WTN: 2 Year Storage Experiment (Graves, Bojo, Rhone)

Four friends joined me last night for the Two Year Somewhat Poor Storage test. We had 4 pairs of wines (plus several others that weren't part of experiment I'll put in a separate post). Three of the pairs were my test subjects. To recap, 2 years ago several of us on WLDG decided to do a test. The idea was to compare bottles we cellared with bottles that faced the equivalent of sitting in an average retail store. While some top shops keep store cool all of the time, your average neighborhood store probably doesn't keep store cooler than 70 or so in summer, and probably doesn't run the AC at night , etc.

For the tasting, I furnished pairs of glasses to everyone. We had different styles, but everyone had matched pairs to eliminate that variation (in conversation I had Al sniff my Chardonnays- he agreed the difference between my glass and his was bigger than difference between the differently stored bottles)

Before we got to my bottles, we tried 2 Chardonnays that Ned had brought, he had independently been running a similar experiment for one of his classes. For the last 9 months one bottle had been in a 58 degree home cave, the other had been in a garage. He figured low was about 50 (unheated, but hot water pipes run through) and high about 90.



2007 Chalone Chardonnay (Monterey) #1
I thought I got a little VA from this at first, but whatever it was blew off. Pears and tropical fruit, lots of oak, not particularly buttery. A little disjointed. B-

2007 Chalone Chardonnay (Monterey) #2
Slightly leaner, similar overall though I though more pear and less tropical, and a little butter. B-

A couple of people thought #2 was much better, and voted for #1 as bad storage bottle. I voted no preference, but also #1 as bad storage. Ned checked for his mark- #2 was the garage bottle! Ned then started wondering if he mismarked (and convinced himself), but I'll assume his pre-tasting marking was better than our tasting abilities and prejudices!

OK, on to my reds. 3 pairs. I had wrapped as identically as possible, asked Ron as first arrival to randomly rotate, asked next arrival to number pairs randomly.

Cellared bottles: I have a passive cellar. These were stored at floor level on sides. My cellar at eye level (where I have thermometer) ranges from about 49-50 degrees F in early Feb to about 66-68 in late August/early Sept. All changes are very slow and gradual.

Kitchen bottles : Last 2 years they have been upright. In winter we keep our house quite cool- 58 at night, 65 during day. Kitchen might be warmer with a lot of cooking. We have a small frame house, fairly shaded. We don't have central AC, but do put a window unit in adjacent living room in summer. It's a large unit and cools entire first floor (only about 550 sq ft). I'd say kitchen temps range from 70-80 F in summer. I did remove bottles a couple of times when I thought temps would be above 85- when cleaning oven in summer, and when away for a week with no AC going in July.

Earlier in week I removed kitchen bottles to cellar to ensure all pairs were served in identical conditions. All bottles had good fills and no visible defects, except one kitchen bottle (the Brun) had a dry/brittle feeling label coming loose in one corner. All bottles opened about half hour before guests arrived, no visible issues.

First Round-

2006 La Vieille Ferme (Cotes du Ventoux) screwcap

2006 La Vieille Ferme #1
On first tasting I was sure this was the kitchen bottle, there was a slight roasted/stewed note to the fruit. But that seemed to dissipate with time. Round, ripe. But pretty dead and lifeless on finish. C+/C

2006 La Vieille Ferme #2
Fresher fruit, balanced, not very exciting but a pretty competent CdR lookalike. B-

4-1 that #1 was kitchen bottle, but one person thought they still preferred it though they agreed it was the poor storage. And the kitchen bottles was....#1

Second Round- 2006 Terres Dorees (JP Brun) "L'Ancien" Beaujolais VV

2006 Terres Dorees "L'Ancien" #1
A little bretty note, not bad, good acids, red fruits. Not bad. B-

2006 Terres Dorees "L'Ancien" #2
Good, still some tannins, good acidity, good cranberry and dark berry fruit. B/B+

I think one person thought #2 was kitchen bottle. The kitchen bottle was #1

Third Round - 2004 Picque Caillou (Pessac-Leognan) real cork

2004 Picque Caillou #1
Open, aromatic, red plums, good acidity, a bit clipped. B-

2004 Picque Caillou #2
Nice, structured, classic Graves with some time ahead. Darker fruits, a little cedar and tobacco. B+/B

OK, one person said he just hated both. 2 people agreed #1 was poorer storage, but liked it as fruitier. 2 people preferred #2. Once again, kitchen bottle was #1

OK, so just some data points. The nine month bottles were to me the most identical (even if temp extremes were a bit greater). I think the reds showed more advancement from warm storage, but we had some disagreement if that was better or worse. Ned for one thought the warmer storage bottles showed as more lush, and tended to prefer.

