aging affects on taste

[Innkeeper]

From "Essential Wine Tasting" by Michael Schuster: "Closed: You feel there are qualities of aroma and flavor which are presently hidden, but which will emerge with time."

The best way to witness this is through experience. Several years ago at an NRA show in Chicago the folks from Sterling poured a vertical (at 10 AM!) of their Cabernet Sauvignon. It was very easy to tell which were "open" and which were "closed." In a couple of cases the closed ones were from more recent vintages than open ones. How does this happen? It has to do with a number of factors including the ripeness of the grapes when harvested, the size of the crop (was there hail damage during budding?), many other horticultural factors, and was there a change in winemakers; to name a few.