Collecting Wine
Rather than living bottle to bottle, there are many reasons why people collect wine. For some, it’s an investment or about prestige. For others it’s a hobby like collecting stamps or baseball cards. In these cases, scarcity of a wine then becomes a factor which is why I appreciate critics who list how many bottles were made.
In addition, some like the intellectual side of it such as the history and technical stuff while others just collect to have great wines on hand to enjoy on its own, with food and friends and in other various occasions. For most, it’s a combination of the above things.
I talk more about what to buy and budgeting in another section, but the essential purpose to having a cellar is to have different wines ready for different occasions and pairings: E.g. sparkling, rosés, dessert wines, lighter and bigger reds, and dry whites. It also helps to have young and old wines because the same wine at a young age will pair differently than an aged version. Besides maintaining budget discipline, having wines at different price points also matters since certain occasions call for a more impressive wine and cheaper wines make good cellar defenders to keep you from opening your nicest and most ageable wines before they’re at their peak. As far as regions and styles, it depends mostly on your palate and budget unless it’s for investment. Then you’re looking for wines that age and improve in quality and value over time.
Aging Wine
Almost all wines are meant to be drunk now or within the next 3-5 years. Even Bordeaux, which makes wines capable of aging 30-50+ years, still sells mostly lower end wines for immediate consumption and the current style of even higher end Bordeaux wines are more approachable younger to reach an increasingly impatient market, despite their decades of aging potential.
However, you might consider collecting wines for long term aging in order to enjoy some of the best wines in the world at their most sexy and complex. If you’re willing to shell out money for expensive wines, why drink them when they’re not at their best? I also like investing in anniversary and birthday vintages of loved ones for future special occasions. They help mark the time of when you open them and the year they were made.
Many of these age-worthy wines are expensive, but not all of them. Plus you have to consider that age-worthy wines get more expensive over time, so you save money buying them now rather than 10 years from now when the price can increase 50% to 300% more. If you don’t want to waste money and pleasure on your investment and wait, you need to properly store your wines.
Storing Wine
For both short and long term storage, you need consider doing the following:
- Avoiding light and heat (more specifically drastic and constant changes in temperatures or any extreme cold or hot temperatures).
- Avoiding constant vibration.
- Avoiding proximity to strong smells.
- Avoiding low humidity (below 50%).
- Storing wines horizontally.
The shorter you store a bottle, the less those factors are important, especially #4 and #5. The longer you store a wine, the more important those factors are. Therefore, you may consider investing in a wine fridge which blocks light and smells and maintains a constant temperature of around 55 degrees F or 13 degrees C without vibration. More expensive ones can also maintain the humidity while some people put a pan of water in their fridge to help keep the humidity from going too low.
You can also just use a natural underground cellar/basement or have one built if you’re really serious about wines. There are also professional storage facilities that store your wines in ideal conditions for a monthly fee per bottle. This is ideal for wines you want to put away for a while since you won’t have daily access. If you have none of these options, put it in the darkest and coolest place in your house where it won’t be disturbed like the back of a closet.
As far as keeping an inventory of your wines, cellartracker.com besides being a source for consumer reviews, offers a free online inventory program (but there’s a suggested donation).
Which type of wines are age-worthy?
First of all, high ageability is usually deduced from a wines’ balance and depth. If a wine is not relatively balanced now or interesting, there’s a good chance it won’t be balanced or interesting in the future. A little too much oak, hard tannins, alcohol, volatile acidity will often integrate or soften up with age though, and wines are sometimes austere or shy at a young age or go through dormant stages. Still, there has to be potential and balance early to age well.
