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+--- Thread: Will late-harvests "thicken" with age? (/thread-9859.html)
- wdonovan - 02-02-2005
This is my third attempt at this question.
It regards the aging of any sweet botrytis wine like sauterne, BA, TBA, etc......
We just uncorked a 375 of '96 (I think) Madonna BA and it was one of the thickest, fullest late harvests we've drunk in a while. The confusion came when I read the price tag at $13.25 American bucks. I know I didn't buy this more than a year (or two) ago and it hadn't survived the store since '96 so .... I was wondering why it was so cheap and so good. My theory is that time has actually enrichened this wine because I just can't believe that a BA this full could be that cheap. Can time have that kind of effect on a late harvest or is this just dumb luck? IE, will a thinnish dessert wine like this be "thickened" (made to seem fuller, sweeter) by giving it time or is the fullness something that's in the bottle since it's corked?
- wondersofwine - 02-02-2005
I think the latter--the fullness is already in the wine when bottled. What age may bring is an integration of parts or secondary and tertiary bouquets and flavors, adding layers and complexity to the wine. I'm not familiar with the wine about which you are writing. Price relates to reputation and demand for the product so maybe this is not a highly sought after BA wine. Perhaps you found a genuine bargain. Is it a California late harvest? I wasn't sure if you were discussing a domestic wine, European wine or what. Can you share the rest of the labeling with us?
- Kcwhippet - 02-03-2005
Two things. If you gave us a bit more information about the wine, we could give you a much better answer. What grape is the wine made from? Where is Madonna, for instance? If we knew the actual winery, it would be so much easier to come up with something that would bw better info. Combined, a number of us know hundreds of wineries (WW probably knows more), or can easily get info on their wines - if we knew the actual winery. There are probably 5 to 10 wineries with Madonna in their name and many of them make dessert wines.
Next, I can't think of any wines that get thicker with age, other than the sediment an aged Cab would have in the bottom of the bottle. Many dessert wines seem thicker, or syrupy, because of their higher residual sugar content.
- wdonovan - 02-03-2005
Apologies for omitting specifics. I was asking about the behavior of this type of wine (sauterne, BA, TBA, etc) in general. Specifically, Valckenburg Madonna, Worms am Rhein. Vintage is '95. Am I wrong in thinking that if this particular vintage actually built fullness and sweetness (from a medium body) with age, that many wines with similar sugar content and structure have the potential to do the same?
- Kcwhippet - 02-03-2005
The only way that wine (or any wine) could become thicker would be if a significant portion of the water, but none of the other components, was removed from the wine. That would leave the alcohol, the residual sugars and all the other chmical compounds, which would indeed make the wine thicker. I've had the opportunity to taste a 1929 Chateau d'Yquem Sauternes, and that's a dessert wine made from grapes that were attacked by a fungus that keft the grapes almost raisins. The result is a juice that's low in water, but high in sugar, which makes a wonderful wine with well balanced sugars, alcohol and acidity, but it wasn't any thicker than when it was bottled. So, once again, your wine didn't get thicker with age, because it's really a perceived thickness due to the amount of residual sugar in the wine. Incidentally, that's pretty much the going price for a Valckenburg. Other, higher quality, wines of that type can cost as much as five to ten times that price.