Seafront Plodder Wrote:Yes but how does one know whether a bottle will improve by laying down?
I recall many years ago my brother in law getting confused with the franc/£ exchange rate on a day trip and spending £35 on a bottle (probably would have cost twice that here). Once he realised, he decided to keep it for a special occasion and stored it for around 7 years.
On the birth of his twins he opened it and it tasted like rancid rats piss. 
...His kids are pig-ugly too. 
I'd guess knowing, is where the ponce bit comes in.
[Puts on baseball cap with WINE PONCE embroidered on it.]
A good question, with a number of answers.
First some ground rules:
Regarding
white wine, most of what you see widely available won't improve much at all. Champagne, most decent white Burgundy, and in fact most chardonnays aged in wood for a while will usually improve. By 'improve', bear in mind I mean get richer and fatter (cue jokes), darker in colour and fuller, longer-lasting flavours. It's very possible that you might not like that style of white. If you like fresh, clean, zingy whites then drink as young as possible.
A generalisation, but MOST
red wines will improve with age IMHO. Generally speaking, the lighter styles of red like ordinary Beaujolais, most other gamays, Loire reds, lighter Italians like Valpolicella
won't get better, and will only lose their main selling point -- their freshness and vibrancy.
But it's more complicated than that. Vintages, particularly in the less sun-baked wine areas, are all important. Why is Chateau Lafite 2005 going for £10,000 a case (according to an email received this morning, offering it to me at the 'bargain price' of £9,500), while Ch Lafite 2004 and 2006 half the price? Because the weather in Bordeaux wasn't so favourable those years, so the grapes didn't ripen so well, so the wines aren't quite as good, and won't last as long.
And how they're made. Aged in wooden casks for a while will give the wine tannins whch will help longevity (particularly if the wood is new). Whether they are vinified on their stalks .... at what point the juice is run off the skins (all sources of tannin).
So there are number of things to take into account. But for red wine, a real general guideline is that it is very likely to benefit from even just a year or two of storing, particularly if it's not at the very cheapest level. So anything over a fiver will
probably improve. But ultimately, the best advice is to go to a decent wine shop (Oddbins, or any specialist -- not your corner offie), and ask them.
As for your brother-in-law's disppointing bottle, I'd suggest some possibilities:
- it was at its peak when bought, and was only going to decline
- it was a red Burgundy of some kind, which are notoriously inconsistent even at the pricier level
- perhaps the most likely: he stored the bottle standing up and/or in a centrally-heated room, meaning the cork dried out just enough to admit some air, oxidising the wine and making it undrinkable.
