I'll bring a bottle....

If you are bringing a bottle to an occasion where there are friends present who really know wine, you want to bring something that will generate some interest and a strong emotional response.  Deciding what to bring is I find a revealing exercise. Suffice to say i have many wines in my collection that I likely would not bring. I have started to wonder if I should pay a little more attention to this in deciding what I buy.

I would not bring a mid level red Burgundy.  I would not bring a Crozes Hermitage. I would not bring a Fifth Growth Bordeaux. I would not bring Chianti. I likely would not bring a Chinon.

But I might bring a wine from Etna or Puglia or Campagna. I might bring an exceptional wine from Alsace. Perhaps a Chablis. Or something made with Furmint or Godello or Albarinho. I might bring a Garnacha from the Sierra del Gregos or Mencia from Galicia or a blended white from the Collio. Or a wine from the Canary Islands or Corsica. These people drink a lot of wine, so I want to bring something truly interesting that they may not have drunk recently or perhaps at least not with a lot of bottle age.

My point being that for the same money there are wines that really wine knowledgable friends drink frequently and with which they are so familiar that in the normal case these fail to excite and there are other less familiar wines that are much more likely to surprise and stimulate. One could of course bring Haut Brion - which likely will also generate a good deal of enthusiasm -  but in Bordeaux one has to spend a lot to induce such a truly emotional response from people very familiar with it. So you bring something a little different and unusual.

It is not that I want to impress with what I bring. I want to generate a passionate response. I want to stimulate a sense of excitement - that the wine journey never ends. There are always new things to try and surprises around the corner.

But even within the currently acknowledged classical wine regions there are wines to be found that meet this criteria. These wines are classic for a reason and a carefully considered selection will surely elicit the desired emotional response. I find, however, that when bringing to a dinner a wine from a classic region, you have to bring a wine of real and evident beauty. A perfect village level Chambolle Musigny or a Volnay is more likely to move the response needle than a wine from Morey St Denis or Nuits St. George or Corton, however good those wines.  I prefer to bring a wine that speaks with conspicuous and overt beauty or that has a really strong personality. It is not that Bordeaux does not have an inner beauty. But Bordeaux’s beauty is delivered more intellectually, with more reserve and with less passion. You have to concentrate and seek it out. And likely in my opinion, if you are to generate a truly passionate response, you will need a high end Bordeaux . Whereas a well aged Barolo, which needs you to have three noses fully to appreciate its varied aromas and whose flavors change every time it is sipped, can be had for a song. Barolo really brings it and is an example of a wine with strong outward personality. Aged Brunello, I think, can have a certain rugged personality.

The guidelines are these -

1. Don’t bring wine of a type with which your friends are very familiar

2. Bring a wine that has an outgoing personality or an evident beauty or grace.

3. If you know, bring a wine that goes well with what you are going to eat. And Champagne works well if you don’t know.

“This wine is really very good” is not what I want to hear.  What I want to hear is “OMG this wine is outrageously good - SO beautiful - I love it !”

So perhaps this is what my cellar should mostly contain. Why would the measure of what I myself drink be any different ?

Substituting for White Burgundy - Bottle Aged Champagne

It is a rare occasion indeed that one is asked “Is this Champagne ready to drink ?” In fact I do not recall the question ever being asked of me. Consumers just assume that Champagne, which may spend several years on its lees before disgorgement - and probably thereafter an additional six to twelve months in bottle after dosage - will not be released onto the market until it is ready to drink. As it is, the wide range of lengths of time any particular wine is allowed to rest on its lees - and the various deferred release dates - means that at any one time several different vintages of newly released Champagne are available for purchase. This does, I think, reinforce the notion that any wine newly presented to the market for sale will be ready to drink and has received all the aging it needs. In fact, there is the perception perhaps that it should now be drunk.

The assumption of immediate drinkability is true of course - and certainly so in the case of non vintage Champagnes. But it is also the case that some Champagnes from certain growers or Champagnes from particularly austere vintages may benefit from additional time in bottle. The structural architecture of Champagne and the time it spends on its lees means that the wine is well protected from the gentle oxidation process that time brings. Certain Champagnes can age a very long time indeed if desired. Most Tete de Cuvees or prestige vintage Champagnes absolutely can be aged. So further aging is an option with most higher end Champagnes. And yet bottles of age worthy Champagne are surely among the wines least often given the opportunity to see what change further age can bring.

