How Long You Should Cellar a Wine

When you want to buy wine online or visit a wine store USA, it can be tempting to buy a few bottles that you love and cellar them for a special occasion in the future but how long should you wait? The answer, unfortunately, is not as straightforward as we would like.

Wine has always been popular and valued. With Roman developments, such as red wines maturing in catacombs or closed amphorae, these aged wines gained high values. Ancient Greeks used terebinth resin to preserve their wines; tree resins were used to tighten the seals. Ports and Sherries were fortified with sulfur dioxide due to trade routes becoming longer than before. But after the invention of corkscrews and jugs containing sulfur dioxide - aging wine, especially white wine became more prevalent around the world. You can also easily observe this popularity when you go to a wine store USA, there are sections for aged wines.

Why to Age a Wine?

When wine ages, you can tell that it has been well taken care of. And like an apple ripens, the flavors mature and mellow over time. It takes on new characteristics as its aroma becomes subtler, which brings about new foods to pair it with. As acidity lessens, crisp white wines should no longer be paired with highly acidic dishes (mostly because it will ruin the taste) but instead with earthier dishes such as wild mushrooms or risotto Milanese.

In general, let’s say 90% of red wines can be cellared for 3-5 years and white wines for 2-3 years. But there are exceptions to every rule. Some wines, like Champagne, are meant to be consumed immediately. Others, like vintage Port, can age for decades.

So, the reality is, only about 10% of all wines are long-ageable due to their low alcohol percentage - usually less than 14% alcohol level. And for those wines aged for over ten years. The number dwindles to just 1%, which explains why these types of wines cost so much more.

Do you know that in addition to maturing wines, white wines can also mature? Most people assume that white wine is not able to age as long as red wine due to its lack of tannins. However, there are many other elements important to aging besides tannins, including acidity. What makes a wine age-able is the good balance between these actors, of course, under the right storage conditions, which is the very first requirement. For example, a Burgundy Pinot Noir typically does not have very high alcohol, tannin, and acidity but ages very well, on the other hand, a cool region Sauvignon Blanc has a profound acidity and is not suitable for aging.

This means that white wine aging relies more on other additional elements rather than just tannins - which allows even a Riesling from Germany to age for up to 20 years! Other common grapes capable of aging include Semillon (French), Chenin Blanc (South African), Pedro Ximenez (Spanish), and Gewürztraminer (Alsatian). And even though Champagne has high acidity and sugar content combined with CO2 which acts as an antioxidant- some varieties of Champagne do indeed age! Not only acid, sugar, and alcohol levels are other important actors—sugar in wine act as a preventive of microbial growth and help with aging to a large extent. Sweet Sauternes and Ice wines, which have high sugar with balancing acid, become another wine as they age with many hidden flavors that appear with diminished sugar.

But how does one find an age-appropriate wine on a wine delivery California webpage? There are many ways - one of them being the price. Usually, a wine priced over 20$ would be considered ageable; however, this means anything up to 10 years old. Checking reviews is another way to go about finding these wines, but keep in mind that vintage can affect its aging process. After we find the perfect wine, there are some necessary steps needed (below) for proper aging.

Temperature plays a major role in how wine ages. Higher temperatures age the wine quickly and shorten its lifespan significantly for sure, but this can lead to an undesirable taste if not done correctly - according to many experts, 55-60°F is the optimal temperature during this phase. The placement of each bottle during the aging process is crucial unless it's sealed with a cork that screws off instead of having a typical cork stopper (if there are no natural corks left). If you keep them lying horizontally, then there will always be some contact between the cork and the liquid inside which avoids drying out before time. Light is also very detrimental to wine during this phase - even more so for fragile whites - because direct sunlight heats the wine too fast which can cause chemical reactions and even unpleasant smells that result from such reactions. Therefore, when you want to buy wine online, you should consider the conditions for shipping or wine delivery companies that they work with. If you would like to learn more about what weather conditions are best for buying wine online, and the company's policy on shipping in these circumstances, please take a look at our blog.