So for my 50th birthday I was given a bottle of wine from my brother's mother in law. A average £5 ish bottle so nothing special in itself, except they bought this bottle of wine in Australia over 20 years ago and it is a 2001 vintage.
Hardy's Chardonnay Semilloh. I know it won't be worth anything, but will it taste any good? Does cheaper wine improve with age or just go bad? I'm kind of tempted just to keep it for it's novelty value.
Open it and find out, don't forget to let us know what you think.
Only one way to find out.
I am not a sommelier (IANAS) but I'd imagine the wine has to be good to start with to get better with age. I wouldn't expect greatness. Probably the best you can hope for is that it's note gone off. I'm probably wrong though, pure guess from many years of wine experience (drinking it)
Cheers!
Cooking wine. Or vinager!
Hardys is just a regular supermarket type wine.
We opened one at Christmas while clearing out the MIL garage.
Best before 1996
It was mingin.
Chucked it.
Has it been stored in the dark, somewhere cool without too much temp fluctuation?
If you're lucky it will be no worse than it was 20 years ago.
Yeah I was thinking this. Better the thought of opening it rather than actually opening it.
My money is on some lovely vinegar, put it on your salad...
It depends on how it’s been stored. If it just been in their kitchen or alike getting hot and cold through the seasons over many years, I expect it will have deteriorated, however if it’s been kept somewhere with a stable temperature it’ll probably be ok.
Edit: beaten to it by @Higgo
A twenty year old cheap white wine? Use it to clean your drains.
Old dry white wine. Not much hope there.
It'll be absolutely rank.
Probably be OK for cleaning windows or drains though...
I wouldn't get your hopes up. Cheap wine doesn't age generally.
Then again taste is such a subjective thing; the only thing that makes a wine good or bad is whether you like it or not.
It's in the bottle. It shouldn't taste any different from when it was bottled unless it was bottled incorrectly or stored incorrectly.
IMHO, etc.
I used to work for Waitrose and went on a wine tasting course and the expert (wine buyer) said a similar thing. A good wine is a wine that you like. If you like a wine, don't let anyone else tell you it isn't any good.
On the other hand my hopes aren't high. I'm not a massive fan of Chardonnay anyway. So having a 22 year old bottle of wine makes it worth keeping, unopened.
A bit like electric guitar sound only comes from teh string and piackup eh, Cougar. 😉
Natural corks are variable, long quality corks preferable. Even then it's recomended to change the cork if you wish to keep wine beyond 30 years. This implies having several bottles and being able to sacrifice one to make up the others. Corks don't provide a perfect seal, there's soem exchnage with the outside air. Composite and plastic corks will taint the wine over very long periods.
Like anything organic even in a completely sealed environment it will evolve with time, some organic compounds breaking down to form others.
I bought junior some bottles of Jurançon doux from his birth year for his 21st brithday. It's a very sweet white wine that stores very well for a white. Compared with recent bottles of the same wine it had: changed colour becoming more golden brown than yellow. It had lost most of the acidity characteristic of the wine. It had lost some of its fruity flavour and had hints of caramel. Still perfectly drinkable, still a good wine, but nothing like it was 21 years ago.
Depending on the wine depends on how long it should be stored. A lot of wines are made to be drunk within a year or two.
So having a 22 year old bottle of wine makes it worth keeping, unopened.
It really doesn't when it cost a fiver in the first place (unless you mean sentimentality)
Well, that's exactly what I mean.
A bit like electric guitar sound only comes from teh string and piackup eh, Cougar. 😉
Touché.
In my defence, I didn't suggest I was an expert, I said I was sceptical. I was just spitballing ideas.
Natural corks are variable, long quality corks preferable.
Screw caps ftw. 😁
Corks don’t provide a perfect seal, there’s soem exchnage with the outside air.
They do if you store the bottle so that it keeps the cork wet, I thought?
20 years ago and it is a 2001
Chardonnay Semilloh. I
Chardonnay of that age is going to be bloody awful. Even good Chardonnay doesn't age especially well, it needs to be very good indeed to last that long due to the lack of tannin (sugar helps with desert wines etc but they change a lot over time) . As a white if you'd drink it young it won't age, if it will age it won't be great when young.
Red of even moderate quality ages reasonably well but 20 years is pushing that for anything without some serious heft to it. It also needs storing well if you want to keep it.