Whether you wish to age the wine further is a question of preferred style. With time, the bubbles get less effervescent and the wine itself develops in complexity, at the expense of some freshness and vigor. If you drink Champagne precisely for that initial burst of energy and vibrancy, you will want to drink the wine young. That would be consistent with Champagne as a celebratory drink or an aperitif. But if you think of Champagne as a wine - to be drunk at the table with food - aging Champagne can make for a more compelling experience. Aged Champagne can be a wine of astonishing beauty and if you have the space and capacity to age the bottle gracefully the reward can be as great as aging any other age worthy wine. The growing trend to treat Champagne as a wine is apparent - evidenced by consumers increasingly drinking Champagne in regular wine glasses. With that I expect more Champagne to be cellared by knowledgable consumers.

And this trend to consider Champagne as a wine will, I submit, accelerate. But the aging process itself takes time, so it will be a while before people routinely drink aged champagne at table. Nor do I suggest aging of Champagne will ever exceed the incidence of aging of white burgundy today - itself quite infrequent. But more will be written on the subject of what types of Champagne are best to store. Do Chardonnay based wines age longer than Pinot based wines or is the reverse true ?  How much does whether the wine went through malolactic matter ? Does the level of dosage matter ? Does aging in wood make a difference ? How important are the climatic conditions of a particular vintage to its capacity to age ? Does it age consistently over time ? It is not as if the great Champagne houses do not know the answers to all these questions and fully recognize the benefits that time in bottle can deliver. Some occasionally release older wines. And they are much cherished. But to today’s wine collector the whole issue of bottle aged champagne is quite new. 

I actually would go so far as to say that as I cellar more champagne in bottle I will store less white burgundy, and so reduce my exposure to the risks that cellaring white burgundy brings.  Champagne is rather better protected so one can hope for fewer problems.

So start putting a few bottles away. You will surely not regret it. In a decade doing so will surely be the new norm.

I recommend a brief article by Michael Edwards of Decanter in June 2015

The Obsession with Newness

This post is a bit of a rant.

America is obsessed with newness. We love everything about it.

It is natural enough that the focus of critics and reviewers is on the current release vintage. These are the wines that need to be sold in the moment. These are the reviews the critics need to have be read in order to get paid. And, perhaps as importantly, these are the only wines that are available to be purchased, all prior vintages having been long since disappeared from the shelves. But I am struck by how quickly and how completely the previous vintage passes into distant memory, supplanted by the desire to taste the very latest.

It is valuable of course to get a read on the new vintage - its style and which growers may have excelled in that particular year. It is completely appropriate that these are the wines that are tasted at events. 

And I fully concede it is difficult for an entity looking to arrange tastings to access wines of prior vintages when wanting to do themed events - for example that illustrate the different terroirs of Burgundy’s villages or the impact of older vines or the inclusion of stems in the winemaking process.. The current release - or perhaps a year or two prior - are the only wines available if the organizer wants to get the wines he wants to explore the theme optimally. Unless the customer is willing to pay very high prices indeed to attend such events, he simply has to accept that the vintages presented will be very recent. It is a market, after all.

But I think simply by the media and promotional agencies putting so very much focus on the current release vintage the consumer is inevitably given a disproportionately favorable view of that vintage when compared with prior years.  Context is lost. And fresh fruit always tastes so good. There is I believe an upward bias to critic’s scores given to new release wines, as I have written in an earlier post. And those aggressively selling wine of course pick the most favorable review of the vintage - or indeed of a particular wine - so it only takes one critic of repute to take a positive “bet” on the quality of the current release for that to be the one most commonly thrust infront of the consumer. One is led to believe one will be missing out if one doesn’t purchase the current vintage - "a vintage not to be missed”….”deserves a place in your cellar”…or even quite directly ”don’t miss it !” The full force of the marketing industry is brought to bear to promote the current release vintage.

Some collecting experience I suppose ameliorates this obsession with the newest vintage. Having seen it all before helps. One realizes that most vintages today are very good and what distinguishes them is their style more than their absolute quality, which differences in style some also argue lessen over time anyway.  It no doubt helps too that you already have some quantity of wine stashed away from previous years. For example, I bought almost nothing in Burgundy in vintage 2018 because I already have plenty of wine. I haven’t actually tasted many 2018s so any assertion I make about some critics being overly bullish on its quality is completely baseless.  But I don’t think the style of the vintage is my kind of style - so I am comfortable more or less taking a pass. 

