"Through the Crystal" – Louis Orizé
Humans put all their good into wine:
Courage, joy, perseverance, love, optimism. Nature gives wine all its beauty: passion, power, light, color, mystery.
Does wine have a "shelf life"?
Caring about the shelf life of food is the subconscious behavior of many people, if you get a bottle of wine, you may see a shelf life on the back label: "10 years".
As everyone knows, this point is very inappropriate for wine.
In other words, if the life cycle of a wine is measured by shelf life, then Lafite in 82 years and Kande in 45 years are expired alcoholic beverages.
Red wine "shelf life" is the country's earlier mandatory requirements for the food industry outer packaging box, in order to cater to the characteristics of our country, considering the purchase habits of consumers, many imported wines will be marked with a 10-year shelf life.
Since October 1, 2006, the "General Rules for the Labeling of Prepackaged Beverage Wine" officially implemented in China stipulates that wine and other alcoholic beverages with an alcohol content of more than 10% can not be marked with a shelf life.
Therefore, in recent years, some imported wines have no longer marked the shelf life.
What is the "drinking period" of wine?
Wine is a living organism that has different flavors for different ages after a life cycle from birth, growth, maturity to decay.
Compared with the shelf life of wine, we should pay more attention to the drinking period of wine.
Different wines have varying life cycles, with some ripening rapidly and reaching their peaks, with only a few short months of their lifetime.
When the wine has passed the drinking period, it does not mean that it is broken or has passed the shelf life, but that the aroma, flavor, texture, etc. of the bottle of wine have been slowly lost and are not worth tasting.
What is the "drinking period" of the wine?
The wine's drinking period depends largely on the preferences of different people, but there are some guidelines for reference.
Generally, entry-level wines, or table wines, should be better drunk when they are young to taste its delicious fruity aroma;
Wines with aging potential need to be opened up by the sedimentation of years to open up their aromas and soften their structure, and even decades later they are still in the drinking period.
When the wine with strong aging potential is first brewed, it is a rich fruity taste, a large number of tannins, so many strong elements fight each other together, resulting in disharmonious drinking, and aging is the process of taming and merging.
How to judge the aging potential?
The stronger the aging potential of a bottle of wine, the later the drinking period will come, and there are many factors that affect the aging potential, including grape varieties, weather conditions, vinification process, the winemaker's skill, and the winemaker's choice of style at the beginning of the brew.
01
Grape varieties
Grape varieties are an important factor affecting the aging potential of wines, different varieties have different characteristics, their tannins, acidity and sugar content will be different, so their aging potential is not the same. For example, Durif, Salad, Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot Noir, Tanro, etc. are all wine grape varieties with great aging potential.
02
Vintage climate
Grape quality is closely related to the climate, soil, breeding and vintage of a region, and grapes of the same variety have better vintage quality and better wine ageing potential. If the vintage is rainy and wet, the grape skin is thin and the water is more, the wine in this vintage will generally be fast ripe and the aging potential is not good; in the hot and dry year, the grape skin is thick, and the tannins produced are stronger, and the aging potential is better.
03
grapevine
In the process of growing the vine, its root system will continue to extend downwards, and the developed root system of the century-old vine can go deep into the ground for more than 30 meters, absorbing a lot of water and nutrients, and the flavor accumulated by itself is also richer. Old vine wines have a rare and valuable potential - unique flavors, with a very strong tannin structure, and the wines produced are often complex, rich and deep, with great aging potential.
04
Brewing method
Different wine production methods affect the tannins, acidity and alcohol of the wine, which have a crucial impact on the aging potential. For example, by adjusting the length of maceration time of the grapes, the degree of tannin extraction can be controlled, and by using new oak barrels to ferment and age, as well as by pressing the cap and drizzling the skin, more tannins can also be given to the wine. In addition, some wines undergo malic acid-lactic fermentation when they are made, so that the original sharp malic acid in the wine is replaced by a soft lactic acid, and the acidity is slightly reduced.
05
Bottling method
What kind of stopper to seal the bottle directly affects the amount of oxygen entering the wine, and also directly affects the level of the wine's aging potential, thus determining the best drinking period of the wine. For the average wine, choosing an oak stopper or screw cap is great, but for a wine that needs to age for a long time, the best choice is natural oak stopper.
06
Storage environment
No matter how good the quality of the wine is, if it is not stored properly, it can easily age or even deteriorate. Generally cool, constant temperature, better ventilation, dark light and no odor is the most ideal environment for storing wine. In addition, when storing wine with cork stopper seals, the wine should be tilted down 45º to ensure that the cork is in full contact with the wine, prevent the cork from drying out and causing air to enter the bottle, and accelerate the oxidation of the wine.
In general, while we follow the "best drinking period" of wine, we do not have to be too attached to the "drinking period", a good bottle of wine, at different times will give you different experiences and feelings. As American actress Virginia Madsen put it: "I love the process of wine growing up, and every time I open a bottle of wine I surprise – it's not the same as the last time I opened it!" ”