Wine aging
White and Red - it continues to mature..
Filtering / Bottling / Storage / Aging / Tasting / Serving and Decanting
| Wine continually develops for the first six months or even longer in your bottles, constantly maturing as it ages. Most white wines are ready to drink as soon as they are bottled, in essence, you may want to enjoy their youthful freshness right away. If you decide however to make your wine for aging purposes, it is a good practice to sample your stored wines from time to time so that they don't grow old without your knowledge. Red wines on the other hand, should be aged anywhere from 6 months to 30 months. If you are eager to enjoy it before 6 months, try our age enhancer. The age enhancer softens the tannins in the wine, giving it a softer fuller taste. Come into our store for more details. | |
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Aging of Red Wine The back bone of a red wine, and the factor that largely determines its capacity for ageing, is a tannin--a chemical substance with preservative properties. It dissolves into the wine from the skins, seeds, and sometimes also the stems of the grapes during the winemaking process. |
The quality and quantity of tannins in a red wine vary. Quantity depends partly on the grape: thinker skinned varieties such as Cabernet Sauvignon and Syrah (Shiraz) contain more of these preservatives, and therefore have a greater capacity for aging. As important for the development of a wine's flavour is the quality of the tannins. Only tannins that were fully rip when the grapes were harvested will integrate harmoniously into the overall taste of a wine after years in the bottle. What is often described as the maturation of the tannins during bottle-aging is in the fact that a gradual reduction in the number of such compounds in the wine: "polymerization" alters the structure of the tannins, which form bigger and more complex molecules and eventually precipitate as sediment. Wines that taste excessively raw, astringent, and bitter in their youth will still do so when they have been aged, they may even seem less harmonious, since older tannins of this sort often make the mouth seem dry. The widespread belief among wine collectors that a harsh, unbalanced red need only be kept long enough to become a great wine, is therefore a fallacy. The assumption that a young red wine that is already pleasantly drinkable is not a good candidate for aging. Visually, the progress of the aging process can be gauged from the color of the wine. In a young red (depending on the great variety) it should be as intense, dark, and purple-tinted as possible. As the pigments oxidize (reacting with the little oxygen it contains), they are precipitated along with the tannins. As a consequence, the colour of the wine loses its blue tinge and becomes first a glowing red, then gradually brownish. The chemical deterioration that occurs in wine at the end of the aging process is reflected in the parallel loss of color. Depending on the grape variety, method or production, and storage conditions, this ca occur after anything from a few years or several decades, and leaves the wine looking extremely faded--a sure sign that its aroma has reached the end of the road.
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