Some measured calm is in order. Truly great vintages - that really ought not be missed - come rarely indeed. The American culture loves newness. There are no “good old days” in America. But let us not forget that all vintages were new once. 

And the next vintage comes so very soon…

In praise of cellaring cheaper wines

It is surely an accepted fact among those with knowledge of the subject that many wines that are not expensive can age very well indeed.  Some relatively inexpensive wines are absolutely intended to be aged.  But it is also my expectation - based on no real evidence whatsoever - that few of these wines are actually kept long enough by those who buy them to reveal how wonderful they can be after a decade or two in bottle. No doubt there are some collectors who stow away quantities of Chinon, Muscadet, St.Joseph, Lalande de Pomerol, Bierzo or Gattinara for a good many years, but surely not so many.  There can be few people in the US with cellars full of aging Gigondas.

Why would this be ? 

It is is hard to be too categorical about my proposition that these wines are not cellared. Simply because the wines are seldom seen in the “market” when mature does not mean they are all drunk in their youth. Enthusiasts may indeed be stashing them away to consume later.  What we do know is that they are very seldom sold when mature so it is very rare to experience the beauty of these wines after fifteen or twenty years absent cellaring them yourself. This is self perpetuating of course. Without expanding the population of those who experience the wonder of these wines when fully mature through a viable secondary market, the beauty of these wines remains largely undiscovered. Only if traveling to the region itself may one perhaps experience this revelation courtesy of a generous winemaker or perhaps at a local restaurant.

There are several reasons why no secondary market has developed in mature lower cost wines. Among these reasons an important one is financial.  The question of money merits a brief if unwelcome digression. These wines over prior years have not shown the price appreciation that would induce holders to sell.  So one may assume anyone holding these wines very much wants to drink them down the road, since selling them later certainly makes for a poor investment. Which is why these wines are never released onto the market when mature. There are no willing sellers. The absence of a viable secondary market means if you love these wines with age, you need to buy them on release.  This is especially true if you are particular about what you want (and who would not be ?).

The mental furniture of people who buy wine to keep is arranged in one of two ways.

1. You are very mindful of the financial cost of what you are drinking. This is the person - perhaps professionally trained in the time value of money - who looks at that bottle of Chinon and sees from the still present price sticker that he paid $25 for it in 1997. Had he put that money in the stock market that $25, he computes, would today be worth about $170. So runs the mind of the investment banker or money manager. He cannot help himself. His joy in drinking the wine is unavoidably colored by knowing it was a lousy investment - because that bottle might fetch only $65 if sold today. Perhaps he could get more pleasure from a current release wine if he spent $170. Anyone who routinely sells their wine is at least partially in this category.

2. The person whose mind is more aligned to absolute quality. If there is any comparative assessment going on at all, it is that the 25 year old Chinon is giving at least as much pleasure as would a 25 year old Paulliac Second growth that would have cost a whole lot more. Bravo !

If you are naturally in the first category, it helps if you can adjust your mental furniture to think in terms of the absolute pleasure a mature wine provides and leave all the money stuff out of it.  If at the outset you know that the future of that bottle is only that you will pull out its cork at some joyous evening among good friends ten years down the road, then all that matters is the absolute joy that that bottle then provides.  If the wine was inexpensive you will be able to do this often. And if you have met the grower and bought their wine each vintage for the last fifteen years you surely will get more out of it than drinking a super expensive bottle from some Chateau you have never visited and whose owners are a corporation where the subject of money seems to be a big part of it.

I think it is time to rejoice that in these times of outrageously high wine prices for historically heralded regions or particular producers that there are wines to be had at much lower price points that develop real interest as they age. Lower initial cost is of course a huge benefit. The wines are accessible to a wider set of people. It surely means you can buy more. You can spread your purchases widely. Take a few chances perhaps - put away some Albarinho. The rareness of the drinking experience should add to its appeal.  This is especially so with white wines, aged examples of which outside of the classical regions are rare as hen’s teeth. Try some aged Fiano or dry Furmint and see what you think. Then try them with cheese ! And you can drink aged wine much more regularly and without stress - which is a unique pleasure. Even alone in front of the fire….

Encouragement for holding these less expensive wines can be drawn from knowing that the benefits derived from global warming and better understanding of vinification processes are resulting in more persistent fruit and better phenolic ripeness. So one can be confident that today’s wines of this type will age better than ever. See my post elsewhere on my hopes for the future of Cabernet Franc.

