The waiting game by Chris Losh

The waiting game

The other day I was out buying my annual pair of new jeans, and struggling, as usual, to find any that fit. In fact, I was reminded of the dismissive comments of the father of one of my girlfriends when I was sixteen. ‘Seen more meat on a butcher’s pencil,’ he snorted in classic Yorkshire.

Anyway, I couldn’t find any that fit me now, but I bought a great pair that were far too big for me, but should be about right if I’ve porked out a bit by the time I’m in my 50s.

Except, of course, that I didn’t. If you buy anything you want it for then, don’t you? No-one has ever bought a stereo on the assumption that it will be ‘even better in a few years time’ or put aside a piece of beef because it’ll be ‘better when it’s come together a bit.’

So tell me: why should wine be any different? What, frankly, is the point of producers making bottles that won’t be ready to drink for years and years and years? Obviously, at the upper reaches of the wine world, where collectors gather, it’s a different story. If you’re buying top Barolo, Burgundy or claret, decades of longevity is a major part of the appeal.

But this is less than one percent of the wine market, and I reckon at least ten to fifteen percent of wines are released too young.

Current drinkability was a big issue when our judges were looking at some of the categories in the Sommelier Wine Awards. I heard heated debates discussing the relative merits of wines that were good now versus those that had the potential for greatness in a few years time. Almost without exception, the former won out over the latter.

It was the same at our tasting of prestige cuvee champagnes last year. There’s absolutely no question that almost every vintage champagne (and most of the prestige cuvees too) were released miles too young. And we wonder why the public are so hard to entice to trade up... could it be that spending £50 (or £150 on a list) on a bottle of tight, utterly unexpressive vintage champagne/Bordeaux/Chianti has in some way coloured their judgment? Well, what do you think?

It’s one of the reasons why I’ve been so heartened by Castello Banfi’s Belnero, which I got to try a couple of months back and Chateau Civrac, owned by the Englishman, Mark Hellyar.

Belnero is a Supertuscan Sangiovese/Cabernet blend, but without the price tag. In fact, it’s been created to be both affordable to restaurants, and drinkable on release – neither of which can be said about your average Brunello. Around the £15 mark, it tastes Italian, drinks well, and gets on your list sub the £50 mark.

Civrac is similar. A modern, but sensitively-made claret that tastes of where it comes from, and will probably age a bit, but whose principle purpose is to go with food now. Both wines, in other words, are bottles for the times we live in, and Europe needs to produce more of them.

By contrast, a few weeks back I was in Burgundy. There were some spectacular wines but very, very few that would be drinking well inside the next ten years, which made them all but irrelevant for any restaurant that doesn’t have a huge cellar and a tolerant accountant. For your very top Grand Crus, aimed at the international collector, I guess that’s fair enough, but below this I do wonder whether it’s just a convenient excuse for not being able to produce balanced wines.

1 comment

Mark D. 23-07-2010

I like that wine can be released young. Buy a case of wine and drink 1 bottle per year or every 6 months. How else can you learn to understand how wine develops? It doesn't have to be uber expensive, I am on my last bottles of Paul Sauer 1995, Fesle Bonnezeaux 1997 and Von Bhul 1997 . It's been a great journey. Patience is it's own reward.

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