Sorting Through the Old Bottles for a Taste of Those Vintage Years

Just because a wine is old is no reason to revere it. On the other hand, some old wine, carefully nurtured, can be a treasure worth cooing over.

All this came to mind two weeks ago when, within a 24-hour period, I had a chance to taste four dozen old treasures dating back to the early 1970s. Doesn’t sound particularly old? If you had been there for about 40 of the wines, you would realize how wizened some of them had become.

The first event was put together in San Francisco by the Hotel Sofitel chain in San Francisco, which had bought a collection of wine from the Beverly Wilshire Hotel’s wine cellar. Well, perhaps it wasn’t a “cellar.” It appeared that most of the wines had been stored in the trunk of an Oldsmobile.

4,000 Bottles of Wine

Sofitel bought about 4,000 bottles of wine dating back to the 1960s. Most of the imports appeared to be in good shape. Executives were worried, however, about the California wines, fearing some bottles were not stored properly while in Beverly Hills.

Rather than take any chances that the wines were good, the Sofitel asked a dozen wine experts to evaluate the bulk of the California collection. Red wines only. Among those brought in to taste were Andrew Lawlor of Dexter, Mich., and Haskell Norman of Marin County, two of the most knowledgeable wine collectors in the country.

The experience was near disaster. After going through six flights of wine, the conclusion was obvious: the wines all tasted as if they had been kept in erratic storage conditions, in which temperatures were allowed to rise and fall. Most of the wines tasted cooked.

In the first flight of four Merlots, only the 1979 Keenan seemed to be going strong. A ’75 Bynum and ’76 Chateau St. Jean were “maderized.” In a flight of Zinfandels, a ’76 Caymus was fine, but 1977s from Tulocay, Estrella River and Montevina were shot.

It got worse. In the Pinot Noir flight, we discovered Hanzell wines from 1976, 1977 and 1978 to be dull and oxidized; ’77 Santa Cruz Mountain Vineyard was so tannic as to be undrinkable; ’77 Trefethen and ’78 Mt. Eden were flat. Only the ’77 School House and ’78 Chalone showed signs of life.

And even the Chalone was suffering a bit, prompting one evaluator to shake his head and ruefully note, “It’s so hard for California to make a great Pinot Noir, and then when they finally make one, to have someone cook it for you, well, that’s a crime.”

The Cabernets were in better shape, but all clearly had seen better days. Among the sad experiences were 1972 Heitz Martha’s Vineyard; 1974s Beaulieu Private Reserve, Mondavi Reserve, and Gemello; a handful of 1976s (of which the Caymus showed best) and 1977s.

In general, all the wines had brownish edges, and some were downright prune/brown in color. Oxidized odors filled the room.

Hotel Commended

The hotel chain is to be commended for dealing with this situation before a knowledgeable consumer got a bottle at dinner and created a stir.

The hotel is now debating what to do with the wines. One option is to put them into a wine-by-the-glass program and charge modest prices for them.

The following evening, Bob Andrews of Santa Rosa, an inveterate wine collector, staged a birthday party for 50 friends. The wines served were 15 magnums. All the 50-ounce bottles had been stored perfectly in a cellar in which the temperature varies no more than a few degrees year-round.

The wines were impeccable. Not only were they well-chosen, but the perfect storage conditions had made them smell and taste fresh and lively--and the experience was all the more exciting for me because I had just come from the sadness of the hotel evaluation a day earlier.

Highlights of that dinner were the 1978 Mt. Eden Chardonnay (deep yellow color, very rich, layered taste with crisp finish); 1975 Joseph Swan Zinfandel (intense cherry-ish fruit and deep, rich flavors), and 1971 Ridge Eisele Cabernet (marvelous complexity, like a classic Bordeaux, with deep, rewarding fruit in the taste).

Storage conditions were so perfect for these wines that they could easily have taken another few years before pulling the cork.

The message here is clear: wines that were made to be aged, given perfect storage, will retain their fruit flavors and liveliness for a long time. Wine given less than optimum conditions ought to be consumed sooner, and bottles stored badly will be a dicey situation.

Moreover, tannic red wines that do not get optimum storage conditions begin to lose their fruity qualities sooner than they should, but the tannins stay around, making the wines taste worse than mere oxidative qualities. They remain astringent and bitter.

Stash Best Wines

This is why wine collectors are known to be cave dwellers, why they stash their best wines in remote and cold locations, bury underground their booty. Because that is the surest way to protect the investment, to permit the exotic flavors of an older bottle of red wine to reach their zenith and to provide their maximum enjoyment.

This is why I find it difficult to respond when someone asks me to gauge the value of a single bottle of old wine. Since I can rarely know the storage conditions, I can’t say if a bottle of 1974 Cabernet is worth $100 or $5. If perfectly stored, it should be fine drinking. If not, it may be so bad you wouldn’t want to add it to the stew.

What kind of storage conditions are optimum remains open to debate. I have tasted wine from the dank and musty cellars of Burgundian tombs in which resident bottles haven’t been touched for a century. Many of these wines remain in phenomenal condition, and the proprietors say a major reason is the constant, very cool temperature (about 50 degrees) over the decades, as well as the lack of light and vibration.

But such extreme conditions are not necessary to protect most wine. Those multithousand-dollar, mahogany-faced, refrigerator-sized vaults with their temperature-controlled interiors are more elaborate than most people need. Sure, they do the job, but as far as I’m concerned they are more salve for the soul of the fearful wine owner.

The best case that could be made for a simple storage system comes from wine author Bob Thompson (“Notes on a California Cellarbook” and “Pocket Encyclopedia to California Wine,” among others).

Thompson lives in wine country, where summer temperatures can reach above 100 degrees, and usually do. Thompson’s wines are stored in a shed that has some insulation but no refrigeration unit.

His temperature-controlled system: “In the summer, you open the door in the evenings, and in winter you open the door during the daytime,” says Thompson, swearing he’s not being facetious.

I have tasted wine from Thompson’s cellar. All have been in near-perfect condition, the same as from the wineries from which they come. Once, a couple of years back, Thompson provided some 23-year-old white wines to a joint-project dinner and they were in impeccable shape.

Temperature Swings

Thompson reasons, and I agree fully, that the danger to wine is wide temperature swings, and that the liquid inside a bottle of wine doesn’t change anywhere near as rapidly as the air temperature. If the bottles are stored in a closed cardboard or wooden box, the air trapped in that box acts as a buffer to outside air.

For instance, when the outside temperature reaches 100, the temperature of the air inside the storage space may be only 80, but the temperature of the liquid may remain 65. No, this isn’t optimum, but it certainly beats spending thousands on a wine storage system.

All that does is prevent the collector from spending those same thousands on more wine to store.

Wine of the Week: 1982 Tenute Marchese Antinori Riserva ($16)--This is a wonderful Chianti Classico with verve of fruit and the soul of Tuscany in its taste. It’s not a particularly heavy wine, but it delivers flavors that are pure Chianti. And its underlying depth usually is found these days only in wines selling for $22 and up. The Antinori line is often discounted too, making this a fine choice for Italian cuisine.