Winophilia

People nowadays talk a lot about how Bordeaux, Burgundy, Rhone wines, and big Napa Valley reds are increasingly being made with considerable early appeal. Do you feel pressured to make your most expensive bottlings flashy or immediately accessible? Will today’s market accept subdued or even austere high-end wines that require extended bottle aging? Finally, and perhaps most important, will these “new” wines ever attain the complexity of the wines made a generation ago?

Jeremy Seysses, Domaine Dujac (Burgundy, France) and Domaine de Triennes  (Provence, France). If anything, I feel more confident about the aging ability of the wines we are making now than of the wines we made 20 or 30 years ago. Today, the yields are lower, the vines are older, and the viticulture is more precise. The winemaking hasn’t changed much, but the grapes have improved and offer more. I think the wines we are currently making will age, in most vintages, at least 20 years at the grand cru level, and considerably more in top vintages given good cellaring conditions. There will always be a few lighter vintages, like 2007 or 2000, which will be for more rapid consumption, but if you look at the level of consistency, there are more good, ageworthy vintages per decade than there have ever been.

When looking at the wines made a generation or more ago, it is important that they are seen through the filter of what people decided to keep. And they generally kept the wines that had potential. In Burgundy, how many wines from the 1970s or 1980s have really made it until now? I think the decades of the 1990s and 2000s will do considerably better.

Olivier Humbrecht, Domaine Zind-Humbrecht (Alsace, France). Olivier Humbrecht. In the vineyards, there is plenty one can do. At the moment, we are working hard to get earlier physiological ripeness so that we can harvest earlier with less alcohol. In the cellar, we just put the juice in casks, wait, add a little SO2, and that’s it. Not much we can do there.

Nigel Greening, Felton Road Vineyard (Central Otago, New Zealand). It is always something of a surprise to us when we hear winemakers speaking in these terms, as a lot seem to do. We have steadily moved away from the thought of “designing” wines until, by now, the very idea of trying to impose a style upon the wines is anathema to us. Of course there is some hypocrisy in that: no wine can ever be devoid of influence entirely. Winemaking involves decisions and those create a “style,” like it or not.

So for us the question is how does one try to avoid “designing” either consciously or unconsciously. That essentially comes down to keeping to a constant winemaking path, regardless of vintage or cuvée. At least that way the difference between wines is place and season, not winemaker tinkering. So we stay the same and certainly don’t look to trends.

Moving away from our direct experience into the broader question: yes, we are seeing more and more wines that are able to be enjoyed when much younger. People then seem to assume that this might damage their aging ability. I’d suggest there is no evidence for that at all. We have often seen great wines that drink very well from fairly young right through a considerable life. What I think we are seeing in today’s wines is far better understanding of tannin extraction and the ability to restrict the uptake of harsh tannins that are the main reason for needing to cellar wines for many years.

A wine with skillful tannin management during making will have a much wider drinking window, but should age equally well. Obviously it will still evolve and develop over time, probably improving as it goes, but the absence of the aggressive tannins allows it to be enjoyed in a youthful state as well as an older one.

The danger to a wine’s aging—hopefully to become great a decade or so down the line—probably comes from higher alcohol levels and higher pH rather than from the presence or absence of harsh tannins.

Roberto de la Mota, Mendel Wines (Argentina). It’s difficult to answer this question briefly. But sincerely I think that, as you said, those very complex and special wines are better today and made to be enjoyed young too. It’s true that we must make wines that consumers can appreciate and drink young, but at the same time these wines should be very ambitious in quality and have aging potential. One of the reasons wines should give pleasure early is that most people today don’t have cellars or good places to age their bottles. Wineries can’t do this either, for financial reasons.

Just today I was talking with a friend who is one of the best winemakers in the Libourne area (St. Emilion and Pomerol region in the greater Bordeaux region). The wines made here today are very juicy, concentrated, fruity and oaky but in general have really good balance and are ready to drink young. The explanation comes more from the vineyard than from the winemaking. Vineyards now have lower yields than before thanks to better management of canopies and distribution of the grapes. With better varieties, clones and rootstocks, the typical yield is around 40 to 45 hectoliters per hectare, while 30 years ago it was more like 75 or 80, or even 100.

Grapes harvested very ripe and vinified with softer maceration, temperature control, and so on, now give us concentrated and fruity wines with round and sweet tannins, easier to drink younger than the wines of some years ago. Next question: do those wines have the same capacity to age in bottle? Yes, I think so, because when we are talking about great wines they have good concentration, balance and enough acidity to age very well.

Many years ago two of the most famous winemakers from the Médoc told me that the best moment to drink their wines was with 23 years of age. Probably that was right for great years. But as Emile Peynaud said, “wines are much better now than before!” Why? Because with all our research and knowledge we’re in a much better position to produce better wines than ever. Today we know more about the process of physiological maturity of the vines, fermentations, aging in oak, etc.

This example from Bordeaux can probably apply to most of the great wines around the world. From Mendoza we have one excellent example: the Weinert Malbec 1977, which is great now, has preserved its fruit and freshness after more than 30 years. But I’m sure that many good malbecs elaborated in recent years from ripe but not overripe grapes will have similar aging potential.

Abrie Beeslaar, Kanonkop (Stellenbosch, South Africa). I think there is a perception that wine needs to be aggressive and tannic to be able to age well. I know it is possible to make wine in a classic style which is accessible early without having a very high alcohol. In the future it is going to be more important, as the climate changes and the ripening period becomes shorter, to be more accurate in the way you handle your skins, and how much you extract.

Joseph Davis, Arcadian Winery (Central Coast, California). Our approach has been to allow our wines the time the need to evolve before we release them, thus sidestepping the idea altogether. With slightly different harvest parameters and working in a reductive environment, I knew our wines would require more time in barrel and bottle before going to market. It was a conscious decision on my part and it meant our wines may be stylistically different and might only appeal to a select group of consumers and critics. But they were wines that I liked to drink and felt passionate about and continue to produce today.

As to your second question, only time will tell if certain styles of wine age gracefully or not. All any of us can really do is sort through the science and theory and attempt to determine what factors play the most significant role in a wine improving with age.

The question you ask does not take into consideration the trends of today. Do people even age wine anymore? Are people investing in cellars and building inventories for the future? Or are they purchasing for immediate consumption? Are these “new wines” a response to the changing trend toward immediate consumption?