Drinking Wines

Many wines will improve with age. The phrase ‘drink from’ indicates the date we suggest a wine will have begun to reach its maturity by. Depending on the age-worthiness of the wine the drinking window may then be a year or so on from that, or in extreme cases decades. Classed growth Bordeaux, vintage port and late harvest German Rieslings are some of the most long-living wines. Link here to view our vintage chart

This very much depends on the quality and age of the wine. Many high-quality wines will actively improve for many hours after opening. Very old bottles can deteriorate if not consumed soon after opening. Regular drinking wines, if recorked and stored in a fridge, should drink well for up to 24 hours after opening.

A corked wine is one that has been spoiled by Cork Taint, itself the presence of certain organic compounds in a cork. It most often manifests itself through the presence of unpleasant mouldy, wet dog, wet carboard aromas, and even minor taint can render a wine undrinkable.

Using high quality glasses can have a profound effect on your enjoyment of a wine. There are many styles to choose from, often tailor made for individual grape varieties and wine styles. Ideally you should be looking for glasses with as thin a rim as possible.

This is partly a matter of preference, but our suggestion would be all wines benefit and grow in expression from a short exposure to air, even white wines. Whether this exposure is through decanting, or by simply opening the wine up to 30 minutes before serving, depends on the nature of the individual wine. Please contact us for specific advice. Particularly young fine wines could benefit from several hours decanting, some react better to simply pulling the cork and letting the bottle breathe. Old wines need to be decanted for a short period of time for a separate reason, which is to remove any sediment the wine is likely to have thrown as it matured. All wines should be stood up right and allowed to settled well in advance of serving.