Two years ago, I bought a few bottles of an excellent New Zealand wine called Twin Islands Sauvignon Blanc 2006 ($14.95). Back in 2007, this wine was lively and racy, with bright flavours of kiwis, green melons and mown grass. I loved it so much that I tucked one bottle away to see how it could improve with aging. I opened it this past weekend. Time had not been kind. As typically happens, the nose had gotten more complex but the fruit flavours had become dull and heavy. All the life was spent. It was past.
This is one of the hazards of a wine cellar. Unlike chunky milk, expired wine doesn’t actually make you sick, but it does leave you with that particular forlorn emptiness that only comes from missing an opportunity that will never come again.
Beppi Crosariol at the Globe and Mail recently wrote his best article in a long time on very expensive but over-the-hill red wines. When confronted with a bottle that is past its peak, most connoisseurs can’t face the horrid truth, and a kind of Emperor’s-New-Clothes syndrome clouds their sense. They praise wine even though it tastes like balsamic vinegar. It’s a fascinating piece, but for most of us, the problem of expiring wine isn’t with expensive reds but with cheap white wines.
I’m a big believer in having a variety of white wines in the cellar so that I always have a perfect match for any meal my girlfriend and I want to make: Pinot Grigio for spicy Thai, Chardonnay for poultry, Sauvignon Blanc with seafood, sparkling wine with sushi and Riesling for pork. Which of these will mature gracefully and which will get old before its time?
Light, fruity and dry wines like Pinot Grigio, Chenin Blanc and Sauvignon Blanc don’t keep particularly well. All that really happens in the cellar is that they lose the freshness and vibrancy of their fruit. So drink them up within a couple years of their vintage (although there are exceptions for very well made bottles).
Chardonnay can age very well, especially if it has been aged in oak – the barrels leak flavourful chemicals called “phenols” which act as a preservative. A high quality Chardonnay will improve for 5 or more years after vintage.
Sugar and acid are also great preservatives, which is why Rieslings (especially sweet German ones) keep for 10 years or more – the longest of any white wine.
Aging Riesling and Chardonnay gives them complexity on the nose and palate, and harmonizes the diverse flavours. It makes the wine both smoother and richer, which is a kind of magic that only comes with age. Sometimes old is beautiful.
Matthew Sullivan is a civil litigator in Toronto. He writes a weekly blog entry here on lawandstyle.ca. The Short Cellar column appears in the print edition of Precedent. Matthew can be reached at matthew@lawandstyle.beta-site.ca