The merits of aging wine - let's have the debate

I'd certainly never claim there was a different link between aging and pleasure. Certainly probably 90+% of wines made are "as good as they're gonna get" right off the bat. The majority of the rest might benefit from a few years to let tannins subside or some oak to integrate a bit. Probably at most 1% (and that's probably quite optimistic) of wines benefit from more than a few years of aging.

But for me the emergence of light tertiary notes from aging is one of the wonders of wine. If fruit is your only concern, go for young every time. I personally don't feel it's pretension to like the flavors of a 59 Mouton, 61 Pape Clement, 83 Cheval Blanc, 85 Mugneret Exchezeaux , etc more than younger wines (and yes, I've had all of those double blind). Certainly there can be people who swoon solely because of age (there is one well known fan of aged wines who regularly declares the beauties of aged wines that others tasting same bottle regard as dead), but it's hard to separate tasting preferences from bias. I have a friend (the real Jay Miller) who likes wines even more aged than I do, but he has no hesitation calling out a bad aged wine. The fact that he and I might like the 55 Lafon Rochet, while others find it less pleasurable, is imho just taste not pretension.

I've had tons of over the hill wine, tons of aged wine that wasn't over the hill but not very good, and tons of crappy new vintage wine. That said, as I noted in earlier life of this thread, the majority of my greatest wine experiences ever have involved some bottle age.

I've had tons of over the hill wine, tons of aged wine that wasn't over the hill but not very good, and tons of crappy new vintage wine. That said, as I noted in earlier life of this thread, the majority of my greatest wine experiences ever have involved some bottle age.

Great summation, Dale.

I recently received an email from my wine club offering me "A Rare Vertical Tasting 15 Years in the Making!‏". I can buy some aged Freemark Abbey Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley Bosché Estate (vintages 1994, 1995, and 1996) for a total price of $281 (about $94 per bottle). This marketing pitch aims right at the notion that wine, especially cabernet, gets better with age. So much better that it should command premium prices. Not to leave this marketing pitch unexamined, I decided to do some detective work. The results are interesting.

See the following chart for the Wine Spectator scoring of each vintage (both the original and subsequent scoring), release price, inflation-adjusted price, and offered price (they didn't break it down by vintage so I just divided the total price by 3). And please assume for the moment that the scored price accurately reflects the quality of the wine.

wine chart jpeg.JPG

What this analysis shows is that 2 of the 3 wines got worst with age! Not by much though: the 1995 went from Outstanding to Very Good and the 1996 went from Very Good to Good (using the WS scales). While the 1994 went up, it stayed within the Very Good range.

So the question is: should I pay a premium price for wine that was very good 15 years ago and is still very good today? Or put another way, what premium should I pay for having the winery hold this wine for the last 15 years since the taste is about the same (meaning I'm paying for their inventory carrying costs but not for taste appreciation)?

I don't know the answer but what really has me unsettled is the deceptive way in which this wine was presented. Part of the email pitch about scoring is presented below.

fa jpeg.JPG

For the 1994 they use a Wine Advocate rating of 96 since it's higher than the Wine Spectator ratings. For the 1995, they use the original score of 92 instead of the most recent score of 88, again since it's higher. But for the 1996, they used an overall Napa Valley vintage rating of 96 instead of the actual rating for the actual wine, which is readily available. One could argue that each individual rating is true (which they are). However, cherry-picking the best rating and conveniently omitting the worst ones, collectively makes the pitch deceptive. This is just plain wrong. Needless to say, I'm not going to take advantage of the offer.

[David M. Bueker]

David,

Two things:

1. Despicable marketing by the wine club, and good work by you to do the work to see through it

2. The critical perception of what makes good Cabernet has changed so much from the release of these wines to the "re-taste" dates that I think the follow-up tastings are meaningless. Knowing a little about the Freemark Abbey wines I am willing to bet that they are structured, elegant and bear no resemblance to blueberry oak syrup. That makes for bad scores in the new world order.

Of course I also think the offer is overpriced, but that's me.

I've had tons of over the hill wine, tons of aged wine that wasn't over the hill but not very good, and tons of crappy new vintage wine. That said, as I noted in earlier life of this thread, the majority of my greatest wine experiences ever have involved some bottle age.

Great summation, Dale.

Yes, this sums it up for me as well. Aging doesn't guarantee great wine, but when it works, it can be wonderous.

I've kept away from this thread, because the final answer can only be 'it depends'! There's usually a lot of heat and not much light generated from these discussions. And as many have noted in this thread (and many others), there's lots of things it can depend on, like personal preference (that's the biggest one I think), variety, region, producer, specific bottling (many wines are made to drink almost immediately, some are produced to be vin de garde) and vintage.

And luck and/or karma has it's place to. Some bottles of the same wine will improve, some will die: it's always a bit of a crapshoot!