Alcoholic Beverages

How long to keep wine? Either we have good storage conditions, or it is more prudent to consume in the year following the purchase.

Regions with potential

Question: “I’d start a reserve wines but how to know what wine to keep?”

Answer:

• Among the European red, you can keep tannic wines: the Aquitaine, the Rhône de Valencia in Vienna on cabernets de Loire, the Rioja, the barolos and barbarescos, etc.
  

  The red guards are rare in the New World.

• White, try Burgundy, Germans, the Austrians the chenin vines and roussanne. For these two varieties, pay attention to a period of closure “(no expression) that can last from 3 years old to 9 years.

That’s a generalization but outrageous practice. I devoted an article to particularly expensive bottles you want to keep as a long gifts of birth.

When such a bottle drink?

Question: “How do I know if a specific wine must be kept for long or whether it is better to drink now?”

Answer:

• Keeping the great wines (those are expensive) is not necessarily interesting. An equation of the type “a 2001 Crozes-Hermitage is drunk from 2003 to 2006″ will always be false because simplistic. What is the vintage? His wine making and balance are crucial (see below).
• Taste. If you like wine in the state, do not keep: Drink it! If wine impresses (impact in the mouth of matter), do not know if that keep evaluating its balance.
• Tilt the glass in front of a white surface. If you see hints of orange, the other bottles must be opened in the coming months.
• When the wine is already in your cellar, you can use some tables vintages as a frame of reference … Ragout and wine regularly.

Wines custody

Now let’s say you like the taste of old wines, and you have good storage conditions. How do I know if a young wine has “potential”: i.e. is likely to improve with age?

A wine can guard needs a balance between fruit, tannins, acidity and alcohol.

A certain freshness (acidity) is essential. I want to witness the chardonnay, a grape wines sometimes tender (soft) first very pleasant but held over the years while with a good freshness it may evolve beautifully.

With practice, the tasting should allow you to identify wines for aging.

Please do not keep the wine indefinitely: it will not one day or another.