Today I enjoyed one of the most delicious wines I have ever tasted. No, not a $200 red Bordeaux or an equally expensive "boutique" label from California. It happened to be an ordinary bottle of Markham Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon, purchased eight years ago for $15. Today, wines of this calibre can be purchased for around $20. They're nice enough right off the shelf; but if you can hold them for a few years, they can be revelatory.
My first experience with aged Cabernet Sauvignon occurred many years ago. I inherited a small wine cellar and elected to move the contents in installments by filling the trunk of my car. One one such move, I stopped off at a restaurant for dinner, my trunk loaded with mostly glorious bottles. It seemed silly to order a bottle of wine in the restaurant when I had many cases in my car, so I sorted through the wines to find an inauspicious one to accompany a simple steak. I selected a middle-grade California Cabernet Sauvignon which happened to be five years old. At purchase, the wine might have cost $15. Well, as you probably guessed, it turned out to be a revelation after only five years.
I immediately marked all the Cabernet Sauvignons in my cellar database for drinking no sooner than five years after the vintage date. After many years of experimenting, here are my findings:
1. Very ordinary bottles of Cabernet Sauvignon just get softer. These are just as well drunk right after release.
2. Serious, mid-priced Cabernet Sauvignons do very well in the cellar and should not be touched for ten years. After that, it can get dicey.
3. California Cabernet Sauvignons made specifically with cellaring in mind (meaning that they make no pretense of being ready at release) absolutely need ten years and the better ones will progress from glory to ever greater glory for up to fifteen years. After that, it's a crap shoot. Some will improve; others will decline.
Cabernet Sauvignon is unique among the world's varietals in that it absolutely requires time to come together and show its stuff. Forswear young Cabernet. If you have to drink wine off the shelf, stick to Pinot Noir or Zinfandel, Gamay or Grenache.
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