The initial reactive change after bottling is mostly due to the oxygen present in the headspace, which is the air between the wine and the cork. When that oxygen is used up, only very small amounts will be able to seep through a cork in a bottle that is stored correctly, on its side. Change will now be gradual.
More air will get in if a synthetic cork is used, which is why you don’t see such corks in expensive wines that are meant to be laid down for ageing.
None will get past a screw top, which is why you see screw tops on wines sold young which rely on retaining their initial fruitiness rather than being allowed to develop character by ageing.
“Gone bad” may, however, be the result of excessive ageing. I once laid down a case of an already very nice Vouvray (white) that was expected to be perfect in another four years. I then forgot, and left it eight. The result was considerably worse than I’d started with – vin très ordinaire indeed!
Had it been a half-decent red (the only kind I can afford) I might have got away with it because the best drinking age for these is significantly older than whites. It is however a matter of taste, since the character of the wine is changing all the time and you need to discover the character that you like best, or rely on experts to tell you what you ought to like best. Of course, if you don’t have a cellar, you can only buy the wine at an age when somebody else has decided it’s satisfactory for sale anyway.
If an old red looks brown it may well be on its way to vinegar, but it may still have value to people who like to look at old bottles rater than drink their contents.
Only marginally relevant, but single malt whisky is usually aged in the cask, not in the bottle. Hence when it is bottled, they stick on a label saying “12 years old” rather than “2012” because its still considered 12 years old, even if it takes you a couple of years to drink it. This is not to say it won’t change in the bottle, but that’s not meant to be the object of the exercise. If people find some Islay single malts undrinkable, it’s most likely because they bought a heavily-peated variety when they didn’t mean to. All such bottles should be donated to someone who is more likely to appreciate them.
Me, for instance.
More air will get in if a synthetic cork is used, which is why you don’t see such corks in expensive wines that are meant to be laid down for ageing.
None will get past a screw top, which is why you see screw tops on wines sold young which rely on retaining their initial fruitiness rather than being allowed to develop character by ageing.
“Gone bad” may, however, be the result of excessive ageing. I once laid down a case of an already very nice Vouvray (white) that was expected to be perfect in another four years. I then forgot, and left it eight. The result was considerably worse than I’d started with – vin très ordinaire indeed!
Had it been a half-decent red (the only kind I can afford) I might have got away with it because the best drinking age for these is significantly older than whites. It is however a matter of taste, since the character of the wine is changing all the time and you need to discover the character that you like best, or rely on experts to tell you what you ought to like best. Of course, if you don’t have a cellar, you can only buy the wine at an age when somebody else has decided it’s satisfactory for sale anyway.
If an old red looks brown it may well be on its way to vinegar, but it may still have value to people who like to look at old bottles rater than drink their contents.
Only marginally relevant, but single malt whisky is usually aged in the cask, not in the bottle. Hence when it is bottled, they stick on a label saying “12 years old” rather than “2012” because its still considered 12 years old, even if it takes you a couple of years to drink it. This is not to say it won’t change in the bottle, but that’s not meant to be the object of the exercise. If people find some Islay single malts undrinkable, it’s most likely because they bought a heavily-peated variety when they didn’t mean to. All such bottles should be donated to someone who is more likely to appreciate them.
Me, for instance.
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