Some thoughts on wine aging

[marcs]

Some thoughts on wine aging, posted on a Wineberserkers thread where someone raised the question of whether we were all too 'neurotic' about storage conditions:

An interesting question to me is whether there is a point along the aging curve where suboptimal storage conditions make a wine *better*. The answer to this question will differ for each palate, but imagine a graph where age is the horizontal axis and personally perceived quality (say, points you would give) is the vertical axis. Now chart out the age-quality curve for two bottles of an identical wine, one poorly stored and one well stored. I have little doubt that by the time you got out to 30-40-50 years the quality line for the well stored wine would be higher than the poorly stored wine. But are there points earlier, say between 10 and 20 years old, where the poorly stored wine would be 'better'/more interesting due to accelerated aging?

I have my own experience with this, as around 2010 I fell in love with the 1995 Mondavi Reserve, a wine that is available at a very reasonable price from many different sources. I have probably had this same bottle from like a half a dozen different auction sources now, from Winebid to higher end sources with clear provenance. The bottles differ incredibly by source. I've had some bottles that taste maybe five years old, with the palate dominated by smooth rich fruit, oak overtones not yet absorbed, and pipe tobacco and chocolate elements. I've had other bottles that tasted borderline over the hill with their best days clearly behind them (which should not be the case for 95 MR).

But the very best bottles I had had have come from what I'm pretty sure was the worst stored source (yes, Winebid) -- they were in a beautifully nuanced stage with the fruit very much present but delicate and gentle, the flavors complex and seamless, and this beautiful fresh spring water type finish. The bottles that tasted very young were excellent but just not as complex, 'melded' or seamless as some of the more 'advanced' bottles, so not as good for my taste. I don't know if more years of 'perfect' storage will bring them to the same aging point I enjoyed in the other bottles, or whether the aging process will fundamentally differ.

[DavidG]

Yes I think you are on to something here Marcus. I know I've posted this before, probably a few times.

I had a few cases of 1983 Prieure Lichine, half of which was stored in my dad's passive basement for 5 years (up to low 70s in summer, down to 60s in winter) before I inherited it, and half which was stored in my active cellar at 55-57 degrees. All of it was purchased from the same store (Zachys) at the same time on release. The bottles with 5 yeas of passive storage opened up earlier and went over the hill earlier. Including a few blind comparisons. So this fits with your thesis.

I also had bottles of 1988 Climens purchased on release from MacArthur, some purchased in 2012 from Hart Davis Hart and some purchased in 2013 from MacArthur. Perfect provenance claimed for both after-market purchases, and all fills still into the neck. The on-release MacArthur bottles are clearly lighter in color and less evolved than the 2013 MacArthur bottles, some of which were a bit tired (vagaries of cork closure variability) and some of which were drinking great. The 2012 HDH bottles were somewhere in between, but closer in color and development to the on-release bottles than the 2013 MacArthur bottles. I don't know exactly how the after-market bottles were stored. I'm pretty sure they weren't abused, as most drank great. I'm sure they wouldn't have raised an eyebrow without the on-release bottles at hand for comparison.