The list of wines that fall into this category is too long to enumerate here. Clearly you need to be prudent. But it is worth noting that it includes both wines from regions with long histories of making age worthy wines - such as Aglianico del Vulture, Savennieres or Rioja - but also some newly developed terroirs with as yet no tradition for making long lasting wines - such as the wines from Mount Etna in Sicily or the Sierra de Gredos in Spain or dry wines from the Duoro in Portugal - where even the growers may not yet know with certainly how the wines will develop over extended periods of aging.

The choice of what to cellar is of course very personal. Holding the wines takes patience. And good storage conditions. But the rewards are surely there to be had. 

Just Decant !

Decant your red wines !   Just do it !

I have of late started to decant pretty much everything. The way our drinking pattern is aligned these COVID orientated months, we often drink half a bottle most evenings, so the other half of the bottle gets to see the fridge overnight.  As a result I have gained more experience with what wines taste like the second day. The wine invariably tastes more relaxed and less angular and with more interesting fruit the next day. And even when we have had several glasses of the wine on the first night, the second glass normally tastes better than the first. So now I decant on the first night.

Decanting can be a tedious exercise. But it really just requires a water jug and a bit of foresight. 

I truly cannot recall a red wine intended to be kept that tasted less appealing for being decanted at least a short while, even after twenty years in the bottle. And I have have witnessed some spectacular reversals of fortune over the course of just a few hours, where a wine that seemed initially very disappointing - indeed perhaps flawed - reaffirmed itself later.

A possible exception is for very old wines - 40 years or so - where fragility may merit not taking the risk.

A year on from this post - in November 2021 - I have no reason to modify this view.

What ? No more Barolo ?

At a dinner at a restaurant in Perno in Piedmont in 2016 a good friend in his mid sixties announced that the 2010 vintage would categorically be the last vintage of Barolo he would buy.

While it is true that he firmly believes both that Barolo needs many years of cellaring fully to express itself and he also has a large collection of older bottles already, this comment nonetheless set me thinking. I admired the thoughtfulness and self discipline of the assertion. No such consideration had crossed my mind in relation to my own purchasing strategy, absent occasional reflection on the broader subject that perhaps I already have too much wine. 

Three considerations at least make it difficult to stop buying a category of wine altogether. 

The first is the view that wine today is simply better made than ever before. The vineyard work in particular has improved even over the last ten or so years.  So if the wines are genuinely ‘better” today, why would one forego acquiring these bottles and never taste the full and most authentic beauty of the what the vineyard can deliver - even if you have to drink it on the younger side of optimal.   

The second is - how do you feel about missing out completely on a “great” vintage ? Perhaps a few 2013 or 2016 Barolo merit purchase ?  Alex Sanchez at Brovia described to us his 2013 Barolo as perhaps a “vintage of a generation”.  2015 red Burgundy perhaps ?  How could you not when Frederic Lafarge describes it as a ‘legendary vintage” for Volnay, perhaps most resembling 1929 ?  Perhaps you will have to drink it a bit younger than might be your preference. But to miss it completely ?

And, thirdly, of course, the winegrower is still making the wine each year. So to maintain “current” the relationship with that grower, does this not require to some degree ‘following” the early development of more recent vintages ?  When you visit the Cantina one talks mostly about recent vintages.  Is one to have no opinion of these based on tasting experience ?  What does one give up when visiting a Cantina from whom you have many older bottles but none from the last five or ten vintages ? Does this somehow diminish one's ‘attachment” to the Cantina or at least the winemaker personally, which connection is surely a source of one of the greatest joys of wine collecting?

I am in my early sixties - and am rather happier drinking wines at a younger stage in their development than my only slightly older friend - but I also doubt I have the self discipline he evidently has to forego buying at least a few bottles of future vintages of Barolo !

Collecting - Two Key Principles

The choices of wine I buy are grounded in two simple truths.

In relation to the finest wines, be mindful of your rate of consumption 

This is a very obvious point. If you cellar very fine wine in my experience you will only drink it with people who also have very fine wine - and that means you do not have to supply all the wine.  It is surely very rare to provide wine of the highest quality to people who simply have no idea what it is, because knowing what it is enhances the joy of drinking it. In practice we very seldom serve our best wines to anyone other than knowledgable wine lovers. And they will not let you supply all the wine because they themselves have collections and are always generous in wanting to share.   You may be part of a small group that meets occasionally, or participate in wine focused dinners, but these are not so frequent in my experience as to require a lot of bottles in your cellar.  To these events you each bring a single bottle - or at most two.

