Why does wine need to age? Can it age theoretically forever?
In: Chemistry
Wine isn’t often aged like whiskey is, it’s usually good to go within a few months to a year. The draw of older wine is usually the vintage. Batches of grapes have different flavor profiles depending on the conditions and weather it’s grown in. You never know how a years crop is going to turn out until you taste it. Especially good years (for whatever meaning of good, what’s prized depends on the type of wine) are only known after the fact, and will have a limited supply (can’t grow more of 10 years ago’s grapes) so it will be saved and shown off, drank on special occasions or whatever.
Leave wine to long and it’ll eventually spoil in to vinegar, so there is an upper time limit on it, but well sealed and protected bottles can last a century or so.
Why does it “need” to age? It doesn’t “need” to but there are chemical changes that happen gradually since there is no real perfect seal and things like oxygen will react with the wine. This changes the flavor of the wine and what one prefers is completely subjective. In particular, age might cause some of the harsher tasting compounds in wine to dissipate which leads to what is described as a “mellower” tasting wine.
Nothing is forever. So no, wine cannot age forever. Many old bottles use cork which will deteriorate over time – letting in air and therefore likely spoiling the wine. Generally speaking, it would have to be pretty ideal conditions to age red wine past 20 or so years. And most white wines probably won’t last much beyond 10 years.
There may be certain vintages that have a reputation for great taste that some might want to preserve. Other than that, there is of course the “status” of drinking something rather old and likely expensive.
Most wine doesn’t need to be aged. It’s best consumed within a year of bottling. Some wines, mostly reds, get smoother and softer when kept in the bottle in a cool dark place for a few years, even a few decades. Some flavors fade; other subtle flavors develop. Some people like the taste of aged wine. Not everyone does.
Fermenting grape juice in contact with skins, seeds, and stems extracts harsh-tasting compounds, mainly tannins, that drop out or change chemically over time. Aging allows that to happen. The change continues indefinitely; the improvement in flavor does not. Wine can be too old, or past its peak. None of it lasts forever.
I have had fresh wine and it was was lovely and refreshing. What I was told at a Vinyard I was at last week was that it can be kept in inert metal vats for practically ever (as ong as it doesn’t get too warm) but then there is something about it changing eventually for the worse when in oak barrels for too long a time.
I was at a party a few years ago the host had a very expansive wine collection. He brought out a bottle of something from 1970 (cant remember the name) He opened it up let it breath, gave out small samples so everyone at the party so we could have a taste. After he tasted it he said – that was disappointing.
the VAST majority of wine is meant to be consumed within the first few years of release.
many fine red wines have tannins and phenolic compounds that can be intense and forward in a young wine, and will change chemically over time as they bind with each other, soften and become more integrated. kind of like a food dish that requires some length simmering to really develop deep and complex flavors.
as many have already stated, there is a point where a wine can age too long and lose much of what made it enjoyable.
my biggest advice is to try wines of young, mid and older ages to find what you like best. although im somewhat of a wine geek, i don’t enjoy substantially aged wines. i prefer my wines on the mid-young range, generally in years 6-12 after vintage date. i find there’s still plenty of forward fruit flavors, with some added secondary flavors and a softer structure. if i’m presented with a very young wine and a very old wine, i’m always choosing the young wine.
There is at least one type of [wine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madeira_wine) that is fortified and cooked and can last almost forever. I had some madeira from 1778 at a restaurant and it was quite pleasant.
Wine is made from grape juice, which has a lot of sugar in it. Yeast, which are super-tiny fungi (think mushrooms) drink up all the sugar and burp out alcohol. If you let it sit long enough, this can go on until there’s pretty much zero sugar left and the yeasts basically starve themselves to death! But after this yeast feast, we have wine — alcoholic grape juice. That’s called fermentation.
But you can imagine after this process: the wine is kind of alive, and actually pretty unstable. Sort of like if you leave a bottle of salad dressing out for a while, it’ll separate into oil and vinegar and herbs — but wine is even more unstable than that. Lots of juices are breaking down and reassembling and starting to make smells and tastes that are really awesome.
The “peak awesome” or moment when the wine is at its best is up to some debate. It could be a few months, it could be a few years. In some really rare cases, it could be a few decades. But the wine will eventually start to taste dusty or dirty if it’s left to age for too long.
Beer does the same thing, and many agree there’s a cardboard taste that starts to take over once the beer gets too old. Liquors like whisky go thru a second process called distillation, so they’re actually very stable. If you put it in a sealed glass bottle in a windowless room, it’ll stay the same for … maybe forever. You’d need to let it be exposed to air or wood or light for it to change.
So, yes, under the right conditions, you could age wine forever — but it will eventually taste really bad.
Also pretty much every single white wine that is produced other than certain types from world class producers and regions is meant to be drank now or soon. Typical white wines don’t age well.
Also even though you didn’t ask I will add that wine, unlike other things like scotch or whiskey or any other high alcohol beverage, can age in the bottle. Whereas as a bottle of scotch doesn’t. So if you buy a scotch that says 12 years old on the bottle and you don’t open it for 10 years you don’t have a 22 year old scotch. You still have a 12 year old scotch as scotch is aged in barrels before it’s bottled. It doesn’t age in the bottle like wine does.
Wow I was thinking about this in a way today. Why does every look at a bottle of wine and see the date and say “that was a good year”. Is there ever a bad year for wine?
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