What benefits ageing can bring to wine

There are four main components of wine: water, alcohol, acidity, and phenolic compounds, which form the color and aroma of wine. Over the course of a wine's life, water and alcohol remain largely constant, even when a bottle of wine begins to age.

However, phenolic compounds such as tannins, pigments, and flavor substances begin to interact with each other over time. At the same time, a small amount of oxygen enters the bottle through the pores of the cork, facilitating the binding of these phenols. Gradually, the phenolic compounds are deposited at the bottom of the bottle as they bind in weight.

The complexity of the flavor of wine is also due to the action of phenolic substances, which gradually change as the interaction eventually depositioned, which is the process of wine aging. In the process, a young, sharp-mouthed red wine loses some of its tannins, becomes relatively softer on the palate, and new flavor profiles take over. As the pigment dissolves, the color changes from the original purplish-red to brick-red.

During ageing, the perfect balance of these elements occurs, and the wine is at its best in life, in what we call the best time to drink.

Why do people always say that aged wine is better? What exactly is wine aging?

Many people think that wine is better as it ages, so sometimes when you receive it, you like to store it and drink it after a long time. However, wine is not the same as liquor, it is an "organic life", it has its own growth and development cycle, from young to mature to aging, such a life trajectory is unavoidable. The life cycle of different wines varies depending on the variety, the vinification method, and factors such as acidity, alcohol, tannins and flavor compounds of the wine itself.

First, 90% of wine should be consumed in the short term, not suitable for long-term storage.

It is a common misconception that the older the wine, the better the wine. In fact, the vast majority of the best wines on the market are suitable for drinking within a year or two of bottling. Only 10% red wine and 5% white wine are suitable for drinking after 5 years of bottling.

Most wines begin to lose some of their fruitiness after 6 months of bottling. Wines sealed with screw caps are mostly not suitable for long-term storage.

Second, only 10% of wine is suitable for long-term storage.

If you want to dig for wines that can get better and better, the first thing to keep in mind is that such wines are relatively rare, and only 10% of wines will develop better after 5 years of storage; In addition, only 1% of wines will develop better after 10 years of age. Moreover, these wines must be stored in a proper environment, controlled for factors such as temperature, humidity, light and sound. A wine with good ageing potential needs to have the following:

1) high acid and/or high tannins;

2) High richness;

3) High balance;

4)**Above $25 (750ml).

Here are some wines that meet the above criteria:

1) Bordeaux Saint-Emilion (St. Émilion).Emilion), Pomerol and other appellations; For example, Valentine's Day, the Holy Cross Dry Red.

2) noble rotted sweet white wines from Sauternes Bordeaux; For example, Su Dai Guifu, Menglong Dagui Fu, etc.

3) fine red and white wines from Burgundy; For example, Monton dry red, Magon dry red.

4) The dry red of Châteauneuf-du-Pape in the Rhône Valley of France, such as the Black Knight, Châteauneuf-du-Pape Ravel, etc.

Of course, in addition to these wines, there are many classic wines in the world that can be aged for a long time. However, it is important to remember that 90% of wines do not have the potential for long-term ageing.

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Second, gently open the red wine and do not shake it too hard.

Thirdly, tilt the flask at an angle of about 40 degrees, and gently touch the spout of the flask, so that the red wine slowly flows down the inner wall of the flask.

Until you see that the remaining sediment at the bottom of the bottle has stopped. To hell with the rest.

Fourth, lay the flask with the red wine flat and let it rest. A 75cl bottle of red wine is just the widest part of the jug's belly.

This is the reason for the design of the flask, which allows the pure wine to fully contact the air and react.

Produces a rich bouquet.

Fifth, you can pour the wine after about two minutes, but be careful to tilt the flask and pour it slowly into the glass.

This is done to prevent the small amount of sediment that has been buried in the flask from entering the glass.

