Ageing gracefully

Te Mata Coleraine 2006. Photo / Babiche Martens

In this age of instant gratification, most wines are polished off within 24 hours of purchase. Few of us now take the time to cellar our wines, but those with the restraint to squirrel away some well-chosen bottles can reap rich rewards in following a wine down a fascinating path from youthful exuberance to mellow old age.

The majority of modern wines are made to be drunk young. Some wines from the classic regions of Europe have the bones to last a while, but most mainstream home-grown sauvignon blanc, chardonnay, pinot gris and rose in particular are best finished up within a year of release.

However, with a grape like riesling that is born to age, it's exciting to watch it metamorphose from its fresh and fruity youth into the toasty complexity that comes with time. Some of our better sauvignons also evolve attractively with a few years in bottle.

Most reds benefit from a year or so on their bottle age. Bordeaux blends and syrah soften over time, while pinot noir exchanges its bright red fruit for more earthy spicy notes.

However, it's not just the grape that makes a wine suitable for laying down, but also the quality. It needs to be balanced, with good intensity, acidity and in reds, a decent tannic structure too.

With this frequently found only in wines made from low cropped vines, most commercial and cheaper wines won't go the distance.

If you can afford to, buy a case of an individual wine, opening bottles at regular intervals to check its evolution. It's an interesting exercise even with less long-lived wines to see how they change with time.

When you've made your selection, don't plonk your wines in the garage or in a rack in the kitchen. With their general fluctuations in temperature, these are the worst places to stash your cases.

Constant temperature is the most important consideration when finding a place to store your prized bottles, between 10 and 13C being ideal. As UV is the enemy of wine - hence the coloured glass used for many bottles - seek out a dark place and one with minimal vibrations.

If you're going to be ageing wines over a long period of time, humidity is important to stop corks drying out - also assisted by keeping the bottles horizontal with the liquid in contact with the cork. However, in the medium term in relatively moist climates like Auckland this isn't a major concern and becomes irrelevant when wine's under screwcap.

If you've got good wines and nowhere suitable to store them, you could splash out on a temperature controlled (but pretty pricey) wine cabinet. There are also establishments that can look after your wines for you, particularly useful if you're buying them as an investment where a wine's provenance affects its price.