High acidity, high tannins, high alcohol and high residual sugar are the technical factors that indicate a wine’s ageability. In addition, oak aging can add tannins and help protect it from oxidization. However, just as important might be the reputation of a producer and variety. For example, Cabernet and Nebbiolo have reputations for aging well since they are typically tannic wines. The style of producer is a large factor too. For instance, French producers in general make wines with higher acidity than American winemakers, so French versions of the same variety will often age better. More specifically, producers like Chateau Lafite, who make Cabernet based wines, have been highly regarded for centuries and some of their century old wines are still drinking well today. There are even people who can attest to what an old wine tasted like when it was first bottled and what it tastes like now, so you can trust them to project how long a new Lafite could age and how well it will improve. Their reputation is partly due to their dedication and winemaking, but also their terroir since different winemakers have come and gone over the decades. Lastly, there’s a difference between having a history of improving vs. lasting. Those technical factors may mean it can last a long time, but does it get better?
Wines improve by gaining complexity and elegance. The tannins soften into silky textures. Everything integrates into a seamless smorgasbord of flavors. The wines goes beyond primary flavors (from the fruit), shows more integrated secondary flavors (from the winemaking process) and tertiary flavors (from bottle aging). Wheel charts are useful to help sort out these different notes, but aren’t perfect because some of these tertiary notes may appear in young wines depending on the terroir and variety. Plus, what people call secondary notes seems to differ as some include oak aging as part of the winemaking process while some would call it a tertiary note.
In general, older red wines have more dried fruit, leather, tobacco, nutty and mushroomy notes in addition to their primary and secondary notes although it must be said that some people just don’t like these flavors as much as the vibrant young fruit you get in younger wines, so how long you age a wine and what type of wine you buy depends on your palate. Some are meant to age and improve complexity. Some are meant to be hedonistic and last, but not necessarily gain complexity. Most are meant for now. You need to experiment and find your sweet spot age of each type of wine.
With white wines, the color actually gets darker unlike red wines that get lighter and start to get a brick color on the edges. White wines can also get more elegant and integrated along with dried fruit notes and oxidized notes of nuts, bruised fruit and sherry like notes.
Here are two general overviews on aging wine and which types of wines age: https://winefolly.com/tips/collecting-age-worthy-wine/
And an explanation of what happens to wines when they age and when to drink: https://www.winemag.com/2018/10/09/what-happens-wine-ages/
There are resources about opening and serving wines here which include older wines. The techniques for opening and decanting older wines are a little different, and it’s important not to aerate older wines too much without tasting where they are in their evolution. Too much air can push a wine to its death.
Here are some reviews I did of aged wines:
Aging Chilean Wines
Chileans do not have a culture of aging wines and the market for Chilean wines internationally and domestically is such that almost all their wines are made for immediate consumption. However, there are some high end Chilean wines striving to compete with the best age-worthy international wines and there are several lower to mid-level wines that feel theoretically age-worthy, but not many people try to age them very long.
Honestly, there’s not enough sample size to know how well Chilean wines age, but one would think that some of their best Cabernets like Almaviva or Chadwick, which rival some of the best Bordeaux, would age as well as those Bordeauxs if they are stored well. The other question is if they get better with age. I’m sure the big Chilean wineries will start to do more vertical tastings (different vintages of the same wine) to prove the best Chilean wines can age well.
Mid-level+ Chilean Bordeaux blends could in theory age 10+ years, but I’m not sure if many consumers wait longer than that to see how well they do. Some of the VIGNO Carignans with their high acidity are wines that should get better over 10 years as the acidic structure smoothens out and other complexities emerge. In my experience, the VIGNO are better at least 4 years of age.
10 years old is the oldest I generally experience of Chilean wines although I’ve had some 20-40 year old Chilean wines too. I’m not sure if they gain that much more complexity, but they certainly soften up and become more elegant over time as many age worthy wines do. Plus, they had tertiary notes. The Chilean climate also means many Chilean wines retain good acidity, so none of those older wines I had were completely dead, but 20-40 years ago, they may not have produced wines with as much depth or high quality oak to gain as much complexity as high-end Bordeaux. We’ll know more another 10-20 years from now about how the current icon level Chilean wines age.
Low Budget Wines to Buy & Age
A lot of the most expensive wines are also the most age-worthy, but that’s not always the case. Many blockbuster Napa reds for example are at their hedonistic best in their youth and don’t necessarily improve with age. There are also cheaper wines that age well.
