The Korea Times

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Older Vintage Is Not Always Better Wine

By Ken Kim
Times Wine Writer
he notion that "older is better" is not true in most cases except, perhaps, for your ego, in the selection of wines. Like anything else in the world, if something is rare then it tends to be in great demand. And since in simple economics, prices go up when the demand is greater than the supply, it is no wonder that you have to pay a lot of money for a bottle of wine if it is rare. Chances are, the so-called "rare" wine is probably from one of those very old vintage stocks. In upscale restaurants in Europe, like those in five star hotels, the entire restaurant staff goes wild whenever they have an order of their oldest vintage wine from a customer. On such an occasion, a lead sommelier comes to your table with an ashtray-like taster around his neck and tastes the wine to make sure that the wine you are having tastes like wine, not vinegar. Once the wine passes the sommelier's approval as well as your pallet, then the restaurant invites a couple of string music performers, most often a pair of violinists, who will play a serenade of your choice in order to please you and your guests. Perhaps they do this to make sure that you will not regret ordering an expensive yet "questionable" wine. Why do I refer to the expensive wine as being "questionable"? It is because, quite simply, older vintage wine usually tastes bad. If it does not taste like vinegar then chances are that it has no "soul," or the special flavors that make wine what it is. Either way, old wines tend to be not as good as they are imagined. I recall having a dinner with my business associates in Paris many years ago, we ordered a 1948 vintage Henri Jayer red wine (a well-known Burgundy region wine). We rejected the first one because it tasted too close to vinegar, and the second one was OK, but I was a bit disappointed because it tasted like a California jug wine half mixed with spring water. Even the color of the wine was more like a Blush wine (Blush is like a rose and is between red and white wine) and I could see through the wine glass. Among many wine connoisseurs, Cabemet Sauvignon is considered the best choice for red wine while Chardonnay is considered the best choice for white. This is because these wines have a long standing reputation for their varietals. They both have unique aromas and flavor that you cannot find in similar classes of wine. Try tasting these two types against others and you will agree with what I have said. These two varietals will have a "punch" when they are put on your pallet whereas others will not. Wine like Cabemet Sauvignon needs aging because the "punch" will be too strong in young wines. It needs to be

Seen above is the pretty and peaceful-looking Hunter Valley, which produces 5 percent of Australia's wine. The Korea Times wine writer Ken Kim advises restaurant diners to order moderately-priced .wine from places like Australia because the weather- the key factor In making good wine - in these regions are very dependable and constant so you don't have to think about vintage year.

aged at least three to four years to ripen in taste. In fact, some vintage grapes are so strong that they may even need to be aged over I 0 years to mellow down. From this view , it would be correct to say that older is better. Another important reason for aging wine is to have contact with oak wood. In the old days, the best liquid container was an oak barrel , and the wine makers found that contact with the wood gave wine an added flavor like vanilla. The tradition is approximately 7,000 years old and became an inseparable part of wine's taste, particularly for red wine. With white wine, however, one has to be more careful. If white wine is aged in oak barrels for too long, the flavor will be o;verwhelmed by the oak so that you will not be able to taste the juiciness and sweetness that are the most important characteristics of white wine. This is also why white wines are always served chilled. Chilling preserves the flavor. Koreans, in particular, are often confused about such matters and I hope that this column will in some way help them understand the facts. In a way, I'm not surprised because folks here in Korea almost always render their quality judgement based on price. Indeed, the price tells a lot about the quality, but in the case of wine, that is not always true. Buying wine is not like buying stocks in an open market unless you buy them like some investors do . By the way, there are many wine investors, like any other commodity investors, who trade rare

and old vintage wines to make money but not necessarily to drink it. I also would like to talk about the approach to the vintage year written on wine labels. Again, most folks think that the date is there to tell you the age of wine you are buying and nothing else. No doubt it tells the year it was harvested, but that is not the most important function. It also reveals the weather condition of the year that the wine was made. If you recall, weather is the single most important element to the condition of the wine. Almost every column I have written thus far has mentioned weather in one way or another. It is especially important in places like central Europe because the climate there is neitl)er predictable nor constant. Mother Nature changes her mind every year there, so the year of the vintage is very important. As a matter of fact, it is not unusual for connoisseurs to carry a small book providing year by year climate reports of different regions. At a restaurant, you have every option to reject the wine you have ordered no matter how often you have to argue with the wine waiters. So, it is good to have information on a particular wine before you order it. One other suggestion is to bring your
own wine to a restaurant. The restau-

because the weather in these regions are very dependable and constant so you don' t have to think about the vintage year. Every vintage wine from these regions is good wine and you never have to worry about their quality. Once, when I was tasting wine, a gentleman asked me, "How is America overseeing its wine quality? " He explained that countries like France has an Appellation Control in order to insure the quality of wine. My initial reaction to the question was that there were federal agencies like the FDA (Food & Drug Administration) and ABC (Alcohol Beverage Control) but I realized that that would be off the mark because they don't really oversee quality. They just deal with the legal aspects of wine making, selling and distributing. In America, the industry lets consumers judge the quality of wines they are purchasing, not the bureaucracy. In other words, judging wine quality is a consumers' job just like any other free enterpri se spirit that applies to the industries across America. In short, everybody can be a vintner in America, but only the ones who put out best wine will succeed over others. You may now agree that expensive wine is not always a good wine. In fact, some wines you have never heard of may be of surprisingly good quality. These wines tend to be inexpensive because, as I mentioned earlier, it is only the rare wines that teild to be high priced. So the next time you go to a restaurant for a nice meal, start your wine selection from the lowest price group unless you find one that you know well and like.
As a wine maker, I never order wine

on the high-end unless I have a reason for it. Instead, I always order ones that are in the low-end because wine is like food and you should find out first if you like it. How will you know if you'lllike it if you don' t taste it firsr ' Likewise, the wine a sommelier recommends as being good may not always mean that it will be good for you . So instead of regretting over a overpriced wine when it is too late, it is safer to order inexpensive wine in the first place. This way, if the wine is not to your taste, or if it is simply not good , then at least you can say , "Well, for what it costs, it is not so bad ." As a matter of fact, when you' re at a restaurant, it will probably be your best choice to order a house wine by the glass when you are not sure about the wines introduced in the
wine menu.

rant may charge a cork fee, which is usually the same price as their wine, making this way not necessarily more economical. That is why I am always reluctant to order European wines when I am at a restaurant. Instead, I order wine from places like Australia

I can probably best explain the value of vintage wine by comparing it to an antique chair. An old antique chair tends to be a showpiece in one' s household rather than a real chair. Most of the time, you cannot even sit on it because it is too old or it is too uncomfortable due to its old design. Similarly, folks usually brag about old wine simply becau se they are rare, and not necessarily because they are good.