A question, when it says on the back of a bottle..."Cellar for up to five
years", how long should I cellar this wine. ?

For example, I'm looking at a bottle of Shiraz '01, it says it will keep for
up to five years, but is that five years from 2001, or five years from when
it was released ?

--
http://www.yorkshiresoul.org

"YorkshireSoul" asks...

>For example, I'm looking at a bottle of Shiraz '01, it says it will keep for
up to five years, but is that five years from 2001, or five years from when it
was released ?<

Let's look at this objectively.

If it were to mean "5 years from the vintage date", whom would see and benefit
from that info, prior to the bottle being (bottled and) released to the public?
The vintner?

Always here for my fellow syngraphist or oenophile.
--=*=----=*=----=*=----=*=----=*=----=*=----=*=----=*=----=*=----=*=--

You must remember that when they mark the time a wine can age on a label, it
is only an indication and depends on a lot of outside influencers.

If you don't have a good storage area for your wine, this can accelerate
the ageing of the wine. The five years is now three.

From experience and general knowledge on which wines age well is your base
then I believe
he best way to determine the ageing capacity of a wine is to taste a bottle
now and then and note the evolution. This is why it is good to buy at least
6 - 12 bottles of a wine so you can determine the best time to drink the
wine and profit as it grows. Not always easy to do and often expensive!
Sounds familiar....

Marc
"YorkshireSoul" > a écrit dans le message de
news: ...
> A question, when it says on the back of a bottle..."Cellar for up to five
> years", how long should I cellar this wine. ?
>
> For example, I'm looking at a bottle of Shiraz '01, it says it will keep
for
> up to five years, but is that five years from 2001, or five years from
when
> it was released ?
>
> --
> http://www.yorkshiresoul.org
>
>
>
>

On 17 Oct 2003 06:52:12 GMT, rosit (Jim) wrote:

>"YorkshireSoul" asks...
>
>>For example, I'm looking at a bottle of Shiraz '01, it says it will keep for
>>up to five years, but is that five years from 2001, or five years from when it
>>was released ?
>
>Let's look at this objectively.
>
>If it were to mean "5 years from the vintage date", whom would see and benefit
>from that info, prior to the bottle being (bottled and) released to the public?
>The vintner?

And after it has been released, who would know when it has been
released, and thus when it is ready for drinking? The vintner.

I think you are correct, but it would be a lot more useful if the
cellaring advice for a vintage would refer to speciifc years, e.g.
"Cellar until 2006".

I have also encountered the opposite issue of reading in a book advice
like "You should drink a 1998/99 vintage of this wine", when I had
little idea when the author thought I would be reading the advice. Or
was he just thinking about when he was writing it?

I would ask book and label writers to think a bit more about their
readers!

--
Steve Slatcher
http://pobox.com/~steve.slatcher

"MC" > wrote in message
...
>
> You must remember that when they mark the time a wine can age on a label,
it
> is only an indication and depends on a lot of outside influencers.
>
> If you don't have a good storage area for your wine, this can accelerate
> the ageing of the wine. The five years is now three.
>
> From experience and general knowledge on which wines age well is your base
> then I believe
> he best way to determine the ageing capacity of a wine is to taste a
bottle
> now and then and note the evolution. This is why it is good to buy at
least
> 6 - 12 bottles of a wine so you can determine the best time to drink the
> wine and profit as it grows. Not always easy to do and often expensive!
> Sounds familiar....
>
> Marc

I am blessed with having a perfect cellar, underground, air cooled, slightly
humid, so I hope any wines purchased will age at the normal rate.

When Jim says..........

"Let's look at this objectively.

If it were to mean "5 years from the vintage date", whom would see and
benefit
from that info, prior to the bottle being (bottled and) released to the
public?
The vintner?"

.........he assumes that the retailer can tell me when the wine was released
and how long they have had it in stock for, despite selling wines at over
£20 a bottle, these sort of requests bring only blank looks at Tesco.

Other retailers might not want to admit that they have found a particular
wine a bit hard to sell, thus the display bottle I am about to purchase has
been upright on the shelf for a couple of years since release, at least a
'Cellar Until...." date would help a little.

Another thought, would some bigger retailers always advise that you drink
their wines right away in order to try and keep turnover up ?

Mike


--
http://www.yorkshiresoul.org

Salut/Hi Jim,

le/on 17 Oct 2003 06:52:12 GMT, tu disais/you said:-

>"YorkshireSoul" asks...

>>For example, I'm looking at a bottle of Shiraz '01, it says it will keep for
>up to five years, but is that five years from 2001, or five years from when it
>was released ?<

>Let's look at this objectively.
>
>If it were to mean "5 years from the vintage date", whom would see and benefit
>from that info, prior to the bottle being (bottled and) released to the public?
>The vintner?

I have to admit that I've never really thought about this.

If I buy a 2001, and the winemaker says it will improve for "up to 6
years", I'm pretty sure that they mean it will continue to improve until
2007. From then it will spend some time et its apogee then start to
decline. God knows what a retailer means when you buy a 2001 in 2003 and
s/he says "this wine will continue to improve for 5 years". I'd assume
again that they are referring to the vintage date, though depending upon
their precise phraseology, I might very well query this and press them
further.


In my wine database I make explicit time delays "minimum age to drink"
"maximum age to drink" and this is added to the vintage date to give years
when I should start drinking and have drunk by.

--
All the Best
Ian Hoare

Sometimes oi just sits and thinks
Sometimes oi just sits.

On Sun, 19 Oct 2003 11:45:13 +0000 (UTC), "YorkshireSoul"
> wrote:

>Another thought, would some bigger retailers always advise that you drink
>their wines right away in order to try and keep turnover up ?

As far as I understand it advice is changing to drink earlier than
used to be the case. I think it is partly what you suggest (though it
is not only the big retailers who are to blame). Plus the fact that
there is only a small percentage of customers prepared to cellar wines
- so they do not say "cellar for 5 to 10 years" to avoid putting
customers off.

--
Steve Slatcher
http://pobox.com/~steve.slatcher