Looking forward to others getting a chance to taste and post their experiences. Fun night, and I'll post on other wines of evening a bit later.

Grade disclaimer: I'm a very easy grader, basically A is an excellent wine, B a good wine, C mediocre. Anything below C means I wouldn't drink at a party where it was only choice. Furthermore, I offer no promises of objectivity, accuracy, and certainly not of consistency.  

Seems like pretty conclusive results! Nice.

But why did you add the standing upright dimension? It sounds like there wasn't really any cork failure/oxidation?

On one hand it shows that wines can survive that kind of treatment and still be enjoyable, although clearly not a 'full representation' of what they would be if stored in better conditions.

Because that is common among wines sitting in a non-specialist store. The idea was to recreate what might happen if you wandered into a store now and saw a 2 year old release that you were interested in. It wasn't a requirement (I don't think others did) but it was also easier for me to take up less space in our little kitchen that way!

Because that is common among wines sitting in a non-specialist store. The idea was to recreate what might happen if you wandered into a store now and saw a 2 year old release that you were interested in.

Aha, didn't realize that was the main goal.

Makes sense. Although I think many of us here would be wary of even buying recent releases from non-specialist stores!

Still, nice that it provides evidence for both sides of the story. The durability and fragility of wine.

Thanks Dale,

While one could consider quicker aging and possibly a more riper showing as positive results, it is the brett bloom that is the clincher for me.

Aha, didn't realize that was the main goal.

Makes sense. Although I think many of us here would be wary of even buying recent releases from non-specialist stores!

Still, nice that it provides evidence for both sides of the story. The durability and fragility of wine.

"Main goal" might be stretching it, but I think I came up with original idea during one of those discussions where someone says "is this wine still good" and answers range from "any wine that hit 70 degrees for an hour is ruined" to "wine is so hardy, people over obsess, I keep it in my car trunk."

I do 99% of my shopping in stores where I'm confident of storage (CSW, Zachys, Grapes, etc) but sometimes hit other stores- on vacation I might visit Len's Wine City in Laguna, or a NH state store. Locally, I'd be surprised if PJs or Dodds kept their stores below 75 in summer.

[David M. Bueker]

Thanks Dale. I will have mine relatively soon.

[David M. Bueker]

Dale,

Re-reading your notes I am suprised at the relatively minor difference in grades for the ambient versus cellared bottles with the exception of the Vieille Ferme. For the others it seems more like a stylistic difference (and thus a situation of personal preference) than qualitative for those less "experienced" than the wine geek crowd. Thoughts?

Dale,

Re-reading your notes I am suprised at the relatively minor difference in grades for the ambient versus cellared bottles with the exception of the Vieille Ferme. For the others it seems more like a stylistic difference (and thus a situation of personal preference) than qualitative for those less "experienced" than the wine geek crowd. Thoughts?

That was my impression too, so I was surprised when Rahsaan called the results pretty conclusive...

David wrote;
…it seems more like a stylistic difference (and thus a situation of personal preference) than qualitative for those less "experienced" than the wine geek crowd. Thoughts?

The participants weren’t given a “control” wine to compare. Each flight should have consisted of three glasses of wine, one a “control” and then the two samples.

Salute

[David M. Bueker]

Victor,

What would the control bottle be? Cellared? Not cellared?

Doesn’t really matter which one you choose as the “control”. You can have the participants just “rate” the three wines and then ask them which of the three glasses taste “almost” the same or which one tastes “off”.

Salute

David,
with the exception of Ned's Chardonnays, I felt there were truly obvious differences between every pair, but agree there were few absolutes. I'd say the results aren't a real surprise- in most cases I wouldn't expect the "bad" conditions to kill these wines (Champagne might be another story). I'll note that I neglected to mention that the kitchen Brun actually showed terribly at first pour, my notes were from a bit later (about the time that flight was poured I went to grill some sausages and squash). It improved to B- in my opinion, though Ned thought it never improved.

An interesting experiment (that I'm not willing to finance!) would be to put a few really ageworthy wines under same conditions for 2 years, and then have the kitchen bottles join the cellared ones for another 8, and taste after 10 years.

