Age of consent: youth comes but once in a lifetime. Do Long Island wines have the potential to improve with age? And does it really matter to most of us?
Staying Young
When I mentioned in a recent column that I doubted any Long Island wine should be cellared and aged in the bottle for many years, it was not a disparaging comment. Most wines, including those from the very finest French appellations or estates, are, in my experience, ready to drink on release or within five years or so. That is the way they are generally drunk in Europe. Certain red wines clearly benefit from longer aging, and some become classics with very long lives, steadily improving. Those, however, are a small fraction of wines produced around the world.
Kip Bedell, the winemaker at Bedell Cellars in Cutchogue, and Peggy Lauber, the marketing director, took up the challenge when I voiced such doubts on a visit not long ago, and gave me a bottle of 1988 Bedell Cellars Merlot from their library, a wine now 15 years old.
I opened the bottle on a shady porch last weekend along with some other wines to use as references. Chris Harris, a friend with a lot of wine knowledge, brought a bottle of Wolffer 1994 Estate Selection Chardonnay from his well-stocked cellar. The idea was not to compare it to the merlot, but to get us in the mood by starting off with a moderately old local white wine. Wolffer produces an excellent chardonnay, but few chardonnays are meant to be kept for 9 years. I expected it would be good, although perhaps past its prime. As it turned out, the bottle was “corked” and some air must have penetrated, so we were not able to drink and judge this wine. Corking, by the way, is no reflection of a winemaker’s skills. It is just something that happens to a bottle now and then, and with age is more likely to occur.
I opened a bottle of Artesa 1997 Merlot, a fine merlot produced in Sonoma, priced at about $25, and one that I thought would be a good benchmark for our tasting. It was also intended to take advantage of the expertise of another guest, Kip Bridges, who was visiting from California wine country and is accustomed to California winemaking styles. In addition, I uncorked a bottle of Bedell Cellars 1998 Cabernet Sauvignon, which sells for $25, to give us additional insight into the Bedell winemaking style.
My first sips of 15 year old merlot were interesting: the nose had subtle hints of black fruit, and the initial taste was ripe, soothing and mellow with soft tannin and medium body, to my palate more like a Bordeaux blend than an American merlot. Switching to the Artesa merlot, I experienced a very rich mouthful with the plum and cherry overtones of the grape, and traces of apple and spice, just what I would expect from a reliable California merlot. Going back a few minutes later to the Bedell merlot, I found it supple, but a bit flattened out and a bit austere. Perhaps the wine had lost of its dense fruit in aging. I then moved on to the cabernet sauvignon, and found a lively taste, with charm, flesh, copious amounts of berry flavor, and a fine aftertaste. The Bedell style clearly allows for a complex layering and a depth, but I felt it had been diminished in the older wine.
Though my guests’ comments differed in degree, all felt that the subject bottle, the 1988 merlot, was a very good if not extraordinary wine. Was it too old? Had it lost some of the typical merlot buoyancy over the years? I think so. It almost certainly started out as a top-flight vintage, but short of time traveling I can’t recapture its original qualities and compare what it was then to what is now.
I will stay with my caution about cellaring Long Island wines for many years. I will also stay with my opinion that Bedell and other local wineries are producing serious enough wines, of such high caliber, that we as consumers should be taking the time to ask questions like this about cellaring, and to encourage them with our explorations and comments to continue in their quest for excellence.
