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Episode Notes:

Alright class, (don’t worry, it’s Wine School)… This week is what we call in wine tasting a "Revisit", which sounds so much classier than saying "can I have some more?" And it's a topic that I ALWAYS get so many questions about (which is why it was worth a revisit)...Aging Wine!

If you’ve ever wondered things like:

Why should I age a wine? How does it change?Will I like it better? What’s the best way to store it? Then this episode is for you!

I’ll break down :

1. The elements in a wine that determine it it will “get better” with time
2. What happens to wines as they age and how the flavor and texture change
3. The best way to store your wine if you are going to “let it ride”

Episode Links:

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Or if you’d like to try the 2015 Vintage I described, to experience more age on this white blend, My partner wine.com has some available here 

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Other Links and resources:

Purchase my Sollevato Sangiovese 2022and Sollevato "Fortunato" Red Blend

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That's one of the ways that, like when you watch the documentary Somme, if you've ever seen that, or when you see someone who's studying for these sommelier exams and the first thing they do is they look at the color of the wine and they can tell just from the density of the color and the hue if it's a red wine.

That's very purpley.

Yes, that's a word.

Purpley.

Hey there.

Welcome to this week's Tip with Nikki.

I'm Nikki Lamberti here in Sonoma County, California.

If you are a regular listener and you've been around for a while, thank you.

You may have noticed that from time to time I've been re releasing episodes, sort of an encore presentation, strategically ones that have been very popular.

And that's what I'm doing today.

And I know that podcast platforms don't always make it super easy to scroll all the way back, especially when there's over 80 episodes in a portfolio.

And so I wanted to bring this to the top of the list because I was reminded this week when I was hosting wine tastings at Pride Mountain Vineyards where I've been a wine educator for coming on 13 years, I was reminded how common the question of aging wine is and how often I get it in various forms.

So I wanted to reshare this episode with you because I believe there's a need for it.

And we're going to talk about why should you age a wine or should you even age a wine?

And if so, how does it change?

What should you expect?

What's the best way to store it?

How do you know if a wine is going to get better with time versus turn to vinegar?

All of these are really important questions, especially if you are investing in good wine and want to lay it down for a while and see what happens.

These are both delicious and ready to drink right now.

However, as you're about to learn, if you did want to age either one of these wines, they have the structure, they have the picture frame to lay down for the long haul.

And I'm about to explain what that means.

Link in the show notes to access Solevato wines, I can ship to most states in the US and be sure to use the discount code pod listener for 10% off your order.

Whether it's my wine or a wine that you picked up in the grocery store or the liquor store, how do you know what to do with it as far as aging?

That's what we're going to break down today.

And you'll also hear a very cool Sip Spotlight where I taste a surprising wine with some age on it and let you know how it's doing and where you can get it.

Here we go with is older necessarily better?

So one of the questions, or at least a version of this question that I have received the most is whether it's leading virtual tastings or in person tastings or just consulting with friends and family, people always want to know about aging wine.

They're like, what is the deal with that, Nikki?

How do I know if I should and is it better?

All of those questions.

So I thought we'd break that down today and talk about how does age affect wine?

Now I'm going to give some generalizations that are hopefully easy to understand, and then we'll get a little bit more specific.

And then we're going to do a sip Spotlight, of course.

And I have a wine with a little bit of age on it today, so we'll talk about that and give you some tips so that you can understand why you should or shouldn't age so that you can get the most enjoyment out of whatever it is that's in your glass.

So we're going to think of it in three categories.

The first one, when you say, how do I know if this is a wine that's ageable and it's going to get better with time?

Chemistry, my friends.

And this is one of those instances in life where chemistry is our friend.

And I promise to keep it very simple.

But there are different chemical components that make up a wine, and sometimes you'll hear them referred to as structural components.

I think of them like the picture frame.

So if you think of a picture frame having four corners, most of them do.

In wine, those four corners in the frame are tannin, acidity, alcohol, and the body or the weight of the wine.

Tannin Alcohol, body acidity, okay?

Those four things hold the wine together.

And then inside the picture frame, there's fruitiness and aromas and all of those sort of sensory things.

But the chemistry is holding it all together.

And that, my friend, is what determines how a wine ages and if it should be one that you do age.

So the two main corners on that frame that make a wine sort of age worthy, if we keep it super simple, are the acidity.

The natural acidity in the wine, the tartness is what you perceive it as a drinker.

It's makes you make that noise.

And different wines have different levels of acidity based on where they were grown and when they were picked.

And then of course, tannin.

Tannin we know to be as what seems like bitter or chalky or astringency in our mouth.

It comes from the skin of the grapes.