Well, that's how to properly enjoy aged sake. However, there are a small number of varieties of red wine that have impurities in the unaged due to the special brewing method. In short, when drinking aged red wine, there must be leftovers in the bottle and flask.

Red wine is not always better.

Vintage is important for wine, but wine is not always better when stored. It is not uncommon to hear that a particular vintage is a good wine, precisely because it represents the whole picture of the growing season, including meteorological factors, soil factors and cultivation management. In addition, the winemaker is also an important factor in determining the quality of the wine.

For a small number of medium-priced wines, the best drinking period may be after three or five years, or within 10 years. These wines usually have a high alcohol content, acidity or tannin intensity, and are very fruity, which can stand the test of time and have a certain preservation value.

With only a very small number of high-quality vintages, the best drinking period may be more than 10 years or more, which requires the winemaker's deep experience and strong anticipation ability.

As the topic says: Once, a friend told me that he had been collecting wine at home for more than a decade. I found out that it was a normal bottle of white wine, which had been stored for more than ten years.

My heart was broken, and I was more worried about my friends knowing the truth than I was about myself. When I told him that white wine was meaningless, I saw his face change. After a while, he asked me if I knew how to drink.

I shook my head and told him that the wine was not only terrible, but also worthless. Originally, his white wine was an ordinary table wine, and the most important feature was its fruity and fresh aroma.

Now, after all these years, the freshness is gone, the taste of the fruit is gone, and only a bottle of sour water remains. It's hard to accept, but it's true. In fact, there is really a big wine blind spot in China, and the most basic wine knowledge is not known, that is, red wine is wine.

In fact, wines include white wine, red wine (red wine), rose wine. In many people's minds, the older the wine, the better, so many people leave kangaroo wine for less than 100 yuan for ten or eight years. The important point is:

Only very good wines can stay in good condition for a long time. 90% of the world's wines are not suitable for aging and are ready to drink within 1-2 years.

Only 4% of premium wines have the potential to age for 5-10 years, while 1% of top wines have the ability to age for more than 10 or even 20 years. Most wines lose their charm after six months of bottling. In the process of aging, wine has to fight against time, which can soften a wine with coarse tannins, but time can also "age" a bottle of wine, and the biggest enemy of wine aging is "oxidation".

Which wines have this feature? High tannins: Tannins have a high antioxidant capacity, so wines with high tannin content have a high ageing potential, but high tannin content can also cause a period of discomfort that needs to be consumed after aging.

High acidity: Acidity is the framework of wine, especially white wines. In general, wines with high acidity have a high ageing potential.

Wine is delicious because the longer it is left out, the more enzymes it will have, and the sweeter it will be, according to the principle, the older the grapes are, the sweeter they are, and the more fragrant the wine will become.

Yes, this is a fermentation principle, the wine is stored to ensure the concentration and mellowness of the wine, the longer the storage, the quality of the wine is tested.

The longer it is stored, the more fermented the wine will be, the more fully fermented it will be, and therefore the more intense the flavor will be. This is the principle of fermentation.

It is not as long as possible, in about 20 days, the nutrients are basically dissolved into the liquor, and after a long time, the grape skin floats on the liquid surface, which is easy to cause miscellaneous bacterial infection.

Only the best private wineries can store wine for as long as possible, which accounts for less than 1/10,000 of the total wine production and is never sold on the open market. This is not the case with all types of wines on the open market, which spoil once the expiration date has passed, making them unsuitable for long-term storage.

In response to the popular belief that "the older the wine, the more fragrant it is, and the older it is, the more valuable it is", relevant experts pointed out that the quality of wine mainly depends on the quality of the grapes that are the raw materials used to produce wine in that year, and the older the wine, the better.

At present, in the eyes of many consumers, the "vintage" of wine is synonymous with high-end, and it is believed that the earlier the vintage of the wine, the better the quality. Therefore, the "old" vintage wine is covered with a beautiful halo, and ** naturally soars.

