When to pull that cork? The shfting sands of time.

“Just curious….is anyone using the same cell phone as they were 20 years ago?”

Antonio Galloni posed the above question on his vinous.com message board during a discussion of when to drink classic, great wines and vintages.  It’s clearly provocative, but it rings (terrible pun!) true even if telecoms technology is at a bit of a remove from fine wine.

Do fine wines need a decade before you should even think about it? 

The old rules around top quality old world wines needing 10+ years in the cellar before they can be enjoyed no longer apply.  It is not just that these wines can be approached young; it is that drinking them can be hugely rewarding and deliver equal – if different – pleasure to mature bottles.

20 years back, I wouldn’t dream of opening 2000 Bordeaux, 2004 Barolo or a 2005 Burgundy.  Fast forward to today and I love taking an early peak at recently-delivered 2020 Barolo.  2021 red Burgundies are fast taking the 2017’s place as #1 choice for early drinking.  I’m becoming notorious for blinding my friends with Bordeaux from vintages they consider embryonic and would never open or choose ‘sighted’ (yet they seem to love them well enough when served blind!).

Climate change and winemaking are both factors in making young wines more approachable. 

We’re all familiar with the phenomenon of solar vintages, and these years seem to be cropping up with increasing regularity.  There is little doubt that the rich and sun-kissed generosity of 2022 red Burgundy makes for more rewarding and approachable wines at three years old than their leaner and more compact 2002 counterparts did 20 years ago.

Winemaking has perhaps had an even greater impact on wines’ drinkability than climate change.  Today’s finest winemakers extract more gently, achieve greater fruit purity and create finer and more polished tannin structures than their predecessors even a decade ago.  The 2010s were punishing to taste on release, with searing tannin, high alcohol and super-charged acidity.  Old timers tell me that the 1961s were almost undrinkable for two decades!  Open a 2021 Lafleur, 2019 Montrose or 2020 Barolo Le Vigne, from Sandrone, this very evening and you will find a degree of pleasure that is so much more than the intellectual, and also gives you a glimpse into how the wine will evolve into maturity.

Can we have our cake… and eat it too?

“One of the most significant trends today is that so many wines, including those from Old World regions, can be enjoyed pretty much on release. That includes Bordeaux, Piedmont and other regions too. That’s not to say the wines won’t be even better in time, the best will be, but the idea that wines need many years to be ‘ready’ is steadily losing relevance. The wines of previous decades and generations that we all love were made with pretty rudimentary equipment and winemaking techniques that are today considered violent. That’s before we even consider the role of climate change and the heavy use fertilizers and pesticides that was once the norm in viticulture. I love older wines a great deal, from all over the world. But today’s wines are also a total delight. The structural qualities have changed considerably. A recent bottle of 2020 Les Carmes Haut-Brion was fabulous, as were the 15 2020 Barolos we presented at yesterday’s Festa del Barolo masterclass. There is absolutely nothing wrong with drinking these wines now, if desired.”

This is Galloni’s wider argument in the discussion of when wines are ready to drink.  What stands out to me is the idea that we can have our cake and eat it!  Modern wines can legitimately be drunk in their youth with huge pleasure and no sense that it is a waste.  At the same time, there is nothing to suggest that Rousseau’s 2019 Chambertin or Vieux Chateau Certan 2022 will not be capable of improving over 30-40+ years in the cellar.

The old rule of thumb – that ‘proper’ wine needs at least 10 years in the cellar before you even look at it – has gone.  In Galloni’s words, we’re no longer using that cell phone from 20 years ago.  The sands of time have shifted and even the grandest bottles have plenty to say in their earliest youth – in fact, this is often a great time to open them, before the wines ‘shut down’.

But do today’s wines still have the capacity to age? 

However, there has been no cataclysmic step change meaning the vintages of today are not going to age well.  Two weeks ago, I tasted 2021 Chateau Latour – undoubtedly the wine of the vintage, the tannins are there in abundance, but they are so much silkier and more polished than in the wines of the past.

Curious wine drinkers are living in a golden age and no one should hesitate to pull that first cork on even the most recent vintage.

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