfecting a recipe.

 

[robie]

To discuss a little more what JohnT wrote, wines made for extended aging (whatever that really means to each of us!) are made differently than those made for quick drinking.

When it comes to red wine kits, the least expensive ones tend to have less structure, which requires less time to come together. Such kits mature faster, but in the end, they also don't stay at that level very long before they start downhill sooner.

The ultra-premium red kits, (should) have a much more complex structure of tannins and other total dissolved solids (TDS) that take much longer to build and complete. So they mature slower but also last longer after they mature.

I think a big mistake would be to buy such an ultra-premium kit, make it, then drink it within the first year. You just wasted a lot of money, because most likely, after 6 months, it won't taste as good as the low TDS kit does at 6 months. The low TDS wine is much closer to maturity at 6 months.

There is no right or wrong answer here. It all depends on the one drinking the wine. Just accept that a low TDS kit at maturity normally is not going to be as good a wine as a high TDS, premium wine at its maturity.

One guy I know says that some wines should be aged after they are purchased... for the time it sets on the car seat on the way home.

I can say for a fact that one particular wine I made from a premium kit was so disappointing at 24 months that I had really given up on it; I started to throw it out but held off. At 28 months that wine really came to life. In four months!!! Today, what is left of it is my favorite home made wine ever.

I am in my mid-sixties and not too crazy about the possibility of some one else getting to drink my wines. (Think I could get them to bury my wine with me?) Still, I tend toward the longer aging wines. Maybe I should be in a hurry but I'm just not.

Again, it all depends on the one deciding to open the bottle and drink it.

To sum it up, if you want to drink your wines early, don't bother buying premium or ultra-premium kits. Mist wines, summer winies, SP, DB, all will do well early.

 

[Tess]

I agree with its your wine drink it when you want. Im new so Id really like my wine to reach its best before I drink it. Robie, Now that Iv heard this Im thinking maybe my Vintner's Reserve Shiraz will be at its best in 6 months. Is that right? Sounds good to me I was gonna age it at least a year. Means I can drink it earlier

 

[robie]

I agree with its your wine drink it when you want. Im new so Id really like my wine to reach its best before I drink it. Robie, Now that Iv heard this Im thinking maybe my Vintner's Reserve Shiraz will be at its best in 6 months. Is that right? Sounds good to me I was gonna age it at least a year. Means I can drink it earlier

I don't know that kit, but if it is sort of on the quick-drinker end, I would say yes, it is going to be best between 6 and 12 months. I think the place you bought it should be able to tell you better, though.

I am just saying a quick-drinker kit typically is not going to get better in several years, but a premium or ultra-premium kit should.

I have heard some say that however long it takes a wine to mature is how long it will stay good before it starts to deteriorate. If it's mature in 6 months, it should last (at least) 6 months. A wine that takes 2 years to mature should be good for another 2 years. Of course that is ballpark, and there are always, always, always going to be exceptions.

Hope that helps.

 

[Dugger]

The law of aging for wine states that a wine will hold its peak for the length of time it took to reach that peak and then slowly decline from there. I don't know if this is accurate for all wines, some wines or if is even true at all, but it sounds reasonable and I try to remember that.
I make mostly high end red kits, bulk age for 6-12 months, bottle and store them unril they are about 2 years old. I find this is the time when they generally reach their peak, although there are always exceptions. I'm able to do this because I have enough wine now to let these age while I drink previously aged wine. In fact right now I have what I suppose is an enviable problem in that my wine is aging faster than I can drink it due to making too many kits a couple of years ago. I try to not let it get older than 4 years although some that are older are still good.
As others have mentioned the right amount of aging depends on what you make and what your tastes are but it really is a shame to hurry a quality wine and drink it before its prime. Try to put some away and forget about for a year or two and you won't be disappointed.
I,too, am in my mid 60's but don't worry about not being around to enjoy it; either I am or I'm not; making it is very enjoyable and if I get to drink it a few years down the road .. hey that's a bonus!

Edit - sorry, Robie - I repeated a lot of what you said .. started this post and had to leave and then posted later without checking.

 

[robie]

In fact right now I have what I suppose is an enviable problem in that my wine is aging faster than I can drink it due to making too many kits a couple of years ago. I try to not let it get older than 4 years although some that are older are still good.

You have to know this is coming - I can help you with your problem, my address is...

Yep, knowing when it is starting downhill is as important as knowing when it peaks.

 

[jamesngalveston]

i do keep some of my wine back, and not drink...I have some blackberry port,fig,and some peach that will be sitting till new years.
as i make more wine, i find the others aging..maybe thats the secret,
make more then you can drink...drink the new batches, save the old..

 

[robie]

i do keep some of my wine back, and not drink...I have some blackberry port,fig,and some peach that will be sitting till new years.
as i make more wine, i find the others aging..maybe thats the secret,
make more then you can drink...drink the new batches, save the old..

The key is to hide some of your best wine when and while you are drinking some of the other. Maybe you will forget where you hid it and become pleasantly surprised next year... or two when you find it!

 

[cimbaliw]

Gee whiz, everyone seems so sophisticated in their opinion. Me, I'm like a neurotic squirrel with a bunch of acorn piles of wine in the basement, drinking what I find. I enjoy trying to keep this hobby spontaneous, especially tasting batches with a month between. I couldn't resist an internet search...

 

[LAgreeneyes]

I want something that I can drink in 30 days. I don't have the patience. Sorry.