A brief Guide to Ageing wines

By Christopher Burr MW.

Over 90% of all wine is drunk very young within the first year of making. Does that mean that only 10% of all wine is worth keeping and allowing to age?

Not really.
There is a fashion, understandable in many ways, for wines to be drunk when they exhibit fresh fruity character, ie. during their first year or two.

After all fruit flavours are one of the main attributes of wine, alongside complexity, persistence of aromas and flavours, and finally, and in some ways most important, balance and elegance.

Christopher Burr MW

So, how and what happens to wines as they mature?

First, I would say that the value in ageing wine doesn’t only apply to expensive top end wines.

Well made, everyday wines can also benefit from a few years ageing. They can retain fruit, but also develop other complex attractive flavours and often become gentler and rounder.

One of the most noticeable things about any young wine is its fruitiness, created by esters. These are formed during fermentation, the most common being ethyl acetate, a compound of ethyl alcohol and acetic acid. These estery fruity characters are created most when there is an absence of oxygen during fermentation and handling of the young wine and the bottling. Over time these esters defuse the acids, making the wine gentler and milder, allowing other aromas and flavours to appear.

Ageing is also about very slow oxigenation and the emergence of esters. Oxygenation from the air between the top of the wine and the cork, which can increase over time. But these days this oxygenation is reduced by wine-makers injecting Nitrogen or Carbon dioxide into the space between the wine and bottom of the cork, during the filling. to displace the oxygen. Corks also allow minute amounts of oxygen to slowly ingress.

Wine contains amino acids, and the slow oxygenation of an amino acid, Glutamic acid, creates aroma and flavour changes. For wines with secondary fermentation in bottle, like Champagne and many other sparkling wines, flavour enhancement can be obtained with longer yeast contact in bottle, known in the industry as yeast autolysis.

In red wines and some whites, tannins also alter and bind as the polymerisation with colour pigments happens with oxygenation. The tannins becoming softer and gentler.
Eventually, when bound large enough, tannins and colour molecules precipitate as sediment.

Although cork quality has improved tremendously over the last ten years, it is a natural product, and there can be quality variation which can affect a wine.

Recent improvements in natural corks, with the very best “Naturity” NDTECH cork from the cork producer Amorim, however seem to have completely eradicated cork (TCA) taint. They also have considerably improved longevity for ageing wines.With cork from the cork oak being the most ecologically sustainable and environmentally friendly type of closure.

Alternatives like the Stelvin screw cap, Nomacorc and composite corks, are now made to allow a controlled ingress of oxygen. However, the ageing potential of wine for these closure is as yet unproven.”

The flavour profiles you should expect, and very rough timescales are as below, depending very much upon the wine.

To explain further, the three main components in wine, acids, alcohol and sugars all have a different role to play.

All three have preservative attributes in different ways. Alcohol is the steriliser, whereas sugar and acids have long age preserving powers.

Acidity is especially important, and high acid grape varieties and high acid vintages last far longer and develop great complexity of aromas and flavours.

Sweet wines need high acidity to balance the sweetness. Sugar and acidity, in wines like Sauternes and Sweet German wines are a recipe for very long ageing indeed.

In red wines, the three same ingredients as for white wine have a role, although there are fewer sweet red table wines. However, red wines also contain more of the natural preservative tannin, which additionally allows wines to age well. Port has all that is needed for long ageing, acidity, sugar, alcohol, and tannin. The 1908, 1912 and 1927 Vintage Ports are still magnificent.

Age profiles for white wines:-

Colour. Can darken from a bright light green yellow, through to straw, rich yellow and amber.

Aromas and flavours. In year one, fruit completely dominates, be that for both dry and sweet wines. After a year there starts to be some other flavours as well as just fruit, depending upon grape and wine making. Some vanillin from oak, and some characteristics of stone or mineral, but fruit still dominant.

It takes around four to five years before gentler aromas and flavours appear, the fruit often becoming more dried or even stewed fruit for warm climate grapes and wines, and for yeasty wines, more bread-like aromas. After eight to ten years characteristics of honey and more savoury, nutty and mineral aromas and flavours start to develop.

Really well-aged whites tend to come from high acid grapes, like Riesling, Chenin Blanc, Semillon and Sauvignon. Also grape varieties which have been fermented in oak (providing added tannin), and have had good yeast contact (which also acts as an excellent preservative) like cool climate Chardonnays which have good acidity, Furmint, or long cask aged white Rioja.

After ten to fifteen years for good, well balanced wines, rich aromas and flavours emerge, a moreish, honeyed and Wabi-Sabi or Umami character, with a gentleness of fruit and acidity still present.

Age profiles for red wines:-

Colour going from young wines of dark ruby and even purple. Then after two or three years becoming more ruby, then after five years starting to become paler with colour changes to rust, and amber as they age further. Finally paler, as the colour molecules and tannins precipitate into bottle sediment.

Aromas and flavours start with fruit dominance for the first two to three years, after which gradually other aromas and flavours can be detected alongside the vibrant fruit. Oak and vanillin from casks, some savoury notes, sometimes wild berry and herb characters. After ten years fruit has mellowed to dried fruit characters, leather and earthy aromas and flavours emerge and in some wines, coffee, toffee, chocolate and tobacco.

Well-aged reds also develop a richness and moreish Wabi-Sabi or Umami character, sometimes described as woodland mushrooms. Again different grape varieties offer different expressions of this and different timescales before these characteristics develop, depending upon acidity, tannic structure, alcohol and any residual sugar.

Some final thoughts:

Firstly, as wines age, they often go into a rather dull period for a year or two, often as the fruitiness recedes and before the other lovely savoury characteristics appear. So patience is important.

Secondly, white wines, by and large, age far longer than reds, particularly those with high acidity and sugar. The oldest whites I have drunk have been sweet German wines back as far as 1727, and still lovely, if not very gentle. The oldest reds I have tasted are from the 1890’s and still lovely.

And of course fortified wines like Port, Madeira, Malaga and Sherry can last very well due to oxidative winemaking and high alcohol and acidity and often sugar. The 1815 Blandy’s Vintage Waterloo Bual, bottled to celebrate the battle of Waterloo, seems will last forever!

Extended yeast contact and high acidity also allows Champagne to age. I remember well drinking 1921 Dom Perignon (actually it was Moet, as Dom Perignon wasn’t launched until the 1930’s) and also 1924 Krug, not shipped as it was in the cellars at the start of war.

One of the greatest joys of wine is seeing it age and all the slow changes in aromas and flavours.

Drinking wine too young when it is just fruit juice, is as bad as drinking it too old when it is becoming volatile (like vinegar) or bitter with bad oxidation. The excitement and joy is finding the perfect age.

Finally, storage conditions are crucial, with cold damp cellars best. Scottish castle cellars have proven excellent! Corks do not last forever, even in a damp cellar. So wines tend to need re-corking at some point, kept in a really good cellar, normally between 50 and 100 years after bottling.