One of the most baffling issues in winemaking for me is when to release a wine.

One possible answer is when it’s at its prime.  As alluring as this answer is, it doesn’t work for a host of reasons.  First of all, a wine doesn’t reach its prime for quite a while.  Few wineries can afford to keep inventory in the warehouse until the wine has reached its “prime”.  Even if they could, by definition, once it’s reached its prime, it starts declining.  So, once it’s hit its prime, you need to get that wine out in the marketplace and sold relatively quickly.  If you can do that, great.  If not, you are stuck with a significant part of your production sitting in a warehouse growing tired.  Another problem with this approach is that when a wine has hit its “prime” is a matter of personal opinion.  Some like a younger more fruit-forward wine.  Others prefer a more mature wine.

A second possible answer is to just release it as soon as its bottled.  For most wines, and red wine in particular, this option runs into the problem of bottle shock.  For some period of time after bottling, the wine isn’t very palatable (for reasons I won’t get into now).  It’s common for the wine to develop some funky aromas, and often the fruit takes a vacation for a few months, leaving just acid and tannin, not a very delectable concoction.

Unfortunately, for some wines, that period of bottle shock can be many months, even a year. We’ve had wines that really took a year and half to get over bottle shock.  So, with bills to pay and inventory that could pay them sitting in the warehouse, do you start releasing some wine even though bottle shock isn’t completely over?  I think the answer to that question has to be “no”.  I think it’s a big mistake to put your product out in the marketplace when it’s still far from what it’s going to be.  You’re doing a disservice to the consumer, and probably forfeiting future sales to make a quick buck.

But even if you decide to wait out the bottle shock, the problem of release date isn’t a simple one.  The biggest problem is that not all of your wine is getting over bottle shock at exactly the same rate.  So you can pull a bottle, taste it, like it, and declare bottle shock over, only to find that another bottle is lagging behind and isn’t done. You can try pulling a few bottles, to get a better sample, but that’s still no guarantee that the next bottle will be just as good.

Add to the problem of variability is the problem bottle shock can disappear, only to reappear when the wine is transported.  I’m not 100% sure on this  point (would appreciate comments on this issue), but it does seem that symptoms of bottle shock in wines that we thought were past the problem have reappeared in wines that have been sent off to market.  It seems the longer the journey, the more likely that is to happen.

And finally, just to complicate the matter a little more, suppose the bottle shock symptoms blow off with a little aeration?  Or it only seems to be a problem in one in twenty bottles?  Or perhaps the problem will disappear entirely in the time lapse from release to when it actually gets opened?

So what do you do?  Do you hold on to wine that, as far as you can tell, is fine, just to give it a little extra time just in case?  If you do hold on to it, how long do you hold on to it for?  I really wish I had good answers to those questions, but I don’t.

To add still another twist to the problem, there’s another crucial consideration that affects when to release a wine, namely keeping product in the market.  If you’ve run out of the 2006 vintage, it’s pretty difficult to not release the 2007.  Otherwise, shelf space won at great effort and cost will need to be re-won when the wine is released.  On the other hand, if the 2007 seems ready, but the 2006 isn’t all gone, it’s a lot easier to hold on to the 2007 a little longer just to be sure.

So when to release a wine is a pretty complicated decision.  Bottle shock, market positioning, and cash needs all tug you in different directions.  As with pretty much everything about wine, there’s no one right answer.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 1st, 2010 at 7:09 am and is filed under Wine Tasting, Winemaking. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.