When is the Best Time to Open Bottles in Your Wine Cellar?
It may surprise you to know that the majority of wine produced around the world is designed for immediate consumption. This reflects the fact that most people don’t buy wine to cellar but rather to twist the screwcap right away. Like cheerful Pinot Grigio to sip in the sun or smartly priced Sangiovese to share midweek.
The bottles in your cellar, on the other hand, likely belong to that much smaller category of wine that has ageing potential, with the requisite flavour intensity, structure, acidity and balance to support their positive evolution. When to open these depends on both the wine and your preferences. Below are three questions to consider.
1. What is the grape variety and wine style?
Some grape varieties and wine styles are more amenable to ageing than others. Sauvignon Blanc, for example, is often best drunk young to take advantage of its exuberant aromatics (though there are notable exceptions like Edmond Vatan’s Clos La Neore from Sancerre). Barolo (made from the Nebbiolo grape) and Cru Classe Cabernet Sauvignon blends from Bordeaux , in contrast, often require time for nuances to emerge and tannins to soften. As for Vintage Port, put it somewhere at the very back of your cellar where it can be left for a generation!
2. What does the winemaker suggest?
Being intimately familiar with their own wines, producers are well placed to advise the best times to open their bottles. Jean-Louis Chave, for instance, recommends that his eponymous Hermitage Blanc either be drunk in the first few years or after 10-15 years. As he outlined in his interview with Levi Dalton, when young, the Hermitage Blanc can charm with its white florals, honey and textural richness. This is followed by a difficult phase where the wine can be unyielding. It is only after an extended period of bottle ageing that it then enters its next drinking window where the fleshy richness has receded leaving the spine or essence of the wine. The wine can taste more acidic but what has actually happened is that the “fat” that was concealing the acidity has melted away. A new balance has been achieved.
In a similar way, the advice of professional wine tasters can also be helpful to work out when to open bottles.
3. Are you a Francophile or an Anglophile?
Burgundy wine commentator Jasper Morris MW has observed that the French tend to drink wines when they are more on the youthful side whereas the English tend to enjoy them when they are older, more developed and tertiary (think aged Claret). While a tongue in cheek generalisation, what it highlights is that stylistic preferences play a role in determining when is a good time to open a bottle, once it has entered its optimal drinking window.
If you like vital, primary fruited wines, then drink à la française. Conversely, if you gravitate to wines that are more structurally resolved with complex autumnal notes and an air of a long life lived well, then follow the English path. There is no right or wrong answer. In fact, you may delight in both or somewhere in between. In my experience, certain old bottles have brought me to silence with their stirring émotion (a 1945 Albert Bichot & Cie Fleurie and 1976 Wynns Coonawarra Estate Cabernet Sauvignon come to mind), while others have fallen short, having lost their vigour or dried out. I still chase the highs and seek out old wines with enthusiasm (a 1983 Marquis d’Angerville Clos des Ducs being a recent acquisition) but temper that by opening many bottles when they’re younger. When it comes to stylistic preferences, it’s ok to be a dual passport holder!
Cru Cellar Management helps people and business’ curate wines for their cellars. Contact us today to discuss.