Does Modern Wine Improve with Age or Get Worse?

[LoneRanger]

I was told yesterday by someone at work that typical modern wine, "Grocery store wine" if you will, doesn't improve with age it actually goes bad if kept around too long on account of "the preservatives they put in it nowadays." On the face, this sounds like bovine scat to me, but I honestly don't know because I'm more of a beer person anyhow.

Any one else heard this?

 

[Revving2Redline]

Grocery wine doesn't improve but liquor store wine will

 

[Titan]

At a wine class I took a decade, oops, make that 2 decades ago, the "professor" stated that "the vast majority of wine is meant to be consumed relatively as soon as it is released to the public". How accurate he was, I cannot tell. I've heard it said many times since by many people that claim to be experts, but, again, I cannot tell if they are right or not. It makes sense to me that wine is developed over the "correct length of time", then released to be consumed "soon".

 

[Cujet]

I'm not the world's leading expert on wine as I just don't drink it often. In my experience, red wine typically lasts (ages? , tastes OK) well enough for a few years. However, even quality bottles have issues with the corks deteriorating. I'm finding that a good percentage of the time now in the $25 wine I've had in storage for more than a few years, the corks are soft about halfway up. Sometimes the wine has gone bad. Sometimes it's good. As far as I can tell, not once has it been "better" than it was when purchased.

 

[AVB]

The vast majority of wines do not improve with age after bottling.

 

[BrocLuno]

Obviously you have never been to one of our groceries ... They have wines from $9 to $90 and a guide to serving and aging said wines.

Aging is a very complex system. It needs temp control, and if real corks are involved, it needs humidity control too ... Then the bottle needs to be topped every few years. Any air space will destroy the wine.

We have services in the valley here that will top aging wines, but it ain't cheap. So unless we are talking Opus One or something, best to just work on getting to a nice drinkable state

As far as aging after bottling, many wineries have already done the heavy lifting. Barrel aging, bottling and aging in glass with riddling as needed is carried out at the winery. So it has already been aged in the bottle for one or two years before it's released.

Yes the wine is barely old enough to drink when sold, but more than 2 years and you are prolly going to loose a fair percentage.

What most folks don't know is that many Reds need to "breathe" before they are consumed. Just pulling the cork an hour before pouring helps, but actual decanting is better and offers more control

 

[dlundblad]

Originally Posted By: Marco620
Grocery wine doesn't improve but liquor store wine will


Do you own or have any affiliation with a liquor store?

 

[dishdude]

I think it's how long the wine was in the barrel, not how long it was in the bottle. Don't let it sit around, it will go bad.

 

[Johnny2Bad]

Both. But you don't really know which is which, and you must store it exactly right (facilities which you probably don't have) so just drink the stuff soon after you buy it.

 

[BeerCan]

I'm of the opinion that once the vineyard puts it in the bottle it's ready to drink. So I do

 

[jhellwig]

Aren’t some of them artificially aged? I know they do that with whiskey.

I don’t think a 100 year old bottle of MD2020 is going to be any better than it is to begin with.


I am also of the opinion that wine has missed a very important step before consumption, distillation.

 

[fdcg27]

Depends upon the wine. Some wines are meant to be drunk young while others aren't.
Reds age better than whites, for example.
The cork is a real issue over time as well.
The cheap Californian, Australian, German and Chilean wines most of us buy are meant to be consumed as bought.
They may not degrade appreciably over time but nor will they improve.
Spanish wines are typically superior but are also aged enough before sale to be ready to drink as bought.
Italian wines are hit and miss, like everything produced in Italy. Some are very good while others are good only to cook with, but you won't know this until you actually buy a bottle and try it.
Wine is a fun pursuit and it does make a fine accompaniment to dinner.
We're having an Australian chard with our dinner ATM. It's okay, but nothing we'll buy again.

 

[LoneRanger]

So I have a bottle of Whitehaven Pinot Noir vintage 2005 which has a screw on metal cap not a cork. Was bought in 2011. It's the sole bottle in a small rack on a side table in the dining room. I've kept it around unopened for sentimental reasons on account of how I came to have it. So it's probably not "gone bad" but it's just likely to be about the same as when bought?

If I ever open it.

 

[Shannow]

My Dad gave me a bottle of good Red for my 40th, telling me that it wasn't a "normal" bottle, and to save it for a special occasion.

That message sunk in, and 10 years later, that occasion hasn't surfaced...should have taken it on the cruise for my 50th...might crack it in November of the 5th anniversary of his death.

Although not holding out on it being that great now.

(Have in the past had former workmates trying to poach me crack out "the" bottle from their cellar and had it taste worse than cask stuff)

 

[Shannow]

Long time ago now, in my gap year (1986), there was a wine cellarman who did Saturday morning radio call ins.

One day a woman rang in and her wine was "bad", having followed the printed instructions from his store. He worked with her over the phone/radio, and storing it under the house, while not ideal wasn't too bad...then as the topic evolved to name and vintage, she told him that they were all casks...

 

[Leo99]

I don't spend more than $15 for a bottle. Usually less than $12. Only drink red wine. I drink it. I don't save it or age it. It it needs to be aged, I'll trust the winery to age it for me before they release it for sale.

 

[Kestas]

I have some good experience with keeping wine. My oldest bottles are 35 years old, and I drink them. Aging markedly reduces the tannin (that "sweettart" taste). I don't like the tannin taste. But it also makes the wine taste somewhat thin.

The cheaper wines stay cheap. I haven't noticed aging help these wines.

 

[AVB]

I just opened a bottle of home made apple wine that is really good. It was a little tart at first but pouring a glass and letting it sit for a few minutes really smoothed it out.

 

[CharBaby]

Wine doesn't improve with age in the bottle, only in the barrels.

 

[SevenBizzos]

Not a simple answer, but generally most of the lower priced wines are made with the assumption that they will be consumed soon after purchasing. You can't pick up a ten year old bottle of Yellow Tail and expect it to taste how it is supposed to.

A lot of the complex reds can use aging and absolutely make a difference. My father inventories about 3000 bottles and has a room dedicated to storage. When he opens a 10-15 year old bottle of a wine I'm familiar with I can tell the difference. Wine is a pretty complex, ever changing "organism" (lack of a better term) and does chemically change over time.

While the type of location doesn't really matter, the lower priced, high production wines are nicknamed "grocery store wine".