I always thought wine got better with age, but I have been told recently that the reds do go bad after awhile.
Any advice on how often to clear out a wine rack?
Tagged with: wine rack
Filed under: All Things Wine
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Almost all wines under $30 are meant to be drunk immediately. Quality California cabs are meant to be drunk 5-10 years after the vintage. Good pinot should be held for 3-5 years after the vintage.
Quality French and Italian wines are often meant to be held much longer–often 10-20 years after the vintage. Legendary old world wines are purported to last 50 years or more.
The reason for this is a combination of things. Casual wine drinkers usually don’t keep a cellar and have no use for aged wine. Also, California and Australia have warmer climates and produce ripe, high alcohol, low acidity wine (in general at least). If you age a cheap red wine, all of the acid will be gone and the fruit will have died down, leaving you with a reddish-brown, leathery, watery, alcohol drink. Not very pleasant.
If opened and not properly handled in time it will turn to vingar. However in your wine rack if cooled to the right temputure and kept in a dark area with the bottles horizontal unopened should keep for many years….
It depends on the quality of the wine and if it is being stored in a proper refrigerated cellar. If you have a rack in your kitchen that isn’t refrigerated I wouldn’t keep anything over a couple of months. The temperature variations will ruin the wine. In a proper cellar that is refrigerated and kept at a constant temperature some red wines and champagnes will keep for decades. If you don’t have a cellar you probably don’t own anything that will last more than a year in a cellar. Most white wines kept in a cellar are best drunk within 1-2 years. Quality is key. I have 40 year old bordeauxs in my cellar that have not even hit their prime yet!
french and italian wines will hold ages but peak at about 20 years…california cabs,the good ones will hold 10 or so, the lower priced wines …reds I wouldn’t go over 5.and whites are best 2 to 3 years beyond the label year, unless they are french…then about 10 years….I just enjoyed a 1996 pulingy montrachet and it was sublime.
It really depends on the quality of the wine. About 90% of the wines you buy should be drunk within about two to five years.
Talk to a wine retailer and get educated on what to buy, drink and store.
I am drinking 20 year old reds now. If kept on their side, in a consistent and moderate temperature you can keep them for many years.
The older the wine the more character it develops.
well the old adage is the older the white the younger the red. that is true but all wine will eventually turn to vinegar.