tannin and red wine aging

[winemaker81]

I have potential proof that more tannin is a good thing for aging red wines.

Fall 2020 I made Merlot, Zinfandel, and a Bordeaux Blend (equal parts Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Malbec, and Petit Verdot), where the Merlot and Zinfandel were barrel aged in neutral barrels with oak cubes. From this I made 2 blends:

Meritage - 66.7% Merlot, 33.3% Bordeaux Blend, all free run
Meritage Plus - 40% Merlot, 40% Zinfandel, 20% Bordeaux Blend

In addition to the main blends, I bottled 1 US gallon each of the constituent wines and the Meritage and Meritage Plus -- all glass aged with no oak adjuncts. The plan was to taste all the wines annually.

The main batches are doing fine, but I recently opened bottles of the reserved wines. BIG disappointment. The Merlot, Zinfandel, and Meritage Plus were drinkable, but clearly declining, and the Meritage and Bordeaux Blend were not. I had a bottle of each left after that, but dumped them.

I'll usually drink my lesser quality wines, but these were not worth it.

Given that the main batches were aged with oak (more tannin) and the reserved wines were not, I'm leaning towards the oak tannin being the differentiator. There could be issues with bulk storage, but I'm leaning towards that being a lesser factor.

Does anyone have comparable or conflicting stories?

 

[VinesnBines]

Barrels with oak cubes really smoothed out the harshness of my 23 reds. Possibly a renewed MLF but since I kept them topped up and Kmeta every month, MLF seems unlikely.

 

[distancerunner]

Tannin bind with anthocyanin. This process doesn’t stop during the life of the wine. We use sacrificial tannin during fermentation to preserve the tannin from the skins. If the