Question for wine buffs…

[DoubleSix]

Had a couple of nice bottles gifted by clients. My brother and I were chatting about how long they might last for in my wine cooler (18c).

I say indefinitely, he says a few years… can any experts confirm?

[Mobile Chicane]

15C surely.

18C is way too high.

[CHLEMCBC]

Pauillac::

Tasting notes
An impressive presence and depth to this wine. Dark purple in colour , with an elegant nose of blackcurrents and blackberries complimented by spicey oak and earthy notes amid aromas. The palate is well balanced with nicely arranged and smooth tannins that cast a gently grainy texture through the finish. A blend of 60% cabernet sauvignon, 33% merlot, 6% cabernet franc and 1% petit verdot. Drinking 2021-2031

Figeac:

Critic tasting note: (2015 vintage) "This estate, run on biodynamic principles, has made a rich wine with density and intense, pure black-currant fruits. It has a firm backbone of tannins along with perfumed minerality from the Cabernet Franc in the blend. Drink this wine from 2024. Roger Voss" - 94/100,

Edited by CHLEMCBC on Sunday 15th December 18:02

[DoubleSix]

Mobile Chicane said:

15C surely.

18C is way too high.

The kitchen cooler sees pretty high turnover, so i prefer it near drinking temp.

My understanding is consistency of temperature is more important than the absolute number.

[DoubleSix]

CHLEMCBC said:

Pauillac::

Tasting notes
An impressive presence and depth to this wine. Dark purple in colour , with an elegant nose of blackcurrents and blackberries complimented by spicey oak and earthy notes amid aromas. The palate is well balanced with nicely arranged and smooth tannins that cast a gently grainy texture through the finish. A blend of 60% cabernet sauvignon, 33% merlot, 6% cabernet franc and 1% petit verdot. Drinking 2021-2031

Figeac:

Critic tasting note: (2015 vintage) "This estate, run on biodynamic principles, has made a rich wine with density and intense, pure black-currant fruits. It has a firm backbone of tannins along with perfumed minerality from the Cabernet Franc in the blend. Drink this wine from 2024. Roger Voss" - 94/100,

Edited by CHLEMCBC on Sunday 15th December 18:02

Thanks. So in the first extract, the vintage isn’t specified. So how do you know the optimal time to drink a particular vintage, 2016 in this case?

[CHLEMCBC]

DoubleSix said:

Thanks. So in the first extract, the vintage isn’t specified. So how do you know the optimal time to drink a particular vintage, 2016 in this case?

I googled that vintage

[NDA]

DoubleSix said:

Mobile Chicane said:

15C surely.

18C is way too high.

The kitchen cooler sees pretty high turnover, so i prefer it near drinking temp.

My understanding is consistency of temperature is more important than the absolute number.

Yes and no. Consistency is certainly good - but the warmer it is, the faster it will mature. 12-15º C is the ideal temperature - I keep all my wines at 12º and take them out a few hours before drinking.

ETA: Wines do not keep indefinitely - far from it. Lions de Batailley is the second wine of Chateau Batailley and about half the price. Nice wine and will keep for a while, but won't have the legs of the bigger wine.

Edited by NDA on Sunday 15th December 18:36

[DoubleSix]

NDA said:

DoubleSix said:

Mobile Chicane said:

15C surely.

18C is way too high.

The kitchen cooler sees pretty high turnover, so i prefer it near drinking temp.

My understanding is consistency of temperature is more important than the absolute number.

Yes and no. Consistency is certainly good - but the warmer it is, the faster it will mature. 12-15º C is the ideal temperature - I keep all my wines at 12º and take them out a few hours before drinking.

ETA: Wines do not keep indefinitely - far from it. Lions de Batailley is the second wine of Chateau Batailley and about half the price. Nice wine and will keep for a while, but won't have the legs of the bigger wine.

Edited by NDA on Sunday 15th December 18:36

Makes sense. I certainly don’t have a “few hours” to wait of an evening so the higher level works for my high turnover chiller.

So the 2016 will still be a good drink as of now and the next few years, but not beyond?

[NDA]

DoubleSix said:

Makes sense. I certainly don’t have a “few hours” to wait of an evening so the higher level works for my high turnover chiller.

So the 2016 will still be a good drink as of now and the next few years, but not beyond?

The '16 will be fine for several years - I'm guessing, but I'd say another 5 years easily. It sounds like you're going to drink it a long time before then with your 'high turnover'. It's a £30 bottle, so not worth hanging on to for years as it's drinking now.

The '15 Tour Figeac is a better wine - a great year too. Will keep until 2035 I should think... It also will need some time to soften if your drinking it sooner - in other words you might need to open it and decant and/or wait half an hour or more.

