Australian Wine - to age or not to age

Australian Wine – “to age or not to age, what a question!”



“ Age in wine is not necessarily a virtue” Jancis Robinson

“ New world reds are a different case to old world reds from classic wine regions with a track record of ageing over decades” Jamie Goode (UK)

For new world reds its all about fruit quality and expression, something Australia has become famous for expressing in its young reds. The primary appeal of aged old world reds comes from non-fruit derived complexity.

Jancis Robinson states “ The ageing of wine is an important element in getting the most from it but, contrary to popular opinion, only a small subgroup benefit from extended bottle ageing. The great bulk of wine sold today, red as well as white and pink, is “designed” to be drunk within a year, or at most two, of bottling.” JR goes on to state the small sub-group basically comprises of Cabernet based wines originating from Bordeaux, white wines with very low ph and hence corresponding elevated acid levels such as some German Rieslings and red wines with higher levels of tannins such as Nebiollo. This is obviously a broad generalisation however indirectly makes the point that generally “old world” wines are better suited to ageing.

The chemistry of red wine ageing is a jigsaw puzzle of chemical and physical reactions still not fully understood. Why some red wines age better than others can be loosely based on their tannin level, total acidity, the concentration of anthocyanins (colour compounds) and the wines ability to polymerise these tannin and anthocyanin compounds. This ability to polymerise in turn depends on pH, sulphur dioxide concentration, storage conditions and temperature, level of dissolved oxygen in the wine at bottling and the superiority of the seal in its ability to exclude oxygen from the bottle during ageing.

Australia has made a name for itself around the world for producing wines of great fruit intensity while maintaining an acceptable level of tannin and acid in young red wines. This is not by mistake rather by design as winemakers in Australia realized that our climatic conditions allowed us to retain fruit characters in wines such as Shiraz and Cabernet not seen in European wines made from these varieties. We have become expert in producing wines with “soft” tannins in young reds as wine consumers have demanded “softer and fruitier” red wines. We have had the freedom to explore new techniques and new technology from around the world in our quest to deliver young red wines to the market that do not require additional cellaring.


If the jigsaw of red wine ageing is still not fully completed it would be fair to say that the puzzle has yet to be taken from the box with regard white wine ageing. It is clear that the ageing of white wine depends less on the tannins (phenolic compounds) of white wine as they are obviously fewer in white wine but has more to do with total acidity, pH, sulphur dioxide concentration and dissolved oxygen levels within the wine. The quality of the seal plays a role also as the browning of white wine is directly related to the oxidation of phenols in white wine.

Australian wine growing regions experience sunshine at the correct time of year to allow full ripeness of our fruit. With ripeness comes elevated sugar levels and lower acid levels ( to the point where most wines in Australia are acid adjusted). This allows us to manipulate the acidity in the majority of our wines, both red and white, allowing us to produce less acidic wines. As acidity is one of the factors associated with a white wines ability to age, higher acidity generally coinciding with longer aging potential, we have to ability to produce “softer acid” wines designed for immediate consumption.

With sunshine comes flavour ripeness hence Australian winemakers are able to produce fully flavoured wines, generally lower in acidity than their European counterparts, with lower tannin levels and high levels of anthocyanins (colour in reds) which lend themselves to early consumption.

So in short there is no easy answer to the question “why does a wine not always get better with age?” It is a question of the composition of the wine, the variety, the region, climatic conditions during the growing season and what the winemaker envisaged the wine should be like upon bottling and ultimate release to the consumer. Wine ageing is a series of complex reactions, some good, some bad and most often unpredictable due to the nature of the compounds involved and the high number of variables relating to the process of wine ageing.

Jancis Robinson sums up “ Ageing of wine…….distinguishes wine from almost every other drink.”