Time change

Once upon a time, not all that long ago I might add, the majority of red wine was made to age for fairly long periods of time. Even the humble, and in those days inexpensive, Lindemans Nyrang Hermitage could easily last 15 years in a good vintage, and frequently even longer. We are talking the equivalent of the say the Rosemount Split Label series in today’s terms.

These inexpensive older style wines really took many years to show their best but you can bet your bottom dollar that the vast majority of it was consumed within a few hours of purchase. So what’s changed? Well, the vast majority of wine is still consumed within hours of purchase and only a very small percentage is aged for any length of time, so that hasn’t changed. However, more and more wine companies are altering the way wine is made so that it’s a lot more approachable when young. These wines tend to be a lot softer, less tannic and fruit forward. In many cases an increased use of technology has been used to achieve these early style-drinking wines.

So the big question is, “is this a good or a bad thing?” If you are a stick in the mud backward looking traditionalist who is afraid of any change, the answer is “its shocking and an abomination.” However if you are one of the multitudes of casual wine drinkers who buys a bottle of wine occasionally in a restaurant to have with dinner, or doesn’t want to bother cellaring wines, you would appreciate the results of this technology.

Hands up those that have tried the enjoy wines like McShanes Shiraz, Houghton’s Franklin River Shiraz or even the humble Rosemount Diamond Label? All these wines, and they vary in price from about $10 to $30, are all forward early drinking styles that are ready to be consumed on release and won’t get much better (if at all) with age. Some of these wines are pretty good, for example I thoroughly enjoy the McShanes Shiraz.

Its fair to say that most wine drinkers, no matter how experienced or inexperienced they may be would enjoy some of these wines, so is the technology that enables these wines to be made really so bad? We hear about processes like reverse osmosis, micro oxygenation and pasteurization; so are these processes such a bastardisation of wine?

Most of the time, not in my book, it’s a matter of horses for courses. They can manipulate the early drinking wine as much as they like to make it more enjoyable for immediate consumption. The trick is to ensure that when you are buying wine to cellar that it has the right balance of tannins, acid and fruit to last. This is a particularly important point and even applies to the super premium wines. For example the 91 Stonewall is drinking beautifully now and the 94 is yet to peak. However, because they have changed the style (and moved to French Oak,) the 96 is very approachable now and in my opinion, won’t last as long as the previous good vintages. Many people love the new Stonewall style, unfortunately I am not one of them preferring the old fashioned version, but that’s just a matter of personal choice.

In summary, it’s a matter of selecting the wine based on your ageing requirements. If you are buying a bottle of wine to drink tonight, why buy one that will peak in 20 years time? You are better off in many cases going for the more approachable wine. The one thing you can bank on is that you will see more of these early drinking style wines, like it or not that’s the way things are going.

Cheers