Aug 15 2009
Drink Now or Lay Down?
Should I drink this wine now or lay it down in my cellar?
The short answer is: It depends on how thirsty you are!
The wrong answer is: It depends on how much the wine costs.
The right answer is: What’s for dinner (i.e. can it hold up to bright acidity or will it overpower elegance)? And will the wine weather the long-hall (i.e. will it still have enough aromatics and texture to seduce the palate)?
For a little insider information, many wineries respond to this question by telling you it is good now or later because they don’t know what you want to hear and which style you cherish more. At Fiddlehead, I will tell you the same…but for a different reason! Read on…
In my humble opinion, it has a lot to do with balance in the wine and the intended style. Some of the wines that are best to drink now are younger wines and are crafted to be very soft and silky, in part because they have low acidity and big fruit. Often times these wines will not age well in the cellar. But they’re delicious today!
Some wines attack the inside of your mouth like bitter chocolate (high tannins) or an under-ripe tomato (high acidity) and just need a little time in the bottle — in other words, in your cellar — to show their silkiness and quality of deliciousness. But in addition to a velvety quality, they gain an admired complexity that young wines simply do not have. It’s these different styles that make the world go ‘round. There isn’t a right or wrong!
At Fiddlehead, I care a lot about the balance in the wine; it’s just how my palate works. What this means to me is that all of the components are balanced by each other in terms of their intensity. This includes the aromatics and all of the components stimulating the palate, including the fruit, the alcohol, the tannins, and the acidity. When I first bottle a wine these components are in balance but still in a youthful, awkward stage. With a couple years of bottle age, the edges soften and these components meld together to feel and taste delicious to your palate. It is my commitment to hold these young wines (on my buck!) and to release them with just enough bottle age so that you may enjoy them immediately upon release. I don’t want to have to tell you that the wine is awkward now but that you’ll enjoy it with a few years of bottle age. The more sophisticated your palate gets, the more you appreciate this concept of balance.
So what’s the big deal of having a wine cellar?
In general, in the first five years in the life of a wine there is more youthful fruit intensity and more aggressive mouth feel. And as wines age they diminish in their fruit intensity, in other words, the young fruit becomes less recognized as fresh fruit and more savory, and the palate sensation grows in its silkiness. But only patience allows you to see this. We love to show older vintages of our wines because of how successfully they age…even our non-oak aged Goosebury Sauvignon Blanc! It’s amazing to taste a wine with 20 years of bottle age. And those of you who came to our Anniversary celebration were able to taste our rock star 1989 Pinot Noir!
It is a rare occasion that you are able to taste a library wine and even purchase it as an older wine. Most wineries force you to take the gamble on your own. But we’re not most wineries…and your luck just changed! For the summer, we are pouring a different library wine (Pinot Noir exclusively) each month which is also available for purchase. And if you join us at our Celebration of Harvest Open House in mid-October, you’ll be able to judge for yourself as we pour a whole line-up of new and old. Take the Fiddlehead challenge and come see what I mean. At this event, tell me that you have read this commentary and I will give you 10% off the cost of your library purchase that day!
