Vertically Challenged - When Wine Tasting Turns Ugly

And the winner is....
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Recently I participated - no, not just participated - I hosted my first vertical tasting. A vertical tasting is when you taste different years or vintages of the same wine.

I have done two before, one at Hester Creek where I tasted different vintages of their flagship wine, the Judge, and one at my daughter and son-in-law's to try three different vintages of Quail's Gate Syrah. Both of these events were very informative and wonderful ways to spend the evening. It is also a really good way to understand how aging can add so much to the quality of the wine.

I thought I would return the favour to said members of my family and I brought over a vertical of a wine that I felt should be drunk now. These were all Pinot Noir wines from Tinhorn Creek.

Back when I didn't know that much about wine (about a year ago) I  figured that any wine I got from my annual Tinhorn Creek case that had the words "Oldfield" on it was going to be, not only a really good wine, but one that would age well (Oldfield is their higher tier wine - named after the original winemaker, Sandra Oldfield). Not the best way to do things, I know.

Once I actually took the time to catalogue my wine cellar, I found that I had a few Pinot Noir wines that had been sitting around for a few years. Now, if the Pinot Noir was from Burgundy, that would be a good thing as some of their Pinot Noirs can age for years. However, Okanagan Pinot Noirs (as well as most other New World Pinots) just don't typically do that well.

In my cellar I had Tinhorn Creek wines from 2011, 2012 and 2013. All of them had been aged one year in oak and three in the bottle before I got them so the oldest had been in my cellar for three years.

The watch dog of the wines, my daughter's dog, Nebbiolo.

Tinhorn Creek uses screw tops for all of their wines so there were fewer chances for some of the wine faults that can happen - although with just three years of aging, I don't think it would have been a big problem. All of the wines were kept in my cellar (the storage locker of my condo) which is underground and closed off - and uninsulated as well. Not perfect but the best I can do.

We each had three glasses in from of us, one for each vintage. We cracked all three and started sniffing. Interestingly, the 2011 had the lowest amount of alcohol meaning it was a cooler year, the 2012 had a medium level of alcohol meaning it was a warm year, and the 2013 had the highest alcohol, meaning it was the hottest year of the three.

The 2011 had a fairly complex nose. As my son-in-law said, it had a bouquet, rather than just an aroma. It seemed quite interesting with cherries dominating but also other red fruit and some earthiness as well. The 2012 also had more of a bouquet rather than an aroma - similar to the 2011 but a bit stronger in the fruitiness. The 2013, on the other had, had an aroma of cherries and that was really it - it did not have the complexity of the other two.

Ah, but then we started to taste.

I was quite excited to try the 2011. However, when I tasted it, it was lacking the fruitiness that it had when first bottled. In fact, it tasted rather flat and watery. It was not good on the palate. We had waited far too long to drink this wine!

I was a bit devasted that I had brought this wine to share. I had looked so forward to drinking this with the group and found that it was not what I was expecting at all.

Then we tried the 2012.

It, too, had lost a lot of the wonderful fruitiness that Pinot Noirs are known for. It was also quite bland and somewhat tasteless, although not as watery as the 2011. This was not going well!

Lastly, the 2013.

It was, well, OK. Even after just a year in the cellar, it had lost some of those wonderful fruity flavours that it had had when I had tried a bottle last year. It was certainly better than the other two, but not great.

Then my son-in-law said, "Try the nose on the 2011 and 2012!"

Going back to these, the wonderfully complex bouquet that I had smelled before was gone! I could barely smell anything from these two vintages! It was like the delicate bouquet had blown right off of the wines!

We did manage to drink most of the 2012 and the 2013, but left the bulk of the 2011.

Was I disappointed? Absolutely.

Did I learn anything? Of course!

It is said that most wines should be drunk when you buy them. A lot of us think we know better and go counter to that notion. This was a great lesson on why aging is often not the best thing to do!

As I take my WSET 3 in September, I am eager to learn more about how to tell if a wine is good for aging.

Hmm - maybe I should go through my cellar again and take out some more 'aging candidates'!