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.”

Red wine deposits

I often receive e-mails from wine lovers asking why there are deposits in red wine bottles and why, as winemakers, don't we just take them out before bottling. I drafted the response below to one such e-mail and thought I would post it for others to read........


"You have received a gift from the wine gods!

The sediment you have noticed in the bottom of your bottle of Miamba Shiraz has been formed by a series of chemical reactions that have taken place after bottling. No matter how good a winemaker I am there is little I can do to prevent the formation of these deposits short of over purifying the wine you are drinking.

I’ll explain further…..

Firstly, the sediment is harmless, it doesn’t taste too good and it makes your wine a little “crunchy” if you get a mouthful of it however it will do no harm to your health. Actually the complete opposite is in fact true, the deposits are a rich source of antioxidants. They also have significant anti-bacterial properties and, believe it or not, can be used as pigment dyes (when dissolved with organic polymers) or even used for disinfecting skin when applied topically.

So you can see why I refer to them as a gift from the gods!

The chemistry of their formation is not difficult. It simply starts with the formation of potassium bitartrate crystals (KHT) formed through the reaction of the potassium ion (K+) extracted from the skins of grapes and the bitartrate ion (HT) from tartaric acid, a naturally occurring acid in grapes (we also use Tartaric acid as an addition to alter the pH/acid balance of the wine).

The potassium bitratrate is a colourless crystal. You may have seen a few of these crystals in bottles of white wine, often firmly attached to the bottom of the cork.

The potassium bitartrate crystals, when formed in red wine, become a nucleation site for tannin and anthocyanin complexes, the colour pigments in red wine. These complexes are relatively stable compounds however over time they grow into enormous molecular weight compounds and become insoluable in wine. They attach themselves to the bitartrate crystals to form a red wine “crust”.

The simplest way for a winemaker to avoid the formation of these deposits in wine is to put the wine through a cold stabilization process. We do this with all white wines, removing the bulk of the excess KHT through this process, by chilling the tanks to -5 deg C then filtering out the excess KHT crystals formed in the wine. This reduces the incidence of KHT crystal formation in white wine bottles, although often does not eliminate it completely.

We could do the same to red wine, and many commercial red wines are cold stabilized, however the process changes the structure, colour and character of the wine considerably. We believe that the disadvantages outweigh the advantages when it comes to our red wine and so have chosen to not cold stabilize our red wines. The trade off is a better quality red wine with the potential to “throw a crust”.

If you see sediment in a bottle of red wine and you would prefer to keep it out of your glass there are a couple of things you should do. First, simply stand the bottle upright for a few hours (or days) prior to pulling the cork or opening the screw cap, this will give the crust plenty of time to settle to the bottom of the bottle. You could then take this process one step further by decanting the wine prior to serving. There are a couple of good reasons to decant wine, it will stop your wine from becoming “crunchy” with sediment but it will also incorporate some air into your wine allowing your wine to “breathe” . I won’t go into the benefits of “breathing” your wine here, short of saying it’s a good thing if you want to get the best from your bottle of red wine."


Quite simple really......happy drinking!

Why can wine turn people into complete tossers?

So what is is about wine that can turn ordinary people into complete tossers? You know the ones I am referring to....the serial winetasters that follow the public in-store tastings around the suburbs every weekend, they carry their own tasting glasses and make notes in tatty old tasting books.



"Ah, a Barossa Shiraz, what is the alcohol? " If I had a dollar for every time someone asked me that question before they have even tried the wine...........its not always about alcohol !



I refuse to answer this qustion directly, I now answer with my own question. " I don't know, so how do you like the wine?"



And still they go on. " ...so what is the pH of this blend?" Seriously people, how is this information going to help you enjoy your wine tasting experience?



Come on people! It's ONLY wine, a product that should not be taken too seriously. We make the wine so you can enjoy it and don't have to worry about such technical details.

I love wine clubs don't get me wrong. I think the idea that a group of people getting together to talk about and taste wine is fantastic. Education is the key to increasing peoples awareness of the wonderful world of wine and wine clubs are one avenue for wine education. BUT never loose sight of what wine is...........wine is FUN!