Cellaring Wine Beyond Bordeaux and Burgundy
Wine is more casual and democratized these days. No need for linen-draped dining tables in fancy restaurants. Good juice is readily available in cans. Sparkling wines are often sealed with the same crown caps used for beer. Labels are full of color and imagination—no château sketches required. We even find decent wines at baseball and football games—without sitting in a corporate box.
All of this approachability, but squirreling away wines to age still carries the stigmatism of elitism. The thinking goes: it must be expensive, and it requires knowledge and experience to know which wines and which vintages to buy. Then, when to drink them? Besides, cellaring wine is for only Bordeaux and Burgundy, with the occasional luxury-level Champagne or Port thrown in, right?
Actually, no. We already buy and enjoy a wide array of wines hailing from all over the globe. Deciding which to cellar simply means narrowing the scope of possibilities from the many world-class producers who have proven that their wines can age beautifully. Whether from Argentina, New Zealand, Italy, Spain or beyond, age-worthy wines hail from all over the planet.
Narrowing the Scope
The industry maxim is that only five percent of wine produced is "fine wine". Promise—this is not snobbishness. It just reflects the wine production and consumption cycle. Most wine is ready on release because it is made as everyday wine. Nothing new here. What is new is that today even the "fine", age-worthy wines are made with the understanding that most wine lovers "age" them on the way home from the store. Wines that used to require a decade or more of aging to be enjoyable are now mostly okay to drink from the get-go—or at least soon after release.
Within that five percent of fine wines, we need to zero in on the highest-quality producers with a proven track record. The saying goes that great winemakers make good wines in every vintage, and this is true of all the wines in the cellar, not just the trophies. This in mind, we can start socking away wines with confidence to unleash a new kaleidoscope of mature flavors in no time. No dusty cellar, frumpy tweed or sweeping, rural estate in sight.
The best producers want to make at least some wines that age well for themselves and their heritage because well-aged wines are the pinnacle of top terroir and winemaking prowess. (They don't have to age for eternity, mind you.) Crafting wines that transcend time requires ample attention to detail. Countless inputs—including some that producers have no control over, like Mother Nature and government—end up in each and every final wine. Making great wine also requires patience—for vineyards to develop, for blends to harmonize, and for bottles to mature.
A lot goes into great wine, and the need for continuity to make such wines is often best overseen by families, who think in decades and half centuries, not in single harvests. The good news is that there is no shortage of conscientious, family-owned wineries in either the "Old World" or the "New World", and here are a few examples of family producers determined to find a place for their wines in your cellar.
The Catena Family
Dr. Laura Catena, fourth-generation vintner of Argentina's Catena Zapata, said, "It was my father's fantasy to make a name for Catena and for Argentine wine." Laura felt skeptical that this would ever happen, until she tasted his 1994 Catena Malbec. "That's when I first thought that my dad and Argentina had a chance." Laura recently graciously poured that wine for me in New York, and it is captivating. Vivacious and exotically scented with cigar box, savory spice and smashed black plum, its structure is graceful thanks to rounded tannins and fresh acidity.
Having seen her family's work come to fruition (other standouts of that tasting included the Catena Alta Malbec 2000, the Catena Zapata Malbec Argentino 2004 and 1999 Catena Chardonnay), Laura's mission is to encourage wine lovers to cellar great Argentinian wines. From the Catena Adrianna Vineyard, I had already tucked away some 2017 White Bones Chardonnay and 2017 Fortuna Terrae Malbec for future wedding anniversary celebrations. I'm now further convinced that I should be cellaring more.
The Peabody Family
Since settling in New Zealand, the Peabody Family has shown extraordinary vision, with founders Terry and Mary establishing a 1,000-year trust so that their Craggy Range winery can never be sold. Craggy has only just turned 25 years old, but its vineyards in the famous Gimblett Gravels of Hawke's Bay have produced some distinctive and impressive wines in its early years. In a recent tasting in New York, the Le Sol Syrah 2009 and the Sophia (Merlot with Cabernet Franc, Malbec and Cabernet Sauvignon) 2001 were standouts from the home base, while the Aroha Te Muna Pinot Noir 2014 from Martinborough also charmed. The Le Sol was picture-perfect Syrah with its cracked black pepper and black olive tones accompanied by vanilla beans and blueberries. Its tannins and acidity were seamless, as though the wine might melt right into the palate. The Sophia was tinged with charred tobacco, bubbling tar, and baked red and black plums. The Aroha was high-toned and pretty with velvety tannins, baked strawberries and white pepper on the finish. Each showed well yet promised plenty of momentum left. (N.B Large formats certainly bolstered the wines' freshness. Le Sol came from a magnum while Sophia came from a 5-liter bottle.)
The Henschke Family
Five generations since the original Polish ancestors landed in Australia after fleeing religious persecution, the Henschke family oversees one of Australia's most famous vineyards, the Hill of Grace. Planted in the Eden Valley with pre-phylloxera Shiraz brought from Europe with those original settlers, the oldest half hectare was planted in 1860. When the first Hill of Grace was made in 1958, the vineyard was already almost 100 years old. This wine is legacy in a glass. At a New York tasting hosted by sixth generation Johann last fall, the 1986 dazzled with dried red cherries, fig compote, crunchy acidity, and an endless finish. The similarly charming 1996 showed more brown spice and barbecued meat notes, and its chalky tannins offered more chewiness. (NB Johann told me, "Use caution if you are purchasing on the secondary market, even in Australia. Provenance and storage cannot be guaranteed unless the bottles are purchased directly from the estate.")
