Aging Guide I want all of my Brian Carter Cellars wines to both taste good at release and have the ability to improve with age. My philosophy on how to achieve both of these goals is summarized in the word balance. A balanced wine is one in which tannin, acid and fruit are present in harmony while oak and alcohol are kept from dominating. The age ability of a wine is like a three legged stool where each leg is represented by acid, tannin and fruit, when one of these legs gets too short the stool falls over and the wine falls apart. When the legs are longer the wine will age longer but takes longer to reach a good level of drinkability. In the case of the Solesce for instance we select vineyards and winemaking practices that give the wine more aging potential, i.e. a higher level but still balanced amounts of tannin, acid and fruit. Then we give the wine an extended time in the barrel before bottling and the longest time in the bottle before release. This is our gift to you to help the wine taste good when released but it does not take away your responsibility to cellar this wine away for a while if you can.
The chart included is meant as a general guideline for each vintage listing every Brian Carter Cellars wine produced. It is our intention to update this chart on an annual basis as we observe the aging of these wines. In the end, the exact number of years a wine will age depends on many factors including the specific vintage of the wine, your cellar conditions, and often overlooked, the differences in the wine characteristics each of you favor in your aged wines. The safest way to follow a wine is to have several bottles that you can open over a period of years thus seeing when a particular wine is reaching its peak. If you have only a single bottle you might want to err on the side of the earlier years of these predictions.
