Old Wines

Introduction

You probably remember watching a scene in Ratatouille, one of my all times favourite movies where Head chef Skinner says to Linguini: “But you would have to be an idiot of elephantine proportions not to appreciate this ’61 Château Latour, and you, Monsieur Linguini, are no idiot. Let us toast your non-idiocy!” Or any other scene where a protagonist would order a very old vintage wine with such a smart face having a great idea of what they are doing.

But do they really? Are old wines always good? Are they always expensive? Are they good to drink even?

Now, here is the thing: Wine is alive! It lives! You can compare wine lives to human ones. Some live long, some not so much, most have fun and crazy times in their youth and then become calmer and wiser. Wines are like that! When they are young, they can be unpredictable, wild; they can also be boring and blunt, but we are not friends with them, are we? Then they mature and get round, their life is oh so balanced. If we take Bordeaux, for example, the 20-year-old one is not too young, but in some cases, it could still wait to be consumed. But if you happen to come across the wine that was made in 1926, it might as well be dead. Yes, you heard me. The life in the bottle continues, wine works, old red wines are usually tawny in colour but could still taste good, or could not at all, and that means the end of this wine. So next time you decide to impress your date and order an old wine in a restaurant, think twice or do your research — look at the qualities of the year, what was the weather like, how much are the wines of this year from less famous wine producers, are they still on the market, or maybe, just maybe go with the one of a good year but not too old.

What's new from Château Latour

By the way, the above mentioned Château Latour is one of the oldest Bordeaux wine producers. In 2011, Chateau decided to leave the en primeur system where you can buy wine early while it is still in the barrel with the delivery in a couple of years when it’s bottled. That means there is no control on when you are going to consume the wine. And since the wine still works in the bottle and Bordeaux wine is better with age, Chateau Latour decided that it will sell its wines when they are ready to be consumed, and before that, all the wine will be stored in their cellars. And so last year saw the first bottles of 2012 vintage of their first wine and 2014 of their second one.

Especial trip

The old wines are better drunk in a cellar with a wine maker where you both will be sharing your thoughts. I will never forget my pre-pandemic trip to Burgundy, one day before France closed. It was a special trip. One of the wineries my friends and I went to was supposed to be a normal tasting where you try various wines which aren’t usually too old. But this time, it was different. Anne Gross, a winemaker in Vosne-Romanee family estate in Burgundy, decided to share the wines of 1955, 1985, 1988, 1992 vintage. It felt so special. Anne even gave the ones that we liked most, which were 1985 and 1988, to us to enjoy at a restaurant with our traditional meal. The 1955 wine was alive, and it was still round and balanced but the ‘millenials’ (if they were humans) were better.

Alesia

Jun 01, 2021