In short, it's wasn't a great bottle to start with, now it will be less than drinkable
vintage
I’m kind of tempted just to keep it for it’s novelty value
I’d either do that or have a grand wine opening dinner with much pomp and ceremony where everyone gets to sample the vintage plonk with a no spit rule 🤮😀
I used to work for Waitrose and went on a wine tasting course and the expert (wine buyer) said a similar thing. A good wine is a wine that you like. If you like a wine, don’t let anyone else tell you it isn’t any good.
I used to have a mate who was a bit "posh", public school etc. and he came round for a meal one night and brought a bottle.
Me- for probably the second or third time. "This wine is really nice."
Mate- "I wouldn't compliment the wine too much, it was only a cheap bottle."
Me- "I don't care how much it cost, I like it!"
In reply to Cougar, there's much debate about what can get through a wet cork with the bottle on its side. Some Spanish producers age the bottles of wine on the sea bed and claim it makes a difference. This guy even ferments his wine on the sea bed:
In the case of ageing it's the water pressure rather than air which could make a diference and in the case of fermentation the temperature and movement. However even he describes himself as a pataphysicist which is the exact opposite of how you operate, Cougar, so feel free to doubt.
95? The only thing I can find on this badboy is a 46 on the negotiant seal.
And Cahors* appellation controlee on the label.
Anyone want to take a guess what it is and should I open it?
Cahors is in Département 46 which is the Lot. It's a red which would have cost 2e to 3e. Highly drinkable red table wine you'd normally consume within a couple of years. Far more chance of it being drinkable than the OP's Chardonnay. Open it now, the cork isn't long enough to see.
Cahors is in Département 46 which is the Lot. It’s a red which would have cost 2e to 3e. Highly drinkable red table wine you’d normally consume within a couple of years. Far more chance of it being drinkable than the OP’s Chardonnay. Open it now, the cork isn’t long enough to see.
And as it's from the Cahors area then it's quite likely it will be Malbec or Malbec blend.
Open it now, the cork isn’t long enough to see.
It's the full length of the seal a good 2 inches.
I had worked out it had to be malbec based by googling Cahors which is good As malbec is always a winner in this house.
Anyone want to guess the age? It's a luc leutenauer I just worked out that's the negotiant. But Google doesn't show a matching label.
Steady on guys, a colourful label with minimal information says cheap table wine from a cave coopérative. If it were a Malbec it would say so on the lable. It'll be a mix of cépages within the limits of what's allowed for the appélation. And it won't age well. Drink it and see.
Steady on guys, a colourful label with minimal information says cheap table wine from a cave coopérative. If it were a Malbec it would say so on the lable. It’ll be a mix of cépages within the limits of what’s allowed for the appélation. And it won’t age well. Drink it and see.
Aye just interested will crack it open and report back. I believe Cahors require 70percent malbec is all I meant.
It defo predates euros though.
Two basic rules of wine, from the days of formal dinners at University when we thought we were posh by taking a bottle of wine in with us (one each, obviously, it had to last an hour!)
3.99 wine is better than 2.99 wine.
Wine with writing on the label is better than wine with pictures on the label.
Always seemed to get us well on the journey to where we wanted to be, so don't knock it.
It will taste worse than cats pee. But then so does any white wine. And most red and definitely anything fizzy.
Wine is a matter of taste like all foods. Open it. If you like it then it's a good un. If you don't, meh.
This has got e thinking....
We have an unopened bottle of Limoncello we brought back from holiday in 2008.
What are the chances of that being drinkable now?
What's likely to have happened to it?
Apologies for the slight hijack!
Limoncello? Give it to someone you don't like...
24 yr old limoncello?
Will have completely lost it's lemon arima and flavour long; you've got an alcoholic sugar syrup.
Should be good for killing weeds or removing toilet stains.
EDIT; correction - 14 years old but that doesn't change my comments.
Was given a bottle of Chianti by an old guy when we went to look at his house with the view to buying.
He said it was from 1980—something.... It was there in the house we were looking at. From his own vines. Pressed by him.
He just said "sedimente!" as he gave it to us.
Had to let it sit for a week before opening it. Was surprisingly good and probably wasted on new as it wasn't the first bottle I opened that evening.
A few years back I found a six year old bottle of English red wine. Took it back to try with some Italian friends. Was OK, but again, not the first bottle that evening.
