Time is of the essence for interesting flavours
There are lots of misconceptions about wine and age. The oddest one is that it gets stronger over time. It actually gets less alcoholic but very, very slightly. The other misconception is that wine gets better with time. Most of it actually declines pretty rapidly and the average bottle will be heading straight downhill three years after the vintage. That probably goes for 95% of wine made worldwide.
And why would it be otherwise? The wine industry isn’t stupid and long ago twigged that making wine that takes time to become pleasant enough to drink is a pretty poor commercial recipe. Wine is made, by and large, to be consumed within hours of being brought home.
But there are, of course, exceptions, and some wines undoubtedly take time to open up. You can buy an Oz Riesling for a tenner in Aldi that’s delicious right now but I guarantee if you can hold on to some for two or three years it will be even better. Different, certainly, but better in my view: more layers revealed.
SuperValu has a McLaren Vale Shiraz for not much more and it has several years to go before it reveals all. And it’s quite delicious right now, in a plummy, round, immediate kind of way. Give it time and there will be aromas of leather and spice and maybe even liquorice.
Both of these wines are as inexpensive as most wines come, and yet they are worth putting away for a while. How long? Certainly five years, maybe a decade.
Sticking with Australia, you can buy a pretty serious red from Tesco that has seven years under its belt already and it’s only €15. This is the kind of thing that must really annoy Tesco’s accountants; accountants love wines that are sourced, shipped and then bought straight away by retail customers.
Whatever about a seven-year old wine skewing the balance sheet, what about an 18-year-old one? Tesco Finest Vintage Port 2003 is from the Symington Family who own some of the best port houses, namely Graham’s, Warre’s, Dow’s, Cockburn’s, Gould Campbell, SmithWoodhouse and Quarles Harris, and from a great vintage that is only just starting to drink now. I reckon it will peak in the 2030s and it will kick on beyond that.
Finally, a wine you need to drink up now. It will keep a couple of years more, of course; a scrumptious pink Sancerre currently at a knockdown price.