Reasonable cellaring schedule?

[sour_grapes]

I believe that I have gleaned a pretty good idea of aging times for various wines from hanging out here. However, I wanted to convey my intended cellaring schedule, and see if anyone has any helpful comments.

My goal is to get to a point where I am predominantly drinking wine that I made and that has aged a suitable length of time. I am primarily making high-ish end, grape-pack kits of red wine. (Juice buckets or fresh grapes may be in my future, but not for a year or so.)

So, basically this question comes down to: (1) how long to wait before starting to consume a batch, and (2) over what period of time to consume it.

From my reading here, I am currently planning on an initial wait time of:
18 months for high-end red kits
12 months for low-end red kits
(3 months for Dragon Blood, but this is not really part of my question here.)

I am currently planning to consume these (excluding DB) over a period of 4 years (after the initial aging time). In other words, I will have the first bottle at 1.5 years, and the last at 5.5 years. My basic question is does this sound about right?

(There is another parameter, namely, whether to drink the batch more or less evenly through its drinkable period, or whether to bias the consumption towards the middle or the end of the period. I am currently planning to consume the bottles at regular intervals, i.e., evenly throughout the drinking stage.)

Any thoughts/comments/advice?

 

[wineforfun]

Assuming I was going to use your drinking schedule, I would consume bottles every 6 months. So using a 30 bottle quota, I would have 6 at 18mos., 6 at 30mos., 6 at 42mos., 6 at 60mos. and 6 at 78mos.
I would adjust this for your 12mo. drinkers.
After doing so, I would then decide if one "era" was better than the other. If so, any future batches I would consume the majority around my "best" era.
Obviously I would be keeping detailed notes along the way.

 

[JohnT]

It is a bit of a different situation for me.

I found that I never need a schedule. I simply grab what I am in the mood for. Most varieties last about 6 years until it is time to think about holding some in reserve.

 

[Rocky]

I really envy you guys that can schedule years out. At my age, I always eat dessert first and never buy green bananas!

I do have to say though, through a massive production effort and "losing track" of some of my wine in my storage area, I have discovered some wines from 2011 and 2012 which in my house is ancient. They really do improve with age, contrary to this writer. Just about everything has stopped working and what still works, hurts.

 

[wineforfun]

Oh don't get me wrong, I don't use a schedule like that. I am more on the "I hope I can keep a couple of bottles for more than 1yr." plan.

I have done well with my RJS WS OVZ kit. Still have 25 bottles left and it is 6 months old. Plan on "trying" to keep a few for a few years. I never know when my days are done down here so I want to enjoy things as soon as I can, just in case.

 

[sour_grapes]

That is too funny, Rocky!

I have some practice at aging from my years-long experiments on aging cheap commercial wine. I find it is relatively easy to age wine if you have enough of it around!

Years ago, I wrote a spreadsheet that calculates when to drink the next bottle of each case (and now, batch) that I am aging. I drink plenty of OTHER wine in the meantime, too.

 

[bakervinyard]

I had a nice cellar built up. Had about 12 -15 different wines. Reds, Whites. Ports and some Mists. Had a few hundred bottles. Then the wife went to the doctors and was told drink reds, because they are better for her. Well long story shot there goes my inventory. Now I can't make wine fast enough. Bakervinyard

 

[DoctorCAD]

When it gets good (and there is no timetable to follow) those bottles go down waaaaay to easy. My Primativo was supposed to last 3 years. Heck we could go through 3 bottles with friends at dinner. I think the valpolicello is going to fall into that demise.

 

[tonyt]

Rocky don't buy those bananas too ripe. My uncle used to say that and he lived long enough to have planted a banana tree. But I am with you on what still works hurts.

As far as a schedule I am drinking most reds from 18 months and gone by 2 years. Amarones start at 2 years and hang till 4 years.

 

[Boatboy24]

As I mentioned in another thread, I've been busy trying to build up a 2 year supply since I started this adventure. The end goal will be to bottle batches at 6-12 months of age. Of the ~2.5 cases from a batch, two cases would go into storage, with the remainder on the rack for periodic taste tests (I usually do a few splits for each batch). So I wouldn't dip into the two cases until 18-24 months. As an example, I bottled my Eclipse Barolo last weekend. It is almost 7 months old. In addition to the two full cases that I boxed up and stashed, I had 4 750ml bottles, and 3 splits. Even if I drink one of those every month, the wine would be over a year old when I'd need to replenish. My plan is that those 7 bottles get me to the two year mark on this one, as I think it is one that should be aged a bit longer. Similar story for the Amarone I bottled back in January.

In the end, I'd like to be starting to really drink reds at 18-24 months, with them lasting 4-5 years.

 

[sour_grapes]

Thanks for the thoughts, Jim. Your plan sounds quite reasonable.

One of my initial thoughts was to do scheme that I thought was similar to yours. I said, "Yes, I will lay two cases down, and I'll allow myself to drink the other 6 bottles relatively early." I then figured, hmmm, I'll lay the two cases down for 18 mos. The remaining six, I will start drinking at, say, 1 year, and open one per month.

Then I realized that this is almost EXACTLY the same as starting to drink at 1 year!

I've thought about buying splits, but haven't gotten around to it yet. Perhaps that would be a good investment.