Why do some red wines get better with age whilst some you buy at a store have a...

[oe_maff]

...sell by date? You hear of red wines over 100 years old but if I got a bottle from my local store and kept it even for a couple of years it'd go bad. Why?

[Chris B]

Primarily the wines you buy at the local store are for immediate consumption. If you do not fluctuate the temperature of the wine before opening it and keep it out of direct light most of those wines will be very drinkable for the next 4-5 years. You can go on individual winery websites and find out the drink ability ages on most wines, or you can e-mail them. Most wineries are easy to get information from. They are farmers just happy that somebody likes their products. Those 100 year wines are wines that most likely has some historical value to them. To be completely honest unless the conditions were perfect from cultivation of the grapes to the bottling, a 100 year old wine has a far better chance of being bad than good.

[Chef Mark]

It has to do with the quality of the wine and all the factors that inlfuence that could be a thesis in itself.

Suffice it to say that age-worthy wines are far more concentrated and have higher tanins, the chemical components that give wine it's backbone. These however are harsh in their youth and age into a very harmonious blend with the wines other flavor components.

A cheap, everyday wine is diluted, thin, and lower in tanins and thus does not evolve. All wines will eventually go bad. Low quality wines are on the fast track.

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