The pricey charm of very old wine
Very old bottles have a special aura - but is the wine really worth the cost? Plus: what I've been drinking this week at Vinitaly in Verona, Italy
In Germany, Chancellor Bismarck was basking in two years of triumphs, having unified Germany and thrashed the French in the Franco-Prussian war. Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, as he would later be known, was still a toddler. And on the island of Madeira, workers picked grapes and made wine as usual – except that in this year, 1872, one of the bottles survived to be opened nearly 150 years later by my friend, wine writer Olly Smith and me.
“Watch for the green flash!” exclaimed Olly, and there it was, a flash of yellow-green as he poured the ancient liquid, something I’m told you see only with very old Madeira. And astonishing the wine was too, opening to reveal layers of nutty flavour. It was unforgettable.
But was it worth it? I’m not sure how much Olly had paid at auction, though he said it had been a bargain – but it would certainly have been small change compared to the $812,500 [£606,000; €696,000] paid at Acker, New York last month for a bottle of Domaine de la Romanée-Conti’s “Romanée-Conti” 1945, setting a new world record for a single bottle of wine. Only 600 bottles of this “DRC” were produced that year, the last vintage from the property’s last ungrafted, pre-phylloxera vines. It was the star lot in an auction of old Burgundy that raised a total of $25 million [£18.6m; €21.4m]. So much for the cost of living crisis, eh?
These are the two characteristics of very old wine that obscure all else: the prices it commands, and its, er, age. Auction prices for fine wine are in a sense a different subject: the wine concerned isn’t necessarily that old, and the money involved has long since parted company with any reality measurable in the cost of pints of beer or pairs of red trousers (and we are talking serious red-trouser-wearing wine merchant territory here.) This particular bottle of DRC had in fact set the previous wine auction record, at Sotheby’s in 2018, for $558,000 [£416,000; €478,000] – and while the 5.6 per cent annual return that implies isn’t too shabby, it’s roughly half what the money would have earned on the stock market. But then if you have this sort of obscene wealth, when it comes to wine, it isn’t really about the money.
Which leaves the charm and wonder of old wines’ age. Leave aside the fact that buying any wine more than a few decades old is a lottery: it could be corked or otherwise faulty, or indeed vinegar. Assuming it’s not, will you really be able to tell the difference that an extra 20 or 50 years made?
Since I’ve tasted relatively few very old bottles, I can’t really say from personal experience. I did taste a long vertical of CVNE Imperial Gran Reserva Rioja some years ago, and my actual favourite was a wine from the 1960s, then with over 40 years on it and showing beautifully. The development of flavours and complexity of great wine over that sort of timeframe can be extraordinary.
Go much older than that, though, and as much as anything, you’re just hoping for survival. A frequent tasting comment about very old wine is that it still tastes surprisingly fresh and youthful – great, but if that’s what you’re after, a young wine would save you a pile of cash. That’s not the point, of course. But I still can’t help thinking that gasping at the freshness of an 80 year-old wine is much the same as marvelling at a marathon runner of that vintage: “Isn’t she amazing?” Yes, but the surprise is that they’re still in the race at all, rather than their performance relative to younger competitors.
Millionaire wine collectors would doubtless disagree: they hold dinners at which they compare extraordinarily rare and expensive vintages. I can only say that I’m a bit sceptical, not least because of the large scale of fraud in very old fine wines. It is estimated that up to 20 per cent of fine old wines may be counterfeited, while one estimate for the oldest and rarest Burgundies puts the figure faked at 80 per cent. The German fraudster and wine dealer Hardy Rodenstock hosted a string of lavish dinners in the 1980s and 90s – detailed by Benjamin Wallace in his brilliant book, The Billionaire’s Vinegar – and despite him later being proven to be a complete crook, several of the world’s greatest critics raved about his wines.
Thus American critic Robert Parker described a 1995 Munich dinner, attended by other wine luminaries including Hugh Johnson and Michael Broadbent, at which, “I quickly learned that when Hardy Rodenstock referred to a ‘59 or a ‘47, I needed to verify whether he was talking about the 19th or 20th century!” Parker gushed: “The 1874 Ausone made me think that the reason I have never fully appreciated and understood Ausone is that I have never had the opportunity to wait 121 years for an Ausone to reach full maturity!” And he made comparisons between a succession of Bordeaux stars such as 1921 vintages of Pétrus, Cheval Blanc, Ausone, L’Eglise Clinet (100 points!) and Lafite-Rothschild. Rodenstock was later shown to have faked large-format 1920s Bordeaux bottles. (Parker has maintained that he believes the wines he was served were genuine; Rodenstock somehow avoided a criminal conviction and died in 2018.)
Which isn’t to suggest that the 1945 DRC isn’t genuine (it came from the cellar of the wine’s then French distributor, Drouhin) or that it will be anything other than amazing. And there are wines that can reliably last longer than most red Bordeaux or Burgundy, such as Champagne, which can live on thanks to its high acidity. Decanter Champagne correspondent Tom Hewson raved last month about the 1956 Ruinart he’d just tasted, but also said of the 1926 vintage: “fantastic and, unusually for a wine of its age, something to drink rather than something just to taste”.
