About Old Wines
Old Wines that will improve with long term cellaring (meaning decades) are only likely to be found at a specialist independent wine merchant, and only then with careful selection, taking advice from the merchant in question if appropriate.
Such wines need to be actively sought out, and don’t usually come cheap, and I believe these are the reasons why many wines that simply aren’t up to the job are laid down instead. Port is an excellent example of this.
Port has an image of ageing well, an image based on the properties of wines from the top “declared” vintages. Many people, even those not generally familiar with wine, are aware that the ‘laying down’ of Port as a future gift for a child, or godchild, is a well-practiced tradition.
Trying to coax nearly three decades of cellaring out of an LBV Port from a weak vintage (such as 1974) is a hopeless affair. Trying to do so by storing the wines in the loft, however, is a recipe for disaster.
Wines that are purchased with the aim of cellaring for decades must be stored correctly, otherwise they will never achieve what potential they have. Find out more about the old wine.
The two most guiding influence of Old World style winemaking is that of tradition and terroir. The former refers to the long history of a wine region while the later refers to geography and the unique characteristics of a place. The centuries old history of many Old World wine region have given the regions time to develop and adapt techniques that presumably best suit a particular vine growing area. These can include which grape varieties to plant, trellising methods, maximum permitted yields, as well as winemaking techniques. Over times these traditional practices became enshrined in local regulations such as the French Appellation d’origine contrôlée (AOC), Italian Denominazione di origine controllata (DOC), Spanish Denominación de Origen (DO) and Portuguese Denominação de Origem Controlada (DOC) laws.
Terroir is often used to describe the aspects of a wine region such as soil, climate and topography that are often out of the winemakers control. They are the unique attributes that, theoretically, make a Sangiovese based wine from Chianti taste different from a Sangiovese based wine made anywhere else in the world even if the exact same winemaking techniques are used. While old wine in the New World are often labeled based on the varietal (such as Chardonnay or Tempranillo), wines in the Old World are generally labeled based on the region or place that they come from (such as Montrachet or Ribera del Duero). This is because Old World winemakers believe that the unique terroir-driven characteristics of where a wine comes from plays a more distinct role in shaping the resulting wine than the grape variety itself.
Viticulture
Viticulture in most of the Old World wine regions dates back to several hundred or even thousands of years with the Phoenicians, Greeks and Romans establishing some of the earliest vineyards. Over centuries these Old wine regions have developed viticultural techniques and practices adapted around their unique climates and landscapes. Many of these practices are enshrined in local wine laws and regulations such as the French Appellation d’origine contrôlée (AOC) regulations. One distinction between an Old World vineyard and a New World vineyard is generally the high vine density and close proximately of plantings in the Old World, which were often planted years before the use of mechanical agriculture became popular. In regions such as Bordeaux, vines were often planted 3 feet (1 meter) apart in rows that were also separated by 3 feet with spacing that was sufficient for pruning and harvesting being done manually. In New World wine regions like Australia, which was quick to adopt mechanical techniques, vines were often planted apart 12ft by 8ft (3.7m by 2.5m). While spacing between vine rows has shrunk in many Old World wine regions began adopting mechanical techniques in the late 20th century, some regions are still characterized by the high density of vines in their vineyards.
Winemaking
Old World winemaking is often terroir driven with emphasis being placed on how well the wine communicates the sense of place where it originated. For example, a winemaker making a Riesling from the Mosel (wine) will often try to highlight the unique traits of the Mosel wine region (such as its slate soils) with the wine expressing those traits in the form of minerality. In the New World, emphasis is often placed on the winemaker and the techniques used to bring out the fruit flavors of a wine (a style known as “fruit driven”). New World winemakers tend to be more open to experimenting with new scientific advances (such as the use of enzymes as an additive) while the terroir influence of Old World winemakers will often attempt to downplay the role of the winemaker and avoid techniques that may mask or distort the expression of terroir. Old World winemakers tend to be more open to use of wild, ambient yeasts during the fermentation process as a part of the terroir while New World winemakers tend to favor cultured yeast strains.
Other techniques associated with Old World winemakers include higher fermentation temperatures and a period of extended maceration following fermentation where the wine can leech more phenolic compounds from the grape skins. This can create more tannic and austere wines with more layers of complexity that require longer periods of bottle aging in order to mature. In contrast, the technique of transferring the must into oak barrels during fermentation and inducing malolactic fermentation early is more commonly associated with New World wine regions and wines that are softer and mature earlier.
