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LIVE24SEVEN // Wining & Dining


WINE E X P E R T - PAT R I C IA T E R R Y Young Wines or


Over the years, at the many trade tastings I've attended, the following scenario has occurred many, many times and it goes something along the following lines... Having perhaps spent the best part of two hours tasting a couple of hundred wines and working our way up from the cheaper end of the market, we then arrive at a section of wines that scream quality, concentration, depth, longevity etc.


Aged Wines


We taste the wines, salivate over them, generally get excited and have already in our active imaginations, purchased the wine and sold it on to restaurants so that customers can join in the love we feel for those particular wines...and then the penny inevitably drops and someone in our group (and it has been myself on occasion) will put voice to the nagging truth, which is...”Yes, but it's far too young to actually put on a wine list” ...and so we walk away, shoulders slightly hunched, lamenting quietly on the one that got away.


Arguably, in many instances a wine's youth is not a problem as trends show that the taste for the general public is for wines that are fresh and upfront. It is understandable then that sourcing complex, age-worthy wines is not a priority for many restaurants or retail buyers. After all, there is a huge choice available from the New World, and increasingly from the Old World, that are created to be drunk young and enjoyed for their fruity, easy-going character and broadly speaking the truth is that these wines will form the bulk of most restaurant lists. It is also true that many restaurants and private individuals may want to acquire a few cases of aged and age-worthy bottles and therein lies the crux of the problem: who is going to pay for all that time a wine spends hanging around in a cellar, wherever that may be, waiting to come to full maturity?


Many producers would love to keep wines back until they are fully mature, but the truth is that this practice would bring swift financial ruin. Likewise, most merchants would love to build up a bank of wines to bring forward when they are at their peak, but few continue to do this now as it represents a lot of capital tied up indefinitely. Therefore, if the economics of lovingly caring for and nurturing wines until they are ready for drinking do not work for producers and wine merchants, then it follows that restaurants are equally unable to invest in wine and sit on a cellar until it comes to maturity. Buying wines to age ties up much needed capital and just to hammer the point home, it's dead money, at a time when it’s clear we all have to continue to tighten our belts somewhat.


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