How Long Should You Age Wine?

So everyone is always wondering, how long should you age wine? Wine gets better as it gets older, right?

WRONG

But this video gets better right at the end so make sure to watch it all!

Most wines don’t need to be aged

Just… don’t do it.

Look, the truth is that 99% of all market wines are meant to be drunk within 5 years, and 90% are meant to be drunk within 1 year.

If you’re a Baby Boomer who has a great collections of “no-longer-affordable” wines from the 1980s and ’90s, it is time to start drinking that wine because it has been LONG ENOUGH and it is certainly not improving.

What happens as the wine ages?

Wine is ALIVE! It is made, it grows up, it matures, and it eventually dies. Most wines are fruity and gorgeous and all about their taste, and a few are a bit intense and need some time to chill out. Regardless, flavours in the wine are always changing. Over time, air slips in around the cork, and compounds within the wine degrade and create sediment (in reds). The taste and smell of the wine goes from fresh to raisiny.

As I mentioned above, most wines do not actually get better with age… Even wines that are meant to age may not necessarily get better with age, but simply become different.

How do you store wine?

If you don’t have a cellar or a wine fridge or a good place to keep your wine, then drink that sh** now!

If a winery recommends that you age the wine, you might consider only doing so if you have the proper facilities. You need a place that is cold and dark because otherwise you are basically MURDERING your wine. Wine hates light and heat and temperature fluctuation, and you’re ruining it when you leave it under your bed or next to the fridge or on that kitchen shelf for years. That’s not aging it, that’s just killing it.

For the record, wine fridges are insanely expensive! That’s why I don’t have one, but it also helps that I have a terrifying medieval wine cellar in the basement of my building. It doesn’t have electricity.

JUST DRINK IT NOW!

The vast majority of the wine you buy at the supermarket, in a wine shop, or online, is ready to drink right now. Age that wine right into a glass.

If you want to learn more about wine, make sure to like this video and subscribe to my youtube channel, and leave me a comment!