If you're like me, you have a wine fever, and the only prescription is MORE COWBELL. How do you get more cowbell into your wine without spending more money? Short term cellaring!
The question that we are asked more than any other at Guy du Vin (besides - is he available? and - can I touch him?) is "how long before this wine is ready to drink?" A few months ago, we discussed wine and ageing in a brief article, Wrinkles and Dust. The article is summarized in the last paragraph:
"A very small number of wines benefit from extended bottle maturation... However, it is those few wines, which actually do improve with age that cause people to associate age in a wine with quality...there's a heck of a lot of wine out there sitting in closets and cellars that is way past its prime and would have tasted a lot better had their owners drunk them in their youth."
An awful lot of time, newsprint, and cyberspace are devoted to the subject of long term cellaring. Long term is a relative notion, but in my mind it means holding on to a wine for anywhere from five years (when I was younger it meant at least ten) to 25 years and more. But how many people do you know with the discipline to keep their mitts off their good stuff for that long?
I think a much more productive approach to ageing wine is to focus on the benefits of short term cellaring. By short term I mean deferring drinking certain wines from six months to two years. This is a much more attainable goal for most of us.
The vast majority of wineries simply can't afford to hold wine back from release for as long as they would like. They need the cash and the space. Most wine is released into the market just as it is beginning to become drinkable. This is fine if what you like about wine is simple fresh fruit characteristics, the taste of wood and alcohol. But if you prefer a Julie Delpy to a Brittany Spears (or Johnny Depp to Keanu Reeves), you are going to have to wait to see what else the wine has to offer. The good news is you don't have to wait long. With the passage of time, even four to six months, many wines begin to soften, fill out in texture and will show more than simple flavors. This is true even with wines that are inexpensive. It holds true for most of the wines that we sell at Guy du Vin.
We give readers little reminders in our newsletter when we re-taste a wine that we originally described a few months earlier. We do that because a particular wine has begun to come around. It doesn't always mean that the wine will continue to improve; it just means that it has settled down and begun to show its stuff.
The Guy du Vin Short Term Cellaring Strategy
- Read the descriptions of wines you are interested in on the website or call us and ask for advice on what we think will improve with a little time.
- Always purchase a minimum of three bottles of each wine you buy. Six bottles or a case would be better, because if you end up really liking something, you won't run out as quickly. (One of the quickest ways to go about building a small cellar is to buy three bottles of four different wines at a time.)
- Drink one bottle soon after purchase and make some minimal notes. Put the others in your storage area and forget them for at least four to six months.
- At the end of that time, open your second bottle. Compare your notes. That will help you to figure out how long to hold on to the rest.
- Continue to buy at least three bottles at a time and place them in your storage area working them into your rotation. Important Note: If you don't continue to add to your collection, you will never get to the point where you are always drinking wine that is showing well.
What do you drink while you are waiting for your stored wines to come around? We can recommend many wines that are inexpensive and meant to be enjoyed immediately. Drink these wines for a few weeks and don't touch the bottles you have put away.
Once you have a stock of wines that are at least six months old, you can switch from purchasing wines that are for immediate consumption and focus on wine purchases that you'll store for a few months. You will always be drinking wine with slightly more bottle age, enjoying wines that show more complexity and you will be developing a nice little wine cellar. Even better, you will become a model of discipline, a beacon of enlightenment, and an example of fortitude for your children, neighbors and friends in a world bent on immediate gratification and the worship of youth.
It really is pretty easy. All it takes is a bit of patience and a small initial investment. Once you do that, however, your cellar is easy to maintain and the rewards are terrific.