And red wine has a lot more tannin in it coming from the skins, which are kept in contact with the wine during the winemaking process.

Whereas most white wines have little to no tannin.

Because in most white wine production, we crush the grapes and we take the juice away from the skins immediately.

Then we work with that juice to become wine.

And therefore there's no tannin.

So what can we infer just from that alone?

Generally speaking, red wine is going to have more age ability than white because of that chemical component, tannin.

Right now, I have to preface, like I always do, you will hear me say lots of generally speaking.

Generally speaking, I will use that term because it's a generalization and things can vary.

But I just want to give you some really easy rules.

So there's your first takeaway.

Most red wines are going to have more longevity or ageability in a bottle than whites, but we're going to break that down a little bit more.

Number two, storage.

Okay, so the main thing that affects aging of wine is also how and where you're storing it.

Temperature.

If you are going to hold on to a wine for any length of time, more than a couple months, you really want to think about the temperature of where it's being stored.

And slower aging will come as a result generally of lower temperature, which is why people have either super fancy wine cellars that are temperature controlled and humidity controlled, or for most of us, we have a wine fridge that maybe we bought it Costco or Wine Enthusiast, which is one of my favorite catalogs.

I have a 300 bottle wine fridge here in my house and it hangs out at about 55 to 60 degrees.

And any wines that we're going to hang on to for more than a couple months.

They are in there because a lower temperature is going to slow the rate of aging.

And also the main thing is you don't want fluctuations in temperature because that's what can really make things start to get a little wonky.

So if you don't have a wine fridge or cellar, or you haven't invested in a even a little wine fridge yet, you want to find the place in your house.

Maybe it's a basement, maybe it's a closet under the stairs where it's just cool.

But most importantly has the least amount of fluctuation in temperature.

That's also going to help when we talk about aging wine.

And the reason that it's important to minimize that temperature fluctuation is because as we know, when things heat, they swell like our ankles in Orlando in July.

And when things are cold, they contract.

So with temperature fluctuations, your cork can expand or contract and then that can lead to oxidation.

Right?

That can lead to it not being a sound closure anymore.

Too much oxygen is going in the bottle through the cork that has been compromised because of those temperature fluctuations.

And that's what can really lead to a vinegar like situation happening in there.

And then in regards to the cork as well.

That's why it's important.

If you're going to store your bottles for any length of time, which I would say more than a few weeks, why they want to be stored on their side.

Even if you don't have a wine fridge, think of how wine bottles lay in there.

They're literally horizontal because you want to keep the wine in contact with the bottom of the cork.

When you stand a wine bottle up, there is a little bit of space between where the liquid stops and the bottom of the cork starts.

And so that can also lead a cork to dry out.

So if you've ever opened a bottle and that cork is literally crumbling, it's because it's dried out.

So make sure that you're storing those babies on their sides.

The third thing to think about is your preference for how your wine tastes.

Because generally speaking, and this is going to be for red and white wine, when wines are young, meaning they were picked and bottled within the last couple of years, we're going to call that a young wine.

The fruitiness about the wine is high.

It's in the spotlight, it's in the forefront.

It's loud, it's what we notice and what we celebrate about the wine.

Whether it's a white wine, where you're getting yummy apple and pear notes, or whether it's a red wine that's like blackberries and cherries, the fruitiness about wine is in the spotlight when it's young.

As most wines age, the fruitiness gets more diminished and more subtle.

And the non fruity things that we notice about wines, they come to the forefront.

They trade places.

So in older white wines, that can be like, ooh, it's like hazelnut or butterscotch or honey.

Non fruit notes, right?

And in red wines, it can be leather, smoke, tar, tobacco.

We're going to call that a non fruit note.

So in older wines, 5 years, 10 years, 20 years down the road, the non fruit notes, the smells and the taste about the wine that we would categorize as not fruity, they get louder.

So does that mean the older wine is a better wine?

Only if you like that non fruitiness about your wine.

Now, if you drink wine because you love the fruitiness and it reminds you of juice or biting into fresh fruit, you probably want to drink your wines on the younger side.

But if you think it's interesting when you take a sip of wine, you're like, oh, that's a familiar note.

I don't.

That reminds me of something.

I'm not quite sure what that is.

And you take another sip and it's like, oh, like my grandfather in Cape Cod had an old cigar box in the closet and we used to store our doll clothes in there.

And the smell of that old cigar box, I'm getting that in this wine and I like it.

That's a very specific and true one out of my brain.

Then that is a reason why you age your wines.

Okay, now, it takes time.

It's not immediate.

This change where the non fruity things can come forward, especially in red wine, can take 10 to 15 years.

