Hang Time and Aging

[Innkeeper]

What is extended hang time doing to the wine industry? For starters it means less money for growers (the longer they hang, the less they weigh). It also means high alcohol, as all the additional sugar is fermented. I remember when 13.5% alcohol was considered high in a table wine.

The reason for all this could be summarized in one word "Parker", but this would be an over simplification. People, for what ever reason, are demanding big wines that can be consumed immediately. To achieve this, producers demand later and later grape picking.

The thing that concerns me the most about all this is the impact on aging. The reason for this that these wines do not have the proper structure for long term aging. Structure is composed of many components; a couple of critical ones are acid and pH. In this week's newsletter, Dan Berger suggests that total acidity for an ager should be in the 3.40 to 3.60 range. More important, according to him is pH. He says if it is as high as 3.75 or 3.8 you should forget about aging. The higher the pH the more unstable the wine is. If you plan to age a wine, particularly an expensive one, you should check with the winery if the pH is not written on the label (it seldom is), before laying it down.