Drink
In with the old
by Keith Stewart
Laying down a cellar.
Wine is a lot like people: when young, it’s fresh and bright, firm to the touch and full of energy, but with age it changes into a more mellow, softer and more complicated character. The finest examples – what the French call vins de garde – grow old gracefully to deliver subtlety and sensibility with poise.
Neither is necessarily better, they are just different. But to discover which you prefer you need to give yourself a chance to taste older wine, which means either befriending someone with a cellar who bottle-ages their wine or finding a rare retailer who offers mature bottles for sale.
Or you could develop your own cellar, which is cheaper than you think. Four bottles of wine are all you need to get started – and preferably wines that are already favourites. Store them in a suitable out-of-the-way place that is dark and with a stable temperature. Try to set up your cellar where it is relatively accessible as well, because you don’t want to have to wriggle through some underground rabbit hole every time you want a drink.
Next, get into the habit of drinking from the cellar, but buying a new bottle every time you do. Even just resting the wine first, rather than dragging it home from the supermarket just before drinking it, will improve the taste. Then, when you can, build up your stock by buying two replacements instead of one. Try to leave a couple of bottles for at least six months before you drink them, and taste the difference.
Simple as that. The only problem is, you may find you are enjoying your wine more, and so the wine part of your weekly grocery budget is larger than you expect. You may also find that you like old wine so much that you want to get some really old ones going. This will mean buying more expensive wine, because the best wine for bottle ageing is usually made from the best grapes grown in small quantities, making it expensive.
But the reward of opening something specially aged for a top occasion is well worth it. It’s wine you have had a hand in creating.
Email: keith@sommnet.com