Where's the fruit on that?

I have found that for my palette because it's very subjective.

I like it where the fruitiness and the non fruitiness in the wine, they're equals and they meet in the middle.

I find that interesting.

I like the fruitiness about it.

So I love California wines.

It's why I live in California and make wine in California, because California wines are just very fruit driven, mostly because of our weather and our climate here.

But that is personal preference.

So hopefully that gives you a little bit of guidance so you can start to understand.

I have created a visual graph snapshots this concept.

And so in the show notes, if you click on the link, you'll get my wine tips cheat sheet, a free download one cheater.

But I created this graph that I think will bring to life what it is that I've been talking about here.

So the chemistry of the wine is gonna determine if it's something that you wanna lay down.

Acidity and tannin, wines that are high in both of those, generally they got the bones, they got the traps, they got the structure to be aged.

But one thing that also changes as wine is aging is the tannin or the tannic structure.

Basically, tannin when the wine is young is feeling really coarse and astringent and chalky and sometimes like fuzzy sweater on your teeth that softens with time and those get silkier.

And that has to do with some of the chemistry that's evolving in the bottle with tannin.

So if there's a wine that you're like, I love the flavor of this wine, the taste of it, but I don't love that grip and that astringency that is also a case to give that wine some age.

Six months, a year, two years, five years.

And those tannins will really smooth out if you have proper storage with consistent temperature lower than general room temperature.

And if you like that, if you find it interesting, right to taste wines that have more of those, you'll hear the term secondary or tertiary notes.

That's just a term that we use to talk about the non fruity smells and tastes that you can get in wine.

So those are the three things that we talk about.

The other thing that happens, all wine, red and white, ages to brown on the color spectrum has to do with the chemistry of the color compounds in the wine.

So a white wine that's been aging for a while or maybe too long, is going to look brown in the glass.

Because on the color spectrum, as the color is interacting with oxygen in the bottle, literally everything gets that brownish tint.

That's one of the ways that like when you watch the documentary Somme, if you've ever seen that, or when you see someone who's studying for these sommelier exams, and the first thing they do is they look at the color of the wine and they can tell just from the density of the color and the hue, if it's a red wine, that's very purpley.

Yes, that's a word.

Purpley.

That is a big hint right there.

That wine is younger just based on the color and nothing else.

Where if the wine is feathered out in the color on the edges and a little more brickish or brownish, that's going to be a big clue as to the age of the wine.

It also does change the appearance of the wine in the glass, so hopefully that's helpful as well.

So in preparation for today's Sip Spotlight, Sip Spotlight.

It's a Sunday afternoon here, and I was like, let me see what I might have in my wine fridge, and let me just pull out a wine and use it to talk about age.

This Abraxas Vendeter Oire Abraxas is a white blend from Robert Sinski Vineyards.

Now, Robert Sinski, the tasting room.

The winery is located in Napa Valley, but the vineyard location, which is on the label, says Scintilla Sonoma Vineyard.

That's because where this is growing, Carneros, is the south end of Napa, and this vineyard is located in Carneros.

Carneros, interestingly, is partially in Napa and partially in Sonoma, which is cool.

I don't know where this bottle came from.

I think maybe this was a gift.

It is a beautiful, tall, long neck bottle, and it has a glass topper on it, which is really interesting.

You don't see that a lot.

And we're going to talk about that affects aging too, right?

What?

The bottle is closed in.

Is it a screw cap, Is it a cork?

Or is it, in this case, a rare glass peg?

That affects the rate at how quickly oxygen passes through the bottle.

And that's one of the things that changes the wine and evolves the wine and is a catalyst of that reaction that we talked about with fruitiness going down and other nodes coming forward.

That's all driven by oxygen.

And oxygen passes through different closures at a different rate, generally speaking.

And this is all being questioned and experimented with right now.

But historically, a cork, which is bark of a cork tree, it's a natural product.

Even if there's like a foil capsule over the cork, a cork has always let a very slow and steady amount of oxygen into the bottle, which typically ages wines differently than a man made closure, like a screw cap or a glass top.

So that'll also change it as well.

That's why historically, most high end wines, especially big, bold cabernets with a lot of tannin and a lot of acidity, they're made for aging, are generally packaged with a cork because they're meant to be aged.

And that cork allowing that little bit of oxygen to come through will help that process.

So anyway, this bottle has a very tall, beautiful, elegant neck.

And this glass top and Abraxas on the back label says, God of the 365 heavens.

One wine, one vineyard, four grapes.

This crisp and floral vint de terroir wine of the earth is how I read that captures the natural expression of the vineyard and the vintage.