Edited by NDA on Sunday 15th December 18:50

[DoubleSix]

Great knowledge, thanks NDA.

Yeah, they’ll likely both be consumed over Christmas, but you’ve settled a discussion and i’ve learnt some wine stuff.

[LooneyTunes]

NDA said:

DoubleSix said:

Makes sense. I certainly don’t have a “few hours” to wait of an evening so the higher level works for my high turnover chiller.

So the 2016 will still be a good drink as of now and the next few years, but not beyond?

The '16 will be fine for several years - I'm guessing, but I'd say another 5 years easily. It sounds like you're going to drink it a long time before then with your 'high turnover'. It's a £30 bottle, so not worth hanging on to for years as it's drinking now.

The '15 Tour Figeac is a better wine - a great year too. Will keep until 2035 I should think... It also will need some time to soften if your drinking it sooner - in other words you might need to open it and decant and/or wait half an hour or more.

Edited by NDA on Sunday 15th December 18:50

2016 is perhaps the best vintage in the past decade, maybe two+. Especially if one takes into account improvements in winemaking. Batailley isn’t a bad chateaux, Lions being their second wine. I’d be drinking them the other way round, mainly on the relative strength of the vintage, either way within about 5 years or so.

Edit: got mixed up with another not-quite-Figeac.

DoubleSix said:

Yeah, they’ll likely both be consumed over Christmas

In that case it’s be well worth decanting an hour or so ahead of drinking. It’ll make a difference.

Edited by LooneyTunes on Sunday 15th December 19:13

[oddman]

Wines like this I would normally pull from the rack and stand vertically for at least 24 hours. I expect both will have thrown a bit of fine sediment. You can decant but another option is decant into jug, rinse bottle and return wine to bottle. That does a good job of oxygenation and won't kill a mid range, mid age claret.

Incidentally I store my wine in a cupboard under the stairs which has an external insulated wall and a wall to the garage. It stays cooler than the rest of the house but certainly not chilled and not entirely stable in temperature from one month to the next. I've had classed growths in there for 20 years and they have fared very well.

There is the additional question of whether you prefer mature claret. Reference wine for whether you like old wine flavours is Rioja - if you like the Riservas and Gran Riservas over the Crianza or younger wines, you'll encounter similar flavour profiles in old claret. I would guess that most of my wine drinking friends don't and wine is so much more reliable these days it doesn't 'need' aging like it did many years ago. I would only drink yours with another decade of age if I was eating with something pretty savoury and bland eg. roast lamb no garlic. Another decade and they (particularly the Pauillac) will have dropped some of their fruit and more funky mature flavours like mineral, leather, cedar, mushroom, vegetal notes and acidity will come to the fore. These pair well with subtle savoury flavours. These are really appreciated by some folk but if up front black fruit is your bag (and why not), you'd be better off drinking them now.

[DoubleSix]

Bombastic buffery!! Love it thx

[omniflow]

DoubleSix said:

Bombastic buffery!! Love it thx

Reminds me of a tutored wine tasting I went on about 10 - 15 years ago. It was at Berry Bros and a friend of mine had blagged a place for me on a corporate do.

We were tasting medal winning red wines at a variety of price points, starting at £95 / bottle and ending at £460 / bottle (Haut Brion I think).

You can imagine the expectations building up for the most expensive bottle, and all I can really remember is massive disappointment and the guy leading the tasting saying things like (I'm paraphrasing here) - "You've got to learn to appreciate the subtle nuances". Seriously - £460 / bottle and you've got to LEARN to like it. I didn't exactly dislike it, but I'd have been disappointed if I'd paid more than £20 for it in a wine merchant.

That evening taught me all I needed to know about drinking red wine. Find something you like, and drink it.

[LooneyTunes]

oddman said:

Wines like this I would normally pull from the rack and stand vertically for at least 24 hours. I expect both will have thrown a bit of fine sediment. You can decant but another option is decant into jug, rinse bottle and return wine to bottle. That does a good job of oxygenation and won't kill a mid range, mid age claret.

Incidentally I store my wine in a cupboard under the stairs which has an external insulated wall and a wall to the garage. It stays cooler than the rest of the house but certainly not chilled and not entirely stable in temperature from one month to the next. I've had classed growths in there for 20 years and they have fared very well.

There is the additional question of whether you prefer mature claret. Reference wine for whether you like old wine flavours is Rioja - if you like the Riservas and Gran Riservas over the Crianza or younger wines, you'll encounter similar flavour profiles in old claret. I would guess that most of my wine drinking friends don't and wine is so much more reliable these days it doesn't 'need' aging like it did many years ago. I would only drink yours with another decade of age if I was eating with something pretty savoury and bland eg. roast lamb no garlic. Another decade and they (particularly the Pauillac) will have dropped some of their fruit and more funky mature flavours like mineral, leather, cedar, mushroom, vegetal notes and acidity will come to the fore. These pair well with subtle savoury flavours. These are really appreciated by some folk but if up front black fruit is your bag (and why not), you'd be better off drinking them now.

