How Wine Ages

Hi Wine Friends,

I had a special experience recently that I wanted to share with you. I was graciously invited to Beaux Frères, one of the Willamette Valley's most esteemed wineries, for a vertical tasting. We explored four vintages from their Estate vineyard, starting from their very first in 1992 and stopping every decade - at 2002 and 2012 - before ending with their current release of 2022. It was an incredible experience on a few different levels. (Watch our conversation here)

Aging Wine: A Sensory Study

From a technical standpoint, it was fascinating to witness how wine evolves over time. If you're not familiar with the science of wine aging, here's the gist: as wine matures, its fruitiness mellows, making room for earthier, spicier, and more mineral-driven notes. Young wines burst with fruit flavors, while aged ones introduce us to complex, intriguing notes like forest floor, mushrooms, iron and leather.

There are a few essential wine-tasting terms relevant when discussing aged wines: primary, secondary, and tertiary tasting notes. Primary notes originate from the grapes themselves and from the vineyard's unique terroir. Since all four wines came from the same vines, there were distinct flavors inherent to Pinot Noir and the growing conditions on Ribbon Ridge that played a throughline: pomegranate, wild raspberry, rose petal and bramble.

Secondary tasting notes arise from winemaking choices - everything that happens once the grapes are picked and vinification begins. Factors such as yeast selection, maceration duration, punchdown frequency, and vessel type greatly influence a wine's present and future flavors. When you taste brioche from lees aging, or baking spice from elevage in French oak - those are secondary tasting notes.

And those winemaking decisions greatly impact a wine’s ability to age! For instance, the 1992 vintage embodied the winemaking style of its era, which involved 100% new, heavily-toasted oak barrels, commercial yeast, extended maceration, and frequent punchdowns. In its youth, this wine might have been a bit too bold, structured and ‘oaky’ for our current palates rooted in the lighter-style wine trends of 2024. Yet this more heavy-handed winemaking approach gifted the wine impressive tannin structure and, thus, an incredibly long lifespan - bringing it to the glass in exquisite condition 32 years later. 

 The Magic of Time

Tertiary tasting notes, the flavors that emerge with time, unveil a wine's true essence. As wine matures, both primary and secondary notes gradually fade, unearthing a treasure trove of savory, nuanced complexities. It’s akin to a sculptor chipping away at marble - the statue was always inside there, it just needed to be uncovered with patience and a skilled hand (in this case, the skilled hand of the winemaker and the deft hand of time).

Now, as someone who revels in the details, I couldn't help but mentally dissect the winemaking stats as we discussed each bottle. I was comparing my brain’s theoretical knowledge of ‘more oak equals more roundness,’ ‘longer maceration equals more tannin structure,’ and ‘ a later pick date lowers acidity and potentially harms aging potential’ to the wines as they passed my lips. And, in many ways, the theoretical knowledge aligned with the experience.

But I was also gifted a profound insight from the day and that was this: that wine is more than data. No matter how much we scrutinize and predict a wine's journey based on numbers and stats, there is an element of mystery that eludes our grasp.

Wine is not an intellectual thought process. It’s a physical experience. You can read all the textbooks you want, but you never truly experience a wine until you actually see, smell and taste it–all the while connecting to the world (and people) around you. Wine engages all of our senses and prompts mindfulness in the present moment. In a world where we're often ensnared by overthinking and overstimulation, wine encourages us to embrace our senses and revel in the here and now.

As we gathered in this historic wine cellar, home to decades of stories and shared experiences, I felt myself growing emotional. I heard Mike (Etzel - Beaux Frère’s proprietor and original winemaker) telling his son Mikey (the current winemaker) how proud he is of him - how awed he is by the wine his son is producing and how grateful he is for the journey they’ve shared. As we sat around this cozy table - father, son and a few dear friends - reminiscing on the stories that wines has woven wine into our lives, I realized something I think I’ve always known but never been able to articulate: that as tempting as it is to get stuck in the data, wine is not meant to be experienced from the head; but rather - from the heart.

So my hope for you this week is to enjoy a bottle mindfully. Open it with people you love. Don’t get too bogged down in why or how it came to be - just appreciate how it is. Smell deeply. Relish the taste. See the beauty of the liquid swirling. Hear the laughter at the table. Feel the cool glass in your hand and the velvety liquid on your tongue. And then tap into your heart and feel what’s there. You’re making a memory, so why not savor it?

To learn more about how wine ages, check out the PDF guide I’ve attached to this email!

Cheers,
Kelsey