If you’re on a low budget, I recommend buying cheaper Bordeaux from great vintages to age. A 20-30 dollar Bordeaux red from 2009, 2010, 2015, 2016, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2022 could still age at least 15-20 years if stored well if you’re looking for some wines to put down for your kid’s birth year. There are slightly more expensive Bordeaux, Barolo/Barbaresco and Tuscan Sangiovese/Bordeaux blends that can also age just as long. Try 2015, 2016, 2019 for those Italian reds. Sauternes, a sweet white wine from Bordeaux, can age really well and can also be bought for a similar price, but their best vintages don’t always match the best vintages for Bordeaux reds. There are also 30+ dollar German dry and sweet Rieslings that can age very long if you do your research. Sweet Tokay from Hungary is another option similar to Sauternes.
The best bargain for aging wines might be Spain because you won’t have to spend as much money or wait as long. Gran Reserva Rioja aren’t released until they are already at least around 8 or 9 years old and many aren’t that expensive. 2010’s are available now and it was a great vintage for aging. Aged Rioja tastes a lot like aged Bordeaux too. I remember in Geneva, I could find a 15 year old 2001 Faustino I Gran Reserva for 10-12 dollars at the local corner store, and it had a lot of the characteristics of aged classified Bordeaux. There are also some really old Pedro Ximenez sweet wines that are relatively affordable given their age. The Alvear “1927” Pedro Ximenez, which can be had for around 20-25 dollars for a half bottle, has material dating back to 1927 in it! The same is true for vintage Port and Madeira.
Lastly, it might be worth it to invest in cheaper, lesser-known producers, regions and varieties that have both historical or theoretical potential to age. For example, Napa Petite Sirah is far cheaper than Napa Cabernet, but it has as much or more aging potential. You might consider Xinomavro from Greece, Touriga Nacional from Portugal or Sagrantino or Aglianico from Italy too. There are also the Madiran and Cahors regions in France where they make rustic wines that are generally better with some age.
Of course there are pricier versions of the above that may have even longer aging potential. Once you have tried aged wines, you might be willing to invest more in your pleasure.
Vintages to Buy & Age
Vintage is another indicator of ageability. Many wine magazines have vintage charts to help you know which were the best vintages in a region and if those wines are ageable, ready to drink or past their prime. Others have more specific descriptions of the style of vintage. However, individual wines may be better or worse than these general vintage ratings or descriptions, so if you want to invest in a wine, try to find specific reviews.
Oftentimes, the best deal is getting a more expensive producer in a lesser vintage and a cheaper producer in a great vintage. Great producers are consistent vintage after vintage so save money getting them from a worse vintage. Likewise, even lower-end producers can produce great wines in great vintages. A third option is finding producers and regions that don’t change their prices much year after year regardless of the quality of the vintage, so getting wines from a great vintage is ideal if this is the case. Bordeaux, however, has a lot of hype around it every year and producers adjust their price according to the critics’ hype.
As mentioned in other sections, Chilean wines are fairly consistent in quality vintage to vintage, so I wouldn’t use these vintage charts much for Chilean wines. Many Chilean wine dealers’ websites don’t even list the vintage of the wines they sell. Vintage descriptions of Chilean wine can be helpful to understand the style of the vintage, but the vintage scores for overall quality don’t fluctuate much. That being said, Chilean producers and critics seem to think 2018 was the best vintage in a long time, so we’ll see.
Robert Parker Vintage Chart has ratings and indication of age-worthiness.
Jancis Robinson has descriptions of vintages for all regions.
Jeff Leve’s vintage descriptions and best bottles to buy from each vintage are great for Bordeaux and Rhone collectors.
Finally, you might also look at vintage to find a wine for a loved one’s anniversary or birthday year that you want to open to celebrate it or save to open for future celebrations. These charts can help you find the best region to seek out for the year you’re looking for.