The Hill of Grace isn't the only wine from the family worth aging. The Mount Edelstone Shiraz, whose vineyard was planted the year the Titanic sailed, is another gem. It also happens to be the longest-made, single vineyard wine in Australia—first made in 1952. The 2018 Mount Edelstone showed compact, grainy tannins, plums and blackberries and a hauntingly long finish. It is beautiful now, but it will easily improve for another thirty or so years.
The Guerrieri-Gonzaga Family
Cabernet, Merlot and Carménère (the last mistaken for many decades around the world as Merlot) have been at home in Italy for at least a century. The Guerrieri-Gonzaga family has been making wine in Trento at San Leonardo three times as long. With the last three generations, the family has focused on crafting high quality, age-worthy wines from their vineyards nestled in the surprisingly low foothills of the Alps, at only 490-720 feet of elevation (lower than Brunello and Chianti Classico!) The combination of mountain views and gentle altitude deliver a mild climate—the cellar remains naturally cool without an energy-reliant system.
Until the most recent, 2023 vintage, the family kept the blend consistent at 60 percent Cabernet Sauvignon, 30 percent Carménère and 10 percent Merlot. The wines reflect their vintages as much as their site. Recently tasting through a wide range of vintages, including the 2011, 2007 and 2000, there is a clear umami strain. Even a younger 2016 didn't show much fruit. Fellow Master of Wine Gabriele Gorelli mentioned during our tasting that the Cabernet Sauvignon cuttings in the vineyard came from Sassicaia, which might be the source of the seaweed character you often find in that Super Tuscan.
Harvested by the esteemed, late Giacomo Tachis then blended by one of Italy's most famous oenologists, Carlo Ferrini, the 2000 San Leonardo exudes pedigree. The aromas saturate the glass with lashings of forest floor, soy sauce and barbecue spice accented by dried black plums and blackcurrants. If the architecture of the younger vintages can be—if not Cistercian, at least foursquare—this near quarter-century-old wine has thrown off its shackles and become almost cozy on the palate with curved tannins and vibrant but integrated lift.
Or Let The Wineries Do the Work
In fairness, for all of the research you can do, it can still be unsettling to spend a lot of time and money aging bottles that may not pay off in the glass. Another way to approach drinking older wines is to allow the wineries to do it for you. When you see an older vintage in the market, it's worth asking why it is there. Sometimes the winery has just released the wine. Don't assume that the wine has been languishing on the shelf!
This is also an excellent strategy if you don't have the space or don't think you'll be able to keep your hands off the bottles long enough to allow them to slumber into maturity. There are pockets of winemaking culture where wines are aged–at least in part—before release. Many of Italy’s and Spain's top wines have long aging requirements. Barolo, Barbaresco, and Brunello in the former and Rioja in the latter are some of the best examples.
Then, there are the true exceptions. Take Guillermo de Aranzabal of Spain’s La Rioja Alta, who decided two years ago to hold back his iconic Rioja Gran Riserva 904 Selección Especial in the 2015 vintage because he felt the wine wasn't showing its best. Since Guillermo releases the wines when they are ready to start drinking, he felt that it was worth paying for the stocks that had already been shipped around the globe to stay in storage and wait even longer! This level of precision and dedication to consumers' experiences in contrast to—for example—Bordeaux's model of selling its best wines en primeur just seven months after harvest with its accompanying caveat emptor mentality is nothing short of extraordinary.
While La Rioja Alta isn't alone, there are precious few wineries that release wines when they are ready to drink. Daniel-Etienne Defaix at his eponymous domaine in Burgundy's northern town of Chablis has always waited over a decade to release his wines. Calabretta in Sicily waits six to eight years to release its wines. The most-prized, ultra-rare Marsala wines from Cantine Florio in western Sicily are released decades after their vintages. Primo Franco of Nino Franco in Italy's Conegliano-Valdobbiadene region releases his vintage-dated Grave di Stecca sparkling wine made from Glera—the grape used in Prosecco—seven or eight years after the vintage. The charismatic Ernie Loosen from Germany’s Mosel Valley is releasing wines from his Appassionata project in Oregon. A lover of aged wines, his current release of Oregon Riesling is 2017, and he releases three ages of Pinot Noir from this project (Fortissimo, Andante, and Allegro in ascending age.) His Fortissimo 2012, the longest aged, is just being released. Ernie told me this spring in New York, "You don't need technology. You need lots of time to have great wine."
The next time you see an older vintage on the wine store shelf—assuming the retailer stores its stocks in properly cooled cellars—ask about the back story. A benevolent winemaker may well have done the work for you. If you're up to the challenge of aging wines yourself, just be sure that the wines are balanced to start with. In days gone by, time was needed to smooth out the edges of rough tannins and tart acid. Today, wines should be harmonious from the start. Couple this with a wine that has long-lasting flavor on the palate, and you have a winner for your cellar.