I do think if one is in the wine trade that makes a big difference to consumption rates since the opportunity to engage with like minded enthusiasts is so much more frequent. I would go so far as to suggest a high proportion of the greatest wines are drunk by people with some connection to the wine business or collectors who really are themselves on the fringes of the wine business and count people in the business among their friends. Groups meet to consume these high end wines. I could be wrong, but I expect it is pretty rare that a husband and wife, neither of whom have any connection to the trade, routinely share a bottle of Chateau Latour at home on a Saturday night. Perhaps i am wrong about this and of course if one’s spouse is also a wine lover that no doubt increases the rate consumption of fine bottles considerably. But, not myself having a spouse quite as into wine as I am, we don’t drink Chateau Latour at home. Outside of the context of arranged wine focussed events we in practice have a very limited number occasions to consume the very best of our collection. Price rises have also made it even less likely that we will serve the finest wines in circumstances where the company does not ‘appreciate them”. This is a shame, but that is our practical experience.

Do the math.  Know your consumption rate of wines in different categories. You likely do not need as much of the finest wines as you think. 

Some sensible material has been written on what your cellar should look like. Most suggest you look at consumption rates and do not have more wine on hand than fulfills that consumption for ten years assuming you buy no more wine. Unless you do a lot of entertaining that means 2,500 bottles is probably the maximum you should have. It could be more - just be sensible about it. My point of principle is that the cellar also needs to be shaped correctly. For a while I went to the trouble of writing down what would have been the ideal wine to drink on any day that I was drinking wine - regardless of what I actually drunk. I included when I brought wine to tastings with friends. After a year of doing that I got a clear message about how little grand wine I needed.

Maintain the difference between a thirst for knowledge and a thirst for wine

This is the other reason I have in the past bought examples of the finest wines. A thirst for knowledge can too easily translate into a thirst for wine. I am very much wanting to learn everything I can about the great wines of the world. But to avoid buying too much, I have to be satisfied that it is enough simply to know all about particular wines - for example, Clos St Hune, Chateau Grillet or Chateau Haut Brion. It is enough to know that these are unique wines of extraordinary beauty and why - but that it is perfectly fine not to have bought them for our collection. When I study a wine region I want to sample its finest wines. That is probably quite natural. My enthusiasm from reading a piece or listening to a podcast can get the better of me. I want to buy the wine. It is a good thing there are so any wines I can get excited about. But I try to resist. So while wanting to expand my knowledge widely, I have to accept that knowledge alone is enough because I cannot routinely buy every great wine in the world.  There have of course been some additions as certain wine categories have merited inclusion on the 'routine buy" list.  For example, I buy some top end Austrian wines today because they fit a particular culinary purpose ( and I love them). They are very difficult to find when they are mature. And they are not crazy expensive. But I have been buying only since vintage 2013. Yet the bar is set high for a fine wine to be added to my list of regular annual purchases.

The purpose of any wine collection is to have on hand the right wine for every occasion at its optimum maturity. And that occasion could be a picnic. Very few collectors it seems to me have too little fine wine. Most have too much. And that, unless intended as a legacy to your children, is not a collection to drink but a collection for its own sake, which is a different thing entirely. Buy more Beaujolais !

Village Wines in Burgundy

This is perhaps just an argument about whether a glass is half full or half empty but, with only few exceptions do I find myself in a situation where the ‘right” wine is a village level Burgundy. If it is a dinner with friends who know wine I will surely reach for a Premier Cru and if I am with friends who do not I am more likely to reach for something fresh and fruit driven at the generic level that does not merit contemplation or discussion. Nor do I subscribe to the view that village wines in an especially good vintage “taste like Premier Crus”. They don’t. They taste like village wines in an especially good vintage. Referencing the comment Charles Rousseau made a long time ago to Clive Coates in the Vine, I share the view it is better to buy a well made Premier Cru in a difficult year from a talented grower than a Village level wine in a so called great year. You will always get something more interesting from the Premier Cru.

The few exceptions of course are those village wines that are priced like Premier Crus - and come from singular plots within the village designation of particular repute - some of the better lieu dits in Meursault, for example, or in Vosne Romanee Liger Belair’s Clos du Chateau or Anne Gros’ Les Barreaux or possibly Bruno Clair’s Champ Perdrix. But there are limits to this too.  Some of these sites are up for promotion to Premier Cru anyway.