Similarly because of high acidity, some Rieslings can be almost immortal. At a masterclass last month, German Riesling guru Erni Loosen commented that “an old uncle of mine thinks the 1971 is still too young.” At the same event, Sam Barry said of his family’s Clare Valley “The Florita” Riesling 2024, “when it hits 50 years it will be a game changer for Australian wine.”
Wine can also survive longer if it has higher levels of sugar. Last month I tasted some very old blended tawny ports: Kopke’s 80 year-old tawny is in fact a blend of the 1900, 1927 and 1941 vintages. It’s intense, complex and very long, but it does contain 165 grammes of residual sugar – actually less than many such old ports, but still pretty sweet. Grahams 80 year-old, released last year, is a blend of several 1940s and pre-war vintages: less sweet again, offering intense layers of dried fruit and nuts – but helped by a level of sugar far higher than in any dry still wine.
Yet tasting any wine from that far back, the thrill – for me at least, as a trained historian – is more in imagining the world in which they were made. I remember tasting a 1902 Armagnac – and spirits are evidently a slightly different story – and realising that it had been made in the year of my grandmother’s birth. Likewise the oldest Rioja that I tasted in the CVNE Imperial vertical above, from 1916: a wine to outlive the traumatic year of its birth and almost everyone then alive on Earth.
Indeed Hugh Johnson has spoken of the time in 1961 when he tasted a German wine from 1540 (you can hear him talking about it here). He says it was “still alive… like crumbling lace” but that it fell apart within 30 seconds of pouring. Elsewhere he has said the same wine was “recognisably German”. What is amazing, as he puts it, is being offered proof in this way that wine is a living thing, affording us a “meeting of the ages”.
That’s the way I feel about such bottles, on the very rare occasions I get to taste them. Such wines will always be prized – and priced – for their rarity. But when you do experience them, it feels like being brought face to face with a great-great grandparent.
What I’ve been drinking this week
The outdoor spaces are filled with people in suits and leather jackets smoking furiously, while crowds drinking espressos crowd around the cafes. A large contingent of what seem to be traffic cops are hanging around posing next to a police Lamborghini, near where a vast photo of Sophia Loren looms on the side of a building. Everyone seems to be jabbering into mobile phones amid an air of barely suppressed chaos. Welcome to Vinitaly, Verona, Italy’s biggest annual wine fair.
In fairness, Vinitaly is no more overwhelming than Paris Wine, and its home city is friendlier. After getting my bearings here this week, I’ve been exploring some of Italy’s dizzying variety in wine – as well as tasting in preparation for field trips to nearby Soave and sparkling wine region Franciacorta, to the west, later in the week. And I’ve been enjoying the food of some of Verona’s endless trattorias and osterias, including such delicacies as Risotto all’Amarone (cooked with that local red wine) and Bigoli alla Pastisada (thick pasta with horse-meat ragù). These are just a few of the wines I’ve particularly enjoyed.
I Barisèi “Francesco Battista” Riserva Crio-Rosé 2012 – Franciacorta, in the east of Lombardy, make Italy’s most serious sparkling wine. There are plenty more affordable examples than this one, though in general Franciacorta isn’t common in the UK. And in high-end bottlings like this one, its quality is the equal of serious Champagne. This unusual rosé is made using treatment of Pinot Noir grapes with dry ice before pressing, permitting extraction of more colour but not tannins. Savoury, supremely elegant, very long – and somehow cries out for food (Cru World Wine, £90 in bond.)
Cantina Stefania Pepe “Pepe Bianco” 2007, Abruzzo – Stefania Pepe farms organically in the south-central Abruzzo region; alas she doesn’t currently have a UK importer. Her whites are from a field blend where Trebbiano d’Abruzzo is the largest proportion. However, she also offers a series of aged whites and reds, highly unusual for the region. This white is rich, deep and complex – and still very fresh despite having nearly 20 years on it (N/A UK.)
Speri Valpolicella Classico Superiore Sant’ Urbano 2022 – from an organic producer in the western “Classico” zone, just west of Verona, this cuvée from a single, terraced vineyard is a lovely example of Valpolicella: fresh, spicy, herby, bright cherry fruit and some length to it. For my money this is more enjoyable – and certainly more food friendly – than the theoretically fancier Amarone della Valpolicella (Cellar Door, £33.95.) Speri’s straight Valpolicella Classico is very good too and more affordable at around £15+ (more widely available).
Sandro Fay “Carteria” Riserva 2022, Valtellina – this is one of my favourite producers from the alpine region of Valtellina, producing Nebbiolos of astonishing elegance and complexity. This is from a single vineyard: gorgeous, concentrated sweet fruit perfectly balance with firm acidity and tannins, so elegant (Passione Vino, their UK importer, have the 2019, £47.)
I love the idea of thinking if the people making and the time when they made the wine. And as always you made me laugh! Thank you !