Understanding Wine - Aged Wine and Fortified Wine

Tonight Chas was sick and our substitute teacher was a winemaker from Penfolds.  He looked a good jolly sort and very informative.  The first half of tonight was devoted to aged wines and the changes wines undergo when left to develop characteristics.  As a general rule, wines tend to become less fruity in flavour and take on more 'complex'  nutty, toasty notes.  However that doesn't mean that the longer you age a wine, the better it will taste.  White wines in particular go through a lull where there is a loss in flavour as it changes from the fruity to the more complex.

Teacher tonight (I forgot his name) wisely said 'I would rather open a bottle five years early and enjoy it now than wait another five years for it to potentially get better but has instead been ruined.'  He suggested that if we ever bought wine with the intention of ageing, we should open a bottle every few years and taste it.  Hmmm yes, when I have my wine cellar I will do that.  *looks sideways*.

We were also given tips about ideal wine storage conditions.  We were told of a lady who had $200K worth of 30 year old Penfolds Grange which was ruined because she kept the box sitting upright above her wardrobe for many years.  Eeep.

On to the tastings.  There are white wines which are not designed to be aged e.g sauvignon blanc, pinot gris (drink it quickly!) but there are some which can benefit - riesling, semillion and chardonnay.  Funnily enough, the riesling and semillion take on chardonnay characteristics.  Prior to tonight I had assumed that all white wines were intended for immediate quaffing but now.. yes now I know better :D  The aged white wine served tonight was a 2005 Penfolds Aged Release Riesling.  Rieslings are usually ho-hum with me but this one was really nice and yes, Teacher was right, it was chardonnay-like!

I learnt that aged red wines tend to accumulate sediment in the bottle and so should stand upright for about 24-48 hours before serving.  Teacher talked a bit about decanting but I've largely forgotten what was said.  We then went onto fortified wines and hmmmm well, I liked the less sweet ones.  Some of the others were just like drinking maple syrup.

As a side note, our table felt pretty smug to see that other tables had brought cheese tonight.  Heh!  Next week will be our final lesson and involve blind tasting.  Putting our skills to use!