Wine Drinking Windows

For some of you wine drinking windows may be a familiar wine concept but not for others. The first time my professor asked me: “what do you think about the drinking window of this wine?”,  I said: “what do you mean?”.

Every further step I took in my wine education, I ended up blocked with new terms. But not because I didn’t understand their meaning, if not because I had the fixation to make a systematic translation of every single word or concepts from English to my native languages looking for a literal meaning. ie. “Drinking window”: drinking + window= a window where  to drink?! 

BUT, WHAT IS “WINE DRINKING WINDOWS”? 

Drinking window or “drink recommendation”, means the prediction time a wine expert estimates to drink a wine at its very best.

Effectively, you may be thinking that not everyone enjoys a wine as the same because some people enjoy drinking wine when it is young and more vibrant, and others when complex tertiary aromas are developed in bottle aged. However, we agree that everyone likes a wine when the acidity is present and well-integrated, the tannins have been softened and the fruit is still present.

SUBJECTIVITY AND OBJECTIVITY OF WINE

• SUBJECTIVITY OF WINE

Not long ago, my best friend, who I met studying Spanish Grammar and Literature at the University, told me:

“ It has to be very difficult what you are doing in blind tastings and, at the same time, fascinating and metaphoric! It’s like when you try to find all aspects of life and you realise that it is not composed of just one thing because, depending on your view, you could “highlight” one point more than other; as when you taste a wine. And that means that every point of view is absolutely beautiful […]”

During all my years at the university, I read all classics and contemporary writers getting deep in their historic moment, society, passions, life, family, lovers…always in the search of something that helped me to understand the sense of their writings. That was so passionate and exciting. Hours in the library, in that time the internet just started “lucky me” reading all possible to get enough knowledge to analyse most objectively their texts, leaving away my subjective point of view. 

Fifteen years later, I am writing this article while I immerse myself in this passionate wine education world. I study wine countries, terroirs, variety grapes, climates, microclimates, soils, topography…to have a deep knowledge “to taste” a wine without considering my personal and subjective points. And that is a challenge because wine, in general, is subjective as literature or life, as my friend also says, can be. 

Subjective in the pleasure to drink it. Subjective in its reception because what I find sublime, you can find it acceptable. Subjective in the perception of flavours and aromas. And, finally, subjective from the point of the winemakers because they will impart something about their personality into the wines as all writers, painter, artists…in their creations.

• OBJECTIVITY OF WINE

Once you know that there is  a subjective point in wine and its study, in my opinion, there is a  considerable OBJECTIVE POINT that only you get with wine education, high experience in wine tasting,  and knowing very well your senses that “interact” with wine (sight, sense of smell, taste). In this way, you will be able to give an accurate judgment not just based in intuition. 

And, although, the exact point of a wine’s “peak” is not 100% predictable, a wine educated can provide guidelines on a wine’s drinking windows based on knowledge and experience, as I mentioned before, and  having in consideration the influence ageing ability in wines:

• Which grape varieties have the potential to age (many varieties do not benefit from ageing)

• Vinification process (duration of maceration, oak fermentation and/or oak maturation will determinate the phenolic compounds present in wines)

• pH wines (wines with lower pH has more ageing potential)

• Vintage (Sugar, acids and phenolics into water will determine how well a wine can age) 

• Storage conditions

• Cork conditions

• …

COATES LAW OF MATURITY

Clive Coates, a British wine writer and Master of wine in the late 60s and 70s, wrote the Coates Law of Maturity, a principle used in wine tasting relating to the ageing ability of a wine. 

The principle said that a wine will remain at its peak drinking quality for a period of time EQUAL to the time the wine took reaching its best potential. 

For example: in the 2010s, you bought 6 bottles of  Bourgogne -La Tâche Grand Cru 2005 – Vosne  Romanée around £5000/ each bottle and you kept them in your cellar waiting for a beneficial bottle aged. In 2012s, you opened one bootle and when you tasted it, you thought the wine required a little more time to integrate the tannins and develop complex tertiary aromas. 3 years later, in 2015s, you decided to open another bottle of the same wine, and then you found it very pleasing in texture, aroma and mouthfeel. 

Under the principle of Coates Law of Maturity, the wine will continue to be drunk at an optimal maturation for that DRINKER until it has reached 10 years more.  After these 10 years, those positive traits that this particular drinker perceived in that wine will start to fade. 

(I must say that although the principle of Coates Law of Maturity may prove a useful guideline, there are discrepancies among wine professionals).

IMPORTANCE OF WINE DRINKING WINDOWS

Considering drinking windows is very important to understand some vintages wines and if you are storing or investing in wine. 

If you are a wine buyer or someone ask your advice to invest in wine because you are a wine educator, apart from “trendy” styles, favourite wines, reception of customers and cost of having the wines in the cellar without selling them looking for an optimum price,  you should think, before buying the wines, about their drinking windows. I believe, you will not want to lose your investment  by not drinking or selling the wines at their peak of their maturity and their very best to drink.

Like everything in life, Knowledge and years of expertise are the KEYS.

Founder, 7p Aperitivo.