Shop Bought Wine

Gtbaker369 · Apr 4, 2014

Hi,
Im new to wine making and for some reason I cant seem to understand something.
How is it that you can go to a shop and buy a bottle of wine that has a date of 2014/2013 and be able to drink that straight away, but the books that i have got say that i must age my wine from 6-18 months depending on what ive used to make the wine?

Thank You

Grand gris · Apr 4, 2014

The ageing of wine depends on a lot of things - addetives tannin etc

You can drink most wines, including those you make straight away but they taste much better with some ageing - even supermarket wines are usually aged at least a year.

Its worth noting that some cheep young wines could improve a lot by keeping them. I read a book that scored supermaket wines and some that scored low were recommended to be worth buying and storing for a year or 2 as you would be getting a good wine on the cheep.

Remember also that wines may have addetives - as with all alcahol the maker does not need to show the ingredients in the way that other foodstuffs do