So for a California white wine, we're going to call that aged.

That's got a little bit of age on it.

And the four grapes that are in here are Riesling, Gewurchtaminer, Pinot Gris and Pinot Blanc.

So very cool blend of four grapes.

And some of those grapes, Pinot Gris, Pinot Blanc, Riesling, Gowirch demeanor.

They are in what we call the aromatic family of white grapes.

So they are known for having these really vibrant noses.

So I just poured it in the glass, and the color is actually kind of like straw, Very pale straw.

Ooh.

And on the nose, it's like honeysuckle.

That's the first thing I thought of, that honeysuckle bush in our backyard growing up in New Jersey.

I love that note in white wines because it's nostalgic.

This wine has weight and it has body.

It feels viscous in my mouth, which is lovely, and it's not sweet.

So just because you heard me say one of the grapes is Riesling, that does not mean that this wine is sweet.

Riesling, just like any grape, can be produced with sweetness or the opposite of that, which is dryness.

And this wine is mostly dry.

There may be a hint of some sweetness on here, but I would put this wine at mostly dry.

And it's very like honeydew honeysuckle.

There's a little bit of a honey note for me.

It's really interesting.

If I was tasting this in a blind tasting, I would be stumped I would be like, I don't even.

I don't even know what this is.

It's very unique.

There's a citrusy note on it, maybe a little lemon, a little apple, but it definitely has a creamy finish.

Not buttery, but creamy.

And then this is what it has at the end when I take a sip, listen, what makes me make that lip smacking noise in my mouth, under my tongue?

The acidity that tells me that this wine started with a good amount of natural acidity in it, probably because of the region Carneros, where it's growing cooler temperature, which generally drives higher levels of acidity.

On Robert Tsinsky's website, they talk about, and I will now second after tasting this, how this is a really great pairing wine with cuisine of the world, like Mexican and Indian and Thai and foods that generally have some spices to them that can be a little tricky when it comes to pairing wine.

Like, I love a big, bold, red, dry California Cabernet Sauvignon.

But if I'm eating spicy food with lots of Thai chilies, I got a mouthful of that and I go back to my California Cabernet.

It's, ooh, the fruit is gone and it's bitter.

So this is a really lovely white blend that can be a very nice pairing to some food with some heat, curry or Thai or Mexican, which we eat a lot of in this house, by the way.

It's labeled as a white blend and it has a proprietary name, Abraxas, because if a wine is 75% or more of one grape, then you can just call it that on the label.

So the fact that you don't see Pinot Blanc, Pinot Gris, Gewurch, Shimino or Riesling on this label tells me it's not 75% of any one.

And it's literally a blend of those four beautiful grapes coming together.

So really delicious.

I will put the link in the show notes.

It's a great price point.

It's in the mid-30s to $40 a bottle.

And I think this could be a really lovely bottle.

If you live in a BYO state.

When you're going out for sushi or Thai or Indian food, I would bring this along.

Really lovely, surprising.

And I happen to have this in my wine fridge.

So to recap, how Do I know if a wine is ageable and how do I know if I'm going to like it?

What are the three things that determine it?

A.

The starting chemistry of the wine.

Is it a wine that started with a higher amount of acidity or tannin?

Generally it's going to have some time to lay down.

How do you know that?

Use the app that I use, Vivino.

That's the one where you scan the label, it'll pull it up and it can actually give you some idea about things like the tannin and the acid on the wine.

Storage, right?

Storage is an important part that's going to determine if and how long you should lay a wine down.

If you are finding yourself collecting wines and holding onto them longer than you're drinking, maybe time to invest in a small wine fridge.

And finally, your preference.

If you know you like wines where the fruitiness is the superstar, drink them young.

But in red wines, if you want the texture to soften a little bit.

Or in white wines, if you like that sort of nutty, honey almondy note to come forward in a lot of white wines, that will happen with time.

There you have it.

I hope that you'll remember those three points that help to determine ageability of the wine chemistry, storage and your taste.

If you'd like to grab the cheat sheet that I've created with a graph about aging, go to sipwithnikki.com resource and I will send it right to your inbox.

And if you'd like to order this beautiful Robert Sinski Abraxas white blend that we talked about, follow the link in the show notes for my affiliate partner, wine.com and we have it shipped right to your door.

Finally, if you liked this, Share this with someone who might be wondering the same thing about aging.

Please like and follow the podcast.

Leave us a rating, leave us a review, and if you have any suggestions or questions for next time, you can reach me@nikkiipwithnikki.com if you'd like to support the podcast, Buy me a glass of wine.

There'll be a link to support the podcast and we would be so grateful.

Until next time, sip well.