Worries revolving around when to open your wine have always been a common topic of interest when you are with the company. It is undoubtedly a stressful thing, to receive wine through wine delivery Singapore or from your family/ friends and put it away while worrying about when it will spoil and when is a good time to open it. In other words, aging wine can be characterized as something of a double-edged sword; it brings forth hope and fear at the same time.
Many people believe that aging wine is a practice that requires appropriate timing, especially when you want to be rewarded with a bottle for your never-ending patience. There are many stressful parts to it, one of it being sure of how long is too long, and the other being whether the wine was stored properly. After all, the common consensus for everyone is to have no regrets once they open their bottle!
There is a misconception that missing the “right” time to open the bottle of wine after the bottle has reached its supposed peak, will be meaningless thereafter. This unfortunate mentality has caused many to be disappointed and their expectations to be destroyed once they realize that they have missed the correct time to open the bottle. Imagine how saddening this is when there was no problem with the bottle from the start.
Aging wine is as vague of a concept as there are numerous possible downfalls as there are successes. Common questions on aging wine include whether you have chosen the correct wine, whether the wine was worth the money paid; whether the wine producer is reputable; whether the wine was complemented with the correct food; whether it was served in the correct class; and whether or not it should have been decanted,
However, despite the numerous questions, the good news about aging wine is that regardless of what people assume, there is NO right time or place to open a bottle. Like many things, the timing you decide on to do something is the correct timing.
However, that being said, there are some wines that are best drunk early. Since a long time ago, people have said to drink Beaujolais and Muscadet young, as they had no potential to age. Wines made for the mass public and processed to a great extent should be drunk as it is. On the other hand, wines such as Bordeaux, Burgundy, and Barolo are said to evolve for a long period of time and for their potential for a pleasant drinking experience will most possibly be locked for the first 10 years.
Firstly, it is vital to understand that wine never ages towards its peak and disappears. A good solution is to buy a variety of age-worthy wines and experiment by opening them after waiting for a couple of years. In that way, you can decide which stage of wine you prefer without wasting just one bottle of wine.
It is also essential to keep the wine in proper storage places. Typically, they can be stored in a cool, dark, vibration-free cavern underground. However, for practicality, a wine refrigerator is a better solution.
It is important to note that unfortunately, the wine will find ways to fail you at times. Even when stored under the most optimum conditions, a bottle may end up flawed and disappoint you greatly, but that all comes with the concept of wine. The way a bottle evolves varies and depends heavily on factors such as the type of wine as well.
As a rule of thumb, the more wine is processed while being produced, the less flexibility it has to age. An example of a wine that ages elegantly is the Whites Rieslings, where the evolution of the bottle depends entirely on the intentions and the ways of the producers.
The alcohol level in a bottle of wine can either indicate something or not. An exaggeratedly high level of alcohol may imply that wine is unbalanced. For example, a pinot noir containing 15 percent alcohol may be concluded as a wine made from overly ripe grapes, while on the other hand it may be considered balanced at the same percentage for zinfandel.
On the topic of price, it only works as a good comparison mark when you are comparing a bottle within the same genre. However, it does not necessarily mean that the higher the bottle is priced, the better the bottle is likely to age.
As for wines that should stay away from being aged, these refer to the typical mass-produced wines that are ready to be drunk immediately. Additionally, wines made to offer immediate pleasure to your palate are not made to age as well.
Now that you have been exposed to a few nifty tricks of wine and the concept of aging, it is good to know that tracking records of when to open wine will help give a more general estimated timeline. These records can be easily found on the internet or in wine textbooks.
Although it is equally important to concentrate on various aspects when thinking about opening a wine bottle, remember that the most evident hints that wine has the capacity to age can be observed through its structure, flavor density as well as the balance it contains.
Take this opportunity to rethink the concept of wine and you may find that it is not as scary as it seems. Other than the potential possibilities of the wine itself failing you for some reason, you can take the leap of faith and do more explorations with your bottles of wine. Failing once does not mean that you will with the other bottles and some may even give you results that are unexpectedly good. Lastly, it can be said that this is undoubtedly a huge trial and error test, but one day there will come a reward sweet enough to make everything worthwhile.