Variance Within a Bottling?

[Auburnwine]

Elsewhere, Drew didn't care much for a Zin which my chums and I think is quite the cat's pajamas. That made me think (yes, a rare occasion).

There are numerous variables which have an impact on one's response to a wine. But I wonder, since wine making is not as uniform as the manufacturing of Coca Cola, how much variability have y'all found within one specific wine?

I'm not talking about something so dramatic as a bottle being corked, but inconsistency due such things as the wine's tanks or dates of bottling.

Naturally, the wine's handling after being bottled (sitting on a hot loading dock, for example) has a crucial impact on how we taste it.

[winecollector]

I've experience a lot of bottle variation, both with younger wines as well as aged wines, but I tend to find it more common with aged wines. When drinking aged wines, there have been plenty of times I've opened wines from the same case and have had some taste like they were on top of their game, and others tasting tired and old.

Also, in regard to recently released wines, you hit on a couple of good points too... wine made in different vats or batches, and how the wine was handled until being sold at retail. I think the handling can be a major factor in bottle variation. There is a wine store in West Virginia I am careful of what I buy there, because I've had a considerably higher rate of "bad" wines I've purchased there in comparison to other sources.

[Thomas]

Handling and storage certainly play a role in wine's variability from bottle to bottle. Wine is a living thing, so it reacts to many external as well as internal forces, and each separate bottling of the same wine will present the possibility of variation from the last bottling.

[Drew]

That's the problem....ya just don't know what those cats were doing in those pj's. [img]http://www.wines.com/ubb2/biggrin.gif[/img]
BTW, which zin are you referring to?

Drew

[wondersofwine]

It may have been the Rancho Zabaco Sonoma Heritage Vines. If so, I like that one too.

I had some wine appreciation courses way back in the '70's from a physics professor who made his own wine in Maryland. He treated us to some of his Seyval Blanc (French-American hybrid) which was really delicious and said that that was the best vat he had ever produced. He couldn't replicate it in other vats.

[winoweenie]

I've found that when I find noticible varience is in single-vineyard bottlings. The blended wines are IMHO more apt to be consistant across the board. ww

[Auburnwine]

I was talking about the Liar's Dice.

Has anyone come across Zin from Il Fratello? I picked up a couple of bottles in Atlanta with the advice "Oh, boy. It's good, but you'd better let it breathe. You better let it REALLY breathe."