Would broadly agree, especially with respect to many people liking the more primary stages, but there are a few exceptions when it comes to aging Bordeaux. 2005 being a good example, where many of the classed growths really do still need more time. Huge contrast to slightly younger 2009 many of which are just so opulent and seductive right now, or 2014 (an overlooked vintage with some wines drinking really well at the moment and good deals to be had).

Had an interesting dinner recently where we consumed a vertical of 2016/2019/2020 and it was astonishing how approachable they had already become. That will be an interesting trilogy of vintages to follow in the future, albeit I think that '19 may be one I don't love in general and will probably sell off in due course.

omniflow said:

You can imagine the expectations building up for the most expensive bottle, and all I can really remember is massive disappointment and the guy leading the tasting saying things like (I'm paraphrasing here) - "You've got to learn to appreciate the subtle nuances". Seriously - £460 / bottle and you've got to LEARN to like it. I didn't exactly dislike it, but I'd have been disappointed if I'd paid more than £20 for it in a wine merchant.

That evening taught me all I needed to know about drinking red wine. Find something you like, and drink it.

The problem with tastings is that your favourite wines of the night leave the rest in the shade, no matter how good they all are (or where your favourite "ought" to sit in any perceived hierarchy). Where it gets geeky is when you're tasting to form a view of what you might want to buy to drink in 10/20 years time. But you're right, drink what you like!

[oddman]

LooneyTunes said:

omniflow said:

You can imagine the expectations building up for the most expensive bottle, and all I can really remember is massive disappointment and the guy leading the tasting saying things like (I'm paraphrasing here) - "You've got to learn to appreciate the subtle nuances". Seriously - £460 / bottle and you've got to LEARN to like it. I didn't exactly dislike it, but I'd have been disappointed if I'd paid more than £20 for it in a wine merchant.

That evening taught me all I needed to know about drinking red wine. Find something you like, and drink it.

The problem with tastings is that your favourite wines of the night leave the rest in the shade, no matter how good they all are (or where your favourite "ought" to sit in any perceived hierarchy). Where it gets geeky is when you're tasting to form a view of what you might want to buy to drink in 10/20 years time. But you're right, drink what you like!

Quite - if something tickles your olfactory bulb and lights up your frontal lobe it doesn't matter where it sits in the heirarchy. Anything else is likely to be in its shadow.

I'm not keen on tasting events for precisely this reason I would rather put one wine or an interesting selection centre stage and pair them with lovely food. For me wine is in the realm of art and culture not a competetive sport.

I think we have to accept that for the very top wines, the price has entirely broken free from value and is the realm of oligarchs and show offs for whom the price isn't a consideration or for geeks who accept they are paying a very high entry price for a non guaranteed outcome. At least in Bordeaux there is an association with land, grape and bottle and vaguely logical classification system. Also there's a lot of information available for purchasers so for bottom feeders like me there are still great wines to find. Burgundy is a nightmare.

[The G Kid]

NDA said:

The '16 will be fine for several years - I'm guessing, but I'd say another 5 years easily. It sounds like you're going to drink it a long time before then with your 'high turnover'. It's a £30 bottle, so not worth hanging on to for years as it's drinking now.

The '15 Tour Figeac is a better wine - a great year too. Will keep until 2035 I should think... It also will need some time to soften if your drinking it sooner - in other words you might need to open it and decant and/or wait half an hour or more.

Edited by NDA on Sunday 15th December 18:50

Worth remembering everyone's tastes are different. Personally I'm not a big fan of Figeac (I prefer left bank generally). I had an 18 of the Pauillac last week, and it was enjoyable but the 16 is way better.

I'm sure both will be enjoyed over Christmas!

[Mobile Chicane]

Nobody should have to 'learn' to enjoy an expensive wine.

At best, it's the Emperor's New Clothes, at worst, just w@nk.

The learning for me, having had the good fortune to enjoy the odd pricey bottle, is a £400 wine four times better than a £100 wine? Eight times better than a £50 wine?

Of course not.

[CHLEMCBC]

I like the Aussie Jam Shed rubbish. Suits my taste for £7

[boyse7en]

CHLEMCBC said:

I like the Aussie Jam Shed rubbish. Suits my taste for £7

I go cheaper and buy Aldi's knock-off version called Jammie Red Malbec. Although it does lack some subtle nuances and a gritty finish.