However, Meng Zhaohong, section chief of the Standards Department of Shandong Provincial Quality Supervision Bureau, introduced that the quality of wine mainly depends on the quality of the raw grapes produced in the year, and the higher the sugar content of the raw grapes, the better the fermentation effect in the production process, and the quality of the wine is naturally better. However, grape cultivation is mainly affected by the climatic conditions of the year, and the quality of grapes is relatively good when there are fewer rainy days and more sunny grape harvest years. On the other hand, if there is a "small year" of grape planting, the quality of the grapes is relatively poor.

According to experts, only the grape juice extracted from the grapes of the current year can be used as raw materials to produce wines that can be labeled as the vintage wine of the current year. Due to the uneven quality of the grapes from vintage to vintage, the quality of vintages varies greatly. Therefore, the vintage of the wine can only indicate the grape of which year it is made of, and cannot be used as an absolute criterion for evaluating the quality of the wine.

For example, a wine produced annually is not necessarily better than a vintage produced annually.

It is understood that because China has not yet issued relevant standards specifically for wine vintage, most of the existing standards only stipulate production process control, marking the production date, etc., so it is difficult to identify the vintage of wine. Generally, the age of a wine is judged by a professional wine appraiser after tasting it and then by the taste, but even for the appraiser, the results may vary from person to person. For the average consumer, it is difficult to distinguish between wines of different vintages.

At present, China is formulating relevant standards for wine vintages, which are expected to be introduced within this year.

It is not a "best drinking period" that is a wine that tastes the best, but only within this "best drinking period" that the wine tastes the best.

The development of wine, like the parabola in the diagram above, has a history. So wine is not always better for a long time.

Most of the wine industry is almost always emphasizing the long history of their products, putting the vintage in a prominent position to attract the attention of consumers. But many people don't really understand the value of "vintage" to wine. "Vintage" has a special meaning in the world of wine, it is related to the weather conditions of the year, the characteristics of the terroir and other natural factors, and is a prerequisite for the quality of the wine.

The criteria for judging a good year are not related to age, but to a series of natural indicators, such as rainfall and sunshine hours. Just as the 2000 vintage was an excellent vintage, with a very high score from the wine critic Robert Parker, this vintage was even more expensive than the 1991 vintage.

Old liquor is fermented juice pressed wine, the carbohydrates contained in it are basically monosaccharides (glucose, fructose) and oligosaccharides (maltose, isomaltose, lactose) produced by fermentation, it can be directly absorbed into the blood to release the whole body, directly produce energy, the rest of the body is stored in the form of glycogen into the liver and muscles, not easy to make people fat, the calorific value of old wine is 80-90kcal 100ml, beer is 50-60kcal 100ml, liquor is 200-300kcal 100ml, it has more calorific value than beer, less than liquor, after digestion and absorption in the body, one can meet and supply the energy needs of human tissue cells, and the other can be converted into glycogen and stored in the liver and muscles to supplement and balance the needs of energy; If you drink 300-500ml of old wine every day and eat less pasta, it is quite suitable for human health, which will not make you fat, but also beneficial to nutrition.

Old wine also contains 6 kinds of vitamins, mainly: VB1, VB2, VB5, VB6, VPP, VB12; Vitamins are essential organic compounds to maintain good health, it is a catalyst in the metabolism of other nutrients (proteins, fats, carbohydrates), general vitamins can not be synthesized in the human body, must be taken from the diet, and Miaofu old wine is a relatively rich wine with vitamin content.

Old wine also contains more than 10 kinds of mineral elements, mineral elements are the catalyst of enzyme action in the body, its total amount in the human body accounts for about 4-5% of body weight, although the number is not much, but it plays a very important role in the health and stability of the body.

According to the determination of relevant departments, old wine contains macro elements such as potassium, sodium, calcium, magnesium, etc., trace elements iron, zinc, copper, manganese, selenium, which is several higher than beer, wine and liquor, of which selenium has anti-cancer effect.