How Long Should Wine Age? Do You Like Young Bucks or Silver-Haired Foxes?
There is something terribly romantic about the idea of aging wine.
You buy an impressive bottle, tuck it away somewhere dark and mysterious, and ten years later emerge with a magnificent old Bordeaux while everyone marvels at your foresight.
Lovely.
Except most wine is not meant to do that.
Most of the wine you buy is made to be enjoyed relatively young, while the fruit is fresh, the flavors are lively and the winemaker still vaguely recognizes what they put into the bottle.
So before you start building a cellar underneath the stairs and behaving like an English duke, let’s talk about which wines you should drink now and which ones are worth keeping around.
Does Wine Really Get Better With Age?
Sometimes.
Wine doesn’t automatically get better with age. It changes.
A young Cabernet Sauvignon might be full of blackberry, cassis and firm tannins. With enough time in the bottle, those tannins can soften and the fresh fruit flavors may evolve into something more complex: dried fruit, leather, tobacco, earth, cedar and all those wonderful smells that make wine people start using words like haunting.
But the wine has to have enough structure to make the journey.
Acidity helps. Tannins help. Sugar can help enormously, which is why some sweet wines can live for decades.
The quality of the fruit matters too.
You cannot take a mediocre bottle of wine, abandon it in the basement for twelve years and expect it to emerge as Chateau Margaux.
Time is many things, but it is not a miracle worker.
Most White and Rosé Wines Are Young Bucks
Here’s the easiest rule of thumb.
Most rosé wines and many everyday white wines are meant to be drunk young.
These wines are made for freshness. You want those bright citrus flavors, flowers, peach, pear, melon and whatever other delicious things are happening in there.
Keeping them for years usually doesn’t make them more interesting. It simply removes the very thing you bought them for.
So if you have Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Grigio, most unoaked Chardonnay, Moscato, Viognier, Gruner Veltliner or a pretty bottle of rosé sitting around waiting for a sufficiently important occasion, open it.
The occasion is that you own wine. That will do.
There are some very important white-wine exceptions, however.
Fine white Burgundy, quality Chardonnay, Chablis, German Riesling, Chenin Blanc and sweet wines such as Sauternes can develop beautifully with age.
Some of them can live an astonishingly long time.
This is where our young bucks begin turning into silver-haired foxes.
How Long Should Wine Age?
Here’s the part everyone wants.
Unfortunately, there is no magic chart that can tell you exactly when every bottle of wine on earth should be opened.
The grape matters, but so do the producer, region, vintage, winemaking style and how the bottle has been stored.
So use this as a guide rather than a commandment.
Drink Young: About 1-3 Years
These are generally wines you buy because you want freshness and fruit rather than decades of development.
Think rosé, Prosécco, most everyday sparkling wine, Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Grigio, unoaked Chardonnay, Moscato, Viognier, many Gruner Veltliners, Lambrusco, Beaujolais Nouveau and plenty of inexpensive everyday reds.
If the bottle was $11, fruity, cheerful and stacked six cases high near the grocery-store checkout, you probably do not need to save it for your niece’s wedding.
Drink it.
Give Them a Little Time: About 3-5 Years
Now we start getting into wines with a little more structure.
Many oaked Chardonnays, better-quality Pinot Noir, Merlot, Zinfandel, Cotes du Rhone, Rioja and other medium-bodied reds can happily live in this range.
That doesn’t mean they must age for five years.
If they taste delicious now, drink them now.
This is something wine people occasionally forget while congratulating themselves on their cellars.
The point of owning wine is to drink the damn thing eventually.
The Silver Foxes Begin: About 5-10 Years
This is where aging starts becoming genuinely interesting.
Well-made Syrah, Cabernet Franc, Chianti Classico, Malbec, Rioja Reserva, better Pinot Noir, Super Tuscans and many serious red blends can begin developing those lovely secondary flavors that only come with time.
On the white side, quality Chablis, Riesling, Chenin Blanc and some white Burgundy can be glorious after several years in the bottle.
Again, quality matters enormously.
A beautifully made Riesling from a great producer and a $9 Riesling from the supermarket are not undertaking the same retirement plan.
The Silver Foxes: 10 Years and Beyond
Now we have entered proper silver-haired fox territory.
High-quality Cabernet Sauvignon, age-worthy red Bordeaux, Barolo, Barbaresco, Brunello di Montalcino and other serious, structured reds can age for ten, twenty or considerably more years under the right conditions.
And don’t assume all the great agers are red.
Fine Riesling, Sauternes, vintage Champagne, white Burgundy and other high-quality whites can develop for decades.
These are wines made with enough concentration, acidity, tannin, sugar or some combination thereof to change slowly rather than simply fade away.
And that distinction is important.
Old wine is not automatically good wine.
Sometimes an old bottle is magnificent.
Sometimes you have simply waited twelve years to drink something that would have been better nine years ago.
Life is cruel that way.
How Do I Know if My Bottle Should Age?
If you have a specific bottle you’re wondering about, start with the producer.
Many wineries give recommended drinking windows for their better wines, and a good wine shop can usually tell you whether something was made to be opened tonight or tucked away.
Pay attention to the type of wine too.
If you bought a serious Cabernet Sauvignon, Barolo or Bordeaux that tastes almost aggressively tannic when young, that structure may be telling you the wine needs time.
If you bought something soft, fruity and absolutely delicious the minute you pulled the cork, it may already be giving you its answer.
One of the best ways to learn is to buy several bottles of the same wine.
Drink one now. Save another for a couple of years. Try the last one later.
You’ll begin to notice which stage you actually prefer, because this is another part nobody talks about enough: not everyone likes aged wine.
Maybe you adore those earthy, leathery, savory flavors that develop over time.
Or maybe you want your Cabernet bursting with blackberry fruit and behaving like a strapping 32-year-old.
There is no wrong answer here.
If you’re still figuring out what you actually like, my guide to choosing wine without the pretension is a great starting point.
If You’re Going to Age Wine, Please Store It Properly
This is rather important.
There is absolutely no point in carefully aging a beautiful bottle for ten years if you are going to store it on top of the refrigerator.
Wine does not enjoy living above a vibrating hot appliance.
If you’re keeping wine for more than a few months, find somewhere cool, dark and reasonably stable.
For serious long-term storage, aim for roughly 50-59°F with as little temperature fluctuation as possible.
Wine with a natural cork should generally be stored on its side so the cork doesn’t dry out. Screw-cap bottles can stand upright.
Keep wine away from direct sunlight and excessive vibration.
And your regular kitchen refrigerator is not a wine cellar. It’s perfectly fine for chilling tonight’s Chardonnay, but it is too cold and dry for years of long-term storage.
If you are becoming serious about buying wine to age, this is where a small temperature-controlled wine refrigerator starts making sense.
Until then, the coolest dark closet in your house is infinitely preferable to the kitchen counter.
And when you’re ready to open that perfectly aged bottle, a beautifully arranged cheese course is the ideal companion.
And Please Drink the Good Bottle
Here is my final rule about aging wine.
Do not become so obsessed with saving a bottle for the perfect occasion that you never drink it.
I have known people with lovely wines sitting untouched for years because apparently nothing in their lives has been deemed worthy of Cabernet.
That is tragic.
Sometimes the occasion really is a birthday, anniversary or Christmas dinner.
And sometimes you make an excellent steak on a Wednesday, your favorite movie is on, everyone has finally stopped calling you and you think, I want the good bottle.
Open it.
Wine was not made to become part of your estate.
And I would much rather drink a magnificent bottle one year too early than discover I lovingly stored it until it became a very expensive bottle of regret.
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