What's in a year?

[Innkeeper]

For the wines you say you drink, age is the only problem. Vintage rarely is. All roses including white zinfandel that you find on the shelf are ready to drink. I wouldn't buy one that was much over three years old. What makes these wines nice is their abundant fruit with some, hopefully not too much, residual sugar. The problem is that up front fruit in most wines fades fast. In more sophisticated wines other elements (acid, tannin, etc) take over, and improve the wine with age. In a rose, when the fruit fades, there is nothing enjoyable left in the wine. The same is true for your light reds and whites.