I retasted the wines that I retained pairs of last night (sent some partial bottles home with folks Fri night). Not blind, obviously. The Chalone bottle marked garage on back showed markedly more mature- actually quite past it. Bottle 1 was appreciably fresher- not my favorite style, but not much changed from Fri night. While this is of course subjective and subject to my biases, I'm pretty damn sure there is a real difference in how these held overnight. Both simply recorked and in fridge. The kitchen Brun was also gone- maderized with ashtray aromas. The cellared Brun was pretty advanced, but drinkable. These has merely been recorked and left on counter. Again, this wasn't blind. But in case of Chardonnay, there was actually clear color difference.

Victor, this kind of small sample will never be truly scientific. Not sure what a third bottle would have accomplished. I guess it would check the accuracy of the tasters to see if we matched 2 similar bottles, but there's a limit to how much wine I'm willing to sacrifice, and only way that would work is if I put 2 of each bottle in each situation, and then had someone else decide whether to add a cellared or kitchen as third bottle. As noted, this makes no claim as being conclusive, just minor data points. I'll note for the 3 reds I (and other most experienced taster) got kitchen bottle as more advanced each time (and even less experienced people were correct most of the time, although one shouldn't discount factor that we did have discussion, and I tend to be...um...opinionated).

[David M. Bueker]

Dale raises a very important point that we were never trying to be scientifically rigorous, as that's not how we drink wine. This was intended as an anecdotal experiment to see what might happen. As mentioned earlier, I will be pouring my bottles (my poor storage bottles faced similar conditions to Dale's while my cellared examples stay abour 55 degrees year round, so it's not the same experiment) later this month in a blind tasting.

That was my impression too, so I was surprised when Rahsaan called the results pretty conclusive...

The kitchen-cellared Brun had brett and the Bordeaux was 'clipped'. Seemed like two big negative descriptors to me. But I see Dale has elaborated further

Fascinating reading, Dale. It's interesting to me that there was as much difference as there was between these wines. I'm also envious that you have such an experienced panel of tasters to perform this experiment on. My own experiment, begun tonight, will largely be performed with only myself and Jean since most of our friends aren't geeky enough to have fun with this. I'll post the results in a new thread.

Mark Lipton

This is great stuff. Thanks for the spending the cash, taking the time, and following up. It seems like less the ideal storage does have an effect, though the quality of that can vary. Certainly I feel a little less paranoid about my own soon to be established passive system.

For me, a less than full geek, please correct me if wrong but I read that there really weren't big dramatic differences. The differences were subtle and personal taste could, and did, sometimes prefer the bottle with less than optimum storage. Am I wrong to conclude that one might not realize the difference at all if one simply had the kitchen wine without the immediate comparison ? I guess what I drew from this is that the tested wine isn't as fragile as one might think... not that there were no differences but they were minor and some might prefer the wine kept at the higher temps. Please correct me if I am drawing the wrong conclusion. And thanks for taking the time and effort to do this.

Glenn

[David M. Bueker]

Glenn,

Clearly if one does not have a comparison bottle then the obvious effects of different storage won't be so obvious. One of Dale's earlier comments was about how this might be a much more revelatory experiment 8 or so years down the road. That would have to be done with more ageworthy wines, and a lot can change after 8 or 10 years, but general wisdom has been that poor storage or temperature extremes do not always make themselves knonw in a short time period, but that the effects become more pronounced as time goes on.

The one thing I will say prior to opening my own bottles for this experiment (and likely confounding the debate even further), is that if you are looking for a bottle of young wine to have with tonight's dinner then store temps are likely a minor issue.

I'm also envious that you have such an experienced panel of tasters to perform this experiment on.

well, it was Easter/Passover week so I didn't have most of my local group. Only one other person (runs a wine school) is what I'd call a real geek, others are more in the learning mode. And the fact I promised to open the 89 Talbot etc from other thread probably made people more likely to be lab rats.

David, I agree storage issues for newer release things for immediate consumption are probably minimal.

Glenn, as noted to David, probably means little for last years Merlot. But I thought differences were enough to make me even less likely than I was before to take a flyer on say a 4 year old bottle in a store I'm unsure of. This was 2 years, in non-extreme conditions, and I found all 3 reds more advanced. None of this is conclusive, but I find interesting.

As I said earlier, I always shake my head at the folks who act as if a bottle sitting at 70 degrees for a day will kill it. But that doesn't mean there's not an effect to longer term exposure, and the 2nd day visits give a hint it might be multiplied with time.