Why does wine need to age? Can it age theoretically forever?
In: Chemistry
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.
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