#169 Feedback from 37 People on the Ageability (and Price) of Our "Library" Red Wines

And how it has changed the way will be sell "library wines" in the future.

We had a widespread consensus that the 2015 Harmonic Red, our first vintage of a red blend, was one of the favorites of the seminar focused on the quality of older Finger Lakes red wines.

During last weekend’s Winter Wine Exploration we tasted three barrel samples of our current, 2025 reds; and then we tasted seven older reds from our library. The library wines were reds from 2015, 2016, 2017, 2019. The 2016 vintage was very warm and dry; the others I would consider “typical”— neither too warm or too cold, with a long comfortable ripening into late October.

We have never done this kind of comparison between barrel samples and older wines, so we did not exactly know what to expect. But we did have two goals in mind:

— How much different are the aged reds compared to the extremely young barrel samples? (We expected the differences to be striking, and they were.)

And more importantly.

— How well have these older reds held up? Or, in other words, are the reds we make here significantly improving with age? And should we be saving them?

This is the most important question.

Of the two types of reds we were sampling, three were “Bordeaux blends,” that is, each made with a combinations of Cabernet Franc, Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon; and three were Cabernet Francs, each with a slightly different amount of Merlot blended in. We also tasted a 100% Cabernet Sauvignon from 2016, which was a great year for reds in the Finger Lakes. We have tasted this wine over the years, and it has always been in great shape.

A total of 37 guests tasted during three sessions, two on Saturday and one on Sunday. Diana and I traded off narrating some of the history of how red wine evolved from goat-skin bags at to barrels to bottles and finally to bags-in-boxes.

The most significant change with reds as they age is their “tannic” character. Wines made from the Bordeaux varieties that we grow tend to become softer, or less tannic, with age. And this turned out to be true for all of the wines we tasted, certainly when compared to the barrel samples. (Older wines can also go “bad;” fortunately, all of these were fine.)

I will spare you all the details of the tasting and jump right to the conclusions.

— Everyone could tell the difference between the barrel samples and the older wines. The barrel samples were from 2025, and the barrel samples all tasted great, especially the Merlot. So there is a lot of optimism for the 2025 reds.
— All of the library wines also were very pleasing. Not a bad wine in the bunch. Some a little more pleasing than others. All in all, a very encouraging sign for the quality of reds from the the Finger Lakes.
— The 2015 Harmonic and the 2016 Cabernet Sauvignon were the favorites. We expected that for the Cab Sauv; the 2015 Harmonic was a pleasant surprise.

But then, we got serious

We then asked how much our guests might pay for these wines.

And that is where it got interesting.

The people who join us for our Wine Explorations are “wine enthusiasts,” and we trust their opinions. They have tasted lots of wine, and are not shy about saying that they rarely, if ever, pay more than $40 for a bottle of wine. There are simply plenty of good wines available for less than $40.

What that means for us—and for our library of wines—is that we should be making nearly all of them available for less than $40. Any higher, and most people will be reluctant to buy them. Which isn’t the point for any of us. The point is to enjoy enough older wines (without breaking the bank) to become familiar with their character.

If the majority of wine consumers tend to enjoy wines that they are familiar with, then the only way to become familiar with older wines is to make them affordable. There will always be a few exceptions, but there is no reason to let older wines sit in a library, when they should be in someone’s glass.

So stay tuned. If you want to become familiar with some of our older wines, we will be bringing them out at affordable prices and let you be the judge.

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And, on that topic, the next Winter Wine Exploration on Jan. 24-25 will focus on white wines from our library. We have older Rieslings, Gewürztraminers, Chardonnays, Rosés and sparkling wines to sample. Tickets are $35/person and you can make reservations on our Events page.