Monthly Report - January 2011

Blue Poles Teroldego

All who have been my “guinea pigs” with the Teroldego have thoroughly enjoyed the wine and often just sit wondering what had just happened to them.  We will deliver some bottles to wine critics to get their perspective and that in itself will be an interesting series of reads – they may need to realign their perceptions which could be fun.

This month, and for the next 2-3 monthly reports I am going to have a go at writing 1000 word essays on a topic associated with wine.  “Gourmet Traveller” magazine run a competition each year, but due to my busyness I failed to get something in for 2011, so I will have a few practice runs (for 2012), and if anyone has any comments (or topics you would liked discussed), please feel free to drop in a line and I will take them on board.  So this month is a generic look at cellaring.

Cellaring …

Primal urges drive wine collectors, and to cellar their prey is the pin to the butterfly’s back.  To explain the longing and then the passive control of a wine, makes for pages of psychoanalysis – but it must be said that the true avid collector will go to extreme lengths to obtain a wine he seeks, extreme lengths.  So the wine is discovered and then sought, purchased with confidence of provenance, and then delivered to shaking hands – but never drunk instantly, oh no, it is placed away for another time.  Why is the circle incomplete?  The spoils of victory dashed?

Simply, the wine collector seeks a moment in time when and where this wine will be perfect.  Not good, not brilliant, not even without compare – it is to be perfect.  He knows (if he was honest with himself), that in almost every wine he acquires that perfection will never be attained, but with every purchase of a wine that is cellared this rudimentary fact is quickly forgotten.  And here is the key, for any wine to achieve perfection it is to be carefully cellared – where the wine’s puppy fat of youth will be shed and a wine of weight, depth, and magnificence will rise.

So what is this magical mythical “cellaring” and what actually does it do?  Cellaring is the storage of a wine in controlled temperature (10-17oC) and humidity (for cork sealed wines), in a stable environment (to be neither shaken nor stirred).  Wine will then over time have its chemical components congregate (e.g. tannins bind and settle in the wine), or dissipate (e.g. acids reduce in strength).  But to assume the process is constant or predictable is not possible as wine is a complex web of chemicals and how it ages will be unique to that bottle, one of life’s little mysteries. It is this transference of the wine from the brashness of youth, to mature complex rounded flavors that makes cellaring the key to unlocking a wine’s potential.

Red wines are the preferred cellar target, with regions and varieties that have passed the test of time, so to speak.  Bordeaux (or our equivalents of Cabernet Sauvignon / Merlot), Burgundy (Pinot Noir), Rhone (Shiraz), Barolo (Nebbiolo), Rioja (Tempranillo) form the spine of any red wine cellar.  For white wines, fewer gain notoriety through cellaring, but wines that do include Burgundy (Chardonnay), Bordeaux (Semillon), Alsace – Rhein (Riesling) and Champagne are the best performing with some needing decades to develop a pitch perfect balance.

But the hiding of bottles into a cellar has a dark side and these are rarely raised or discussed in “train spotters central”, or wine clubs for short.  Many (if not most), wines cannot be cellared for long as their structure is so flimsy that if you drop out the tannins, reduce the fruit and acid, you are left with … air?  A nothing wine, a hole as such.  Also many wines can bloom yeast known as brettanomyces, upon which a wine will be impaled with the flavors of a “horses arse”.  Often wine collectors will drink wines cellared past their use by date and they will excuse them like doting parents and salve the wound with comments of “I quite like these lighter style wines” – a sad and regrettable fact.  It is the cost of chasing the perfection they seek.

So you enjoy a glass of wine, you have had a glass of “older” wine and quite enjoyed it, and then during an epiphany of clear thought you feel the need to …”cellar a wine or two that could improve with age”.  I am afraid to say that you have taken that first step down a very slippery slope – but as a fellow tragic I will try and sort the wheat from the chaff for you at these very early stages.  So pen you take up Luke Skywalker, and numbers you follow:

1. How to store wine: Quite simple, buy a wine cabinet.  It may seem expensive but considering the bottles you may ruin if you do not it will be a bargain over time.  Buy the largest you can afford, and then try and get something bigger – you can NEVER have enough storage for cellaring, which is as proven as the law of gravity.  Only when the bug has infected you would you consider building a cellar – think of yourself as a child learning to play the violin, there is no point in getting a Stradivarius until you have learnt to play a chord.

2. Wine to cellar: I am afraid to say but at this point on your vinous travels this is when you become a wine snob … sorry.  Most wine in the WORLD will not age that well, and even more if the wine is worth <$15 – wines made to a price point or from grapes without pedigree.  So no matter what you hear about amazing “age-able” bargains, walk away and get back to basics.  Buy from regions or varieties that have a history of cellaring well, and then select from producers who rely on the reputation of their wines.  For red wines, if you can, buy a bottle of the wine you want to cellar – open, pour and drink a glass or two, leave overnight, drink a further glass or two and repeat.  If the wine is still enjoyable on the second, third or even fourth day you have a stayer.  For white wines it is less clear cut, but often if a white is enjoyed more the next day than the first you are on the right track.

3. How long to wait: Oh the cry of dismay as a cherished bottle is poured down the sink as it was well past its best.  If you are to cellar wine it is imperative that you purchase a minimum of 4-6 bottles, as you can then drink one or two as the years pass and avoid a scenario as painted above.  There is no hard and fast rule on how long wines will age – check the progress after about 4-5 years and then if all is well plan the next bottle as short or as long as required.

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