By Eric Asimov | Originally Posted November 24, 2017
Wine can put extraordinary demands on consumers.
When you buy a car, you drive it away. Plug in a new television, and you can roll with laughter at a favorite comedy. But buy a few bottles of the latest vintage of a fine wine? Often, you are expected to stow it someplace cool, dark and protected and forget about it for years.
Bet you were not aware that wine is great training for 401(k)’s and other examples of responsibly delaying gratification.
Here at Wine School we are often on the wrong end of the aging curve. In our effort to share the experience of drinking wines, we rely on what is generally available in wine shops: the most recent vintages. It is hard enough for many people to find even these newly issued bottles. Trying to ferret out a generous, reasonably priced supply of well-aged bottles would be virtually impossible.
For the last few weeks we have been drinking Savennières, a great chenin blanc of the Anjou. Among other things, the wines have given us firsthand experience of the aging conundrum. Each of the three bottles I recommended would have benefited from a few more years in the bottle.
One, at least, the 2015 La Jalousie from Domaine du Closel, was made to be consumed fairly young, but it still would have improved from another two years of resting. A second, the 2015 Les Fougerais from Thibaud Boudignon, could have used five more years, while the third, the 2015 Les Vieux Clos from Nicolas Joly, needed maybe another decade.
These are educated estimates on my part. But that does not mean these bottles, or two of them at least, could not be profitably enjoyed right now. It is simply that experiencing the greater potential of these wines is not yet possible.
Among those experienced with properly aged wines, uncorking a fine bottle prematurely will draw aghast grimaces and cries of infanticide. That is an overly dramatic metaphor, obviously, but it conveys the generally accepted notion that opening a bottle too soon is a horror.
Is it really? It depends on the purpose. With wines that benefit the most from aging — like Bordeaux, Burgundy, Rioja and Barolo among reds — a bottle at a peak moment is a blessing to be savored. The awareness of this potential has also bred a nagging, almost paralyzing fear among many wine drinkers that they have failed in pinpointing that blink-of-an-eye apogee.
Please take heart. Good, age-worthy wines do not have just one instant of fulfilled potential. Like people, bottles experience an arc of aging during which many high points emerge.
To enjoy a red Burgundy at the height of its youthful power — as it proudly displays itself in all its gorgeous plumage — leads to a richer understanding of the beauty of its middle-aged complexity, and then to a profound empathy, if not love, for the stately dignity of its declining years.
This arc is why it has often been said that great wine cannot be understood by drinking a single bottle. A case is required to grasp it in all of its manifestations.
Well, that conceit will not stop us. We are drinking these Savennières young, perhaps even too young, yet we can still learn a thing or two. For one, it is important to understand what is meant by “young.”
Young reds, like a Barolo or Bordeaux, may express their youth with powerful tannins that stifle any sort of dialogue one might enjoy with the wine. But whites, in general, are not particularly tannic. In Savennières, acidity and the concentration of flavors, sometimes augmented by low yields and barrel aging, contribute to a stern austerity that effectively walls off many of the nuances that will one day emerge.
Young Savennières can also smell strange. I remember one occasion years ago when I wondered whether a Savennières I had ordered in a restaurant was corked. It was not, but the aroma of damp wool — often characteristic of a young Savennières — is reminiscent of cork taint and has more than once had me teetering with doubt.
Though Savennières is made of the same grape as Vouvray, the wines are quite different, as are the terroirs. Vouvray, a wine that is generally easier-going and more accessible when young, comes from the Touraine, to the east of Anjou. The soils there are often clay and tuffeau, a form of limestone, as well as flinty silex. In Savennières, the vineyards are largely schist, sandstone and rhyolite, a volcanic rock.
I suggested that the Closel La Jalousie was meant to be consumed on the younger side. It is an introductory Savennières, aged in steel tanks rather than barrels to preserve its fresh fruitiness.
The wine was understated, as Savennières ought to be. Nonetheless it was delightful, with subtle aromas and flavors of stone fruits and flowers, and a touch of woolliness. This is not a wine that will evolve for years — Closel makes other cuvées for longer aging — but with time it will become more expressive and less hesitant.
The $60 Boudignon, almost twice as expensive as the $32 Closel, is a more ambitious wine. It was aged in oak barrels rather than tanks, which is clear from the aromas, especially if you sniffed it directly after the Closel. Yet the oak was well integrated on the palate, and the wine will get less obviously aromatic with time.
More important, the barrel aging can be felt in the texture of the wine, which seems to have an extra dimension compared with the simpler Jalousie. It has a mildly peachy flavor and a persistent mineral sensation, which I loved. The 2015 vintage was quite warm, but the Boudignon was precise and well shaped, with great acidity. This is a terrific Savennières, and it will only get better.
Of these three wines, the Joly was the most difficult and uncommunicative. Its dark amber color was a signature of oxidative aging, in which a wine is deliberately exposed to air to improve its texture and complexity. Barrel aging, in which tiny amounts of air pass through the wood, is the most common method for this, but winemakers have other techniques as well. The Joly goes beyond mere barrel aging.
Knowing that the proprietor recommends decanting this wine 48 hours in advance, even when sufficiently aged, I followed the advice, though I sampled it along the way.
At first sniff, I could smell the alcohol, but also its richness and complexity. Joly, to a greater extreme than many other producers, chases ripeness in the grapes until some shrivel and are afflicted with botrytis, the legendary noble rot prized for how it enhances sweet wines like Sauternes.
Botrytis can afflict grapes intended for dry wines, too. Certain vintages of white Burgundy, like 1986, are marked by an almost exotic complexity conferred by botrytis, and it often shows up in Savennières, though not to the extent I’ve seen in the wines of Joly.
With time in the decanter, the Joly became more and more interesting, and more drinkable, developing the wet wool character, along with an aroma of chamomile. After 48 hours, it had a distinct mineral quality, and an undeniable complexity.
At this stage, drinking the 2015 Les Vieux Clos was more educational than enjoyable, a lesson in the difference between oxidative and oxidized wines, which are ruined by exposure to air. It was also a reminder that, yes, some wines simply are too young to drink.
Let’s be clear: Most mass-market wines need no aging at all. They are ready to drink as soon as you buy them. But many good wines, even if a small percentage of all bottles sold, do benefit from time in the bottle.
As the audience for fine wines has become more democratized, and fewer people have the resources to age bottles, the industry has made an effort to produce wines that are ready sooner, even if some qualities ultimately are lost. Even so, it is disheartening to open a highly touted restaurant wine list to see great Burgundies, Barolos and the like from the most recent vintages. That is the time to order Beaujolais.
Still, it is encouraging to know that some producers, like Joly, cling to the tradition of making wines that require long aging. It is a reminder that great wine is a living thing. While it is possible to adapt wines to the more superficial requirements of modern life, it is nice to be reminded of what we are missing.