No doubt of course one’s view on the function of Village level Burgundy in one’s cellar ultimately depends on one’s budget. Burgundy prices show less variation based on the vintage’s perceived quality than most other regions. This is addressed in another post.  It is surely true today that the cost of a Premier Cru in a more challenging vintage (when there is normally also less of it to offset any perceived quality diminution factoring into the determination of its price point)  would anyway normally still exceed the price of a village wine in a high profile year. Which makes it difficult today to live up to Charles Rousseau's  recommendation for even money. In recent times, the premier cru will be more expensive every year. Perhaps this was not so when Charles made his comment to Clive Coates nearly three decades ago, when I recall there was more price variation between vintages than today and premiers crus really only cost a little more than village wines anyway. So back then a Village level wine in a much heralded vintage likely would cost the same as a Premier Cru wine in an ostensibly lower quality year.

I am sure it is very personal to my particular situation. And is not to say that Village level Burgundy in any way lacks the qualities that draw me to Burgundy. I just don’t find myself reaching for one very often when we are hosting, especially in the case of reds.

Quantities of Barolo

It is an inescapable truth that I prefer Barolos made in the traditional style with longer fermentations and aging of the wine in big botte over the more modern style. This is actually pretty unfortunate since there are relatively few growers who take this approach. There are 770 or so wineries in the Langhe I believe. My understanding is that a significant majority of winemakers in Barolo still use barrique and at least some new oak. It is easier. You need less space. The resulting wine is more polished. Certainly it is the case that when you ask anyone for the list of traditionalist growers that list is really very short. The same names are mentioned. One is hard pressed to name more than a dozen or fifteen at most. And with a few exceptions the output of their top Barolo is perhaps 5,000 bottles for each of two or three vineyards - say 400 cases of each of three wines. 

Almost as an aside, by contrast in Burgundy I am quite happy to drink wine which has been raised with some percentage of new oak.  Which in itself raises the question of why I actually like a degree of new wood with pinot noir but not at all with nebbiolo. That is a discussion for another post. But I am grateful for this because a result is that the number of growers whose wines I would happily buy in Burgundy is large relative to the number in Barolo. In Gevrey alone I can count six or seven. There are at least six in Vosne Romanee. Four or five in Chambolle Musigny. Five in Volnay. And so it goes. Plus you can include several fine negotiant operations like Benjamin Leroux. Although I have my grower loyalties in Burgundy I fully acknowledge there are dozens of excellent growers whose wine I leave to others to buy but would be very happy to drink if the opportunity arises. If circumstances had been different - a personal meeting or some other chance connection - perhaps these would be names I collect myself. It seems in relation to Barolo, however, that everyone seeking top grade traditional style Barolo is chasing the same few names. It is as if in Burgundy there are three or four Guiseppe Rinaldis whereas in Barolo there is just one.

And yet some good traditionally made Barolo (and Barbaresco) can still be had for the price of good Bourgogne. It will not last.

Wines scores over time

I have not taken he trouble to perform the statistical analysis but it is my expectation that a critic’s score of a wine that is rated with an extraordinarily high score on release in general lower as the wine ages. A wine scoring 97 or 98 points on release is likely to be a 95 after a decade or so. That they do indeed do this is to the critics' credit. And it seems to me (just anecdotally) that scores seldom improve markedly over time.. No doubt the critics themselves monitor these progressions for their own scores for particular wines.

I do not lose sleep over this.  In fact I don’t have much regard to scores at all. But I wonder why it is so that scores over time trend lower. Perhaps it simply reflects that over time there are no great wines only great bottles. Its hard to judge but I expect not as much wine is “perfectly stored” as is so asserted, especially if it has passed through many hands. Or perhaps it is because almost any movement from the cellar in which it came into being is prejudicial to the quality of the wine. Or simply how seductively fabulous is the wine’s fruit when it is fresh from the barrel. Or perhaps the wine is going through a bad phase in its evolution. Any of these reasons may merit a lower score at a later date. But it seems that, in general, a wine 20 years on wil not attract the score it did on release, even when storage is truly impeccable.

It also perhaps simply suggests a certain encouraging optimism at the outset of a wine’s long evolutionary journey.

But reducing scores over time is another reason not to pay too much heed to scores for newly released wines - at least not to differentiate between wines that attract similar but not identical scores. There is, if you like, a “margin of error” in relation to the future evolution of the wine.