Eons ago, at my last restaurant gig, one of the investors regularly came in with his wife to have dinner. We’ll call him Carl. Carl owned a construction company that did commercial work all over the Bay Area. To say that Carl was successful is a major understatement. He also loved wine and had a good palate with the cellar to match. More often than not, he brought an old bottle of Bordeaux or Burgundy with him when he dined at the restaurant, including ’61 Cheval Blanc, ’70 Petrus, and ’71 La Tâche. No doubt they were among the finest wines I’d ever tasted. Much to his credit, Carl was more than generous in letting us sommeliers taste his wines.
However, for a guy of means, Carl wasn’t happy. To talk to him was more like listening to a litany of problems in his life ranging from issues with ongoing construction projects to paying too much in taxes to how his kids never called him. But there was one more curious thing about my buddy Carl. That was the fact that he never drank young wine. Opening anything less than ten years old was unthinkable.
One night Carl told me that he’d be turning 70 later that year. And how it made no sense to buy any upcoming releases of his favorite classified growth Bordeaux because he was convinced he wouldn’t live long enough to enjoy them. I didn’t have an answer for that one, so just stood at the table with a glass of his very expensive hooch in hand and listened. Sometimes, that’s what you do as a restaurant person. You listen. But if you’re a bartender, there are times when you’re asked for advice.
Meanwhile, Carl’s strict drinking preferences meant that the list my sommelier compadres and I had labored long and hard to put together was unfathomable. He couldn’t understand how we could serve wines that were so young. The first couple of times he brought it up, I tried to explain the numbers behind running a program and why we served so many current release wines. Mind you we did have plenty of cellar space and the capital to buy older vintages. But a majority of the inventory was less than five years old, which was status quo for many restaurants then.
Though it was decades ago, I still think about Carl from time to time. If anything, because here was a guy who seemed like he had just about everything material one could wish for, and still managed to be incredibly unhappy. More than that, his aversion to drinking anything less than ten years old. Then I thought about my take on drinking younger vs. older wines, and how it’s changed over time.
In the Jurassic days when I first got into the industry, I’d jump at the chance to taste an older vintage. I thought any bottle that had been cellared had developed complexities that could only be achieved with time. No doubt some of the most cosmic wines I’ve ever tasted were old: ’28 Chateau Lafite, ’45 Chateau Latour, and the aforementioned ’61 Cheval Blanc among them. There’s also old vintage Madeiras I’ve tasted over the years. Old Madeira is like the Tardis of wine in that it can instantly transport you so far back in time it’s almost impossible to describe what’s in the glass, much less the context of what was happening in the world when it was made. The 1875 Cossart & Gordon Bual and 1833 Barbeitos Sercial come to mind.
Otherwise, I’ve found that that after 25 or so years, red wine—regardless of how well it’s been cellared—starts to taste like … old red wine. Even to the extent that varietal and regional identity can become secondary. Of course, there are always exceptions.
Over time, my preference for wine age has done a 180. Here in the high desert, what with our only readily available wine retail sources being Total Wine and Costco, a majority of the wines Carla and I enjoy with dinner is either white or pink. Most of it is current release. The reasons are several, including access and cost. Stores here in the teeming megapolis of Rio Rancho generally don’t stock older wines. If they did, the cost would be at a premium. Another issue is the climate here and storage. Any wine that sits on a retail shelf for longer than 15 months is suspect, not only because of temperature fluctuation, but the fact that the climate is so dry, which is an enemy of the cork.
There’s also the change in our diets. Red meat is usually a once-a-week thing, meaning less red wine. And the reds we like to drink now tend not to be heavy. Cru Beaujolais, Rioja, Chianti Classico, and lighter Rhône Blends are favorites. That aside, these days our go-to everyday wines with dinner are often Italian whites. Not Pinot Grigio so much, although good examples from Alto Adige like Tiefenbrunner, Colterenzio and Terlano often end up in the mix. Instead, Greco di Tufo, Soave Classico, Pinot Bianco, Orvieto, Lugana, Arneis, Verdicchio, Fiano di Avellino, and Grillo end up on the table—and for good reason. All are delicious to drink, offer great value, and have elevated acidity and pronounced minerality that make them pair well with a wide range of dishes.
Lest you think I drink nothing but current release wines, there are times when I pull older bottles out of my cellar. In February, during a class and exam in Santa Fe, we enjoyed the 1999 Reinhold Haart Piesporter Goldtröpchen Spätlese Riesling and the 2004 Thiery Allemande Cornas Renard one night at dinner. Good friend Greg O’Byrne also contributed a magnum of 2011 Isole e Olena Ceperallo. All three were completely glorious wines.
In the end, I’m always grateful for the chance to experience older wines and definitely use laser focus when I taste them. But I like the fruit and vibrancy in a younger wine as much as anything. Maybe that’s how it should be. A bit of both worlds. And to each their own.
Learn everything you need to about wine.
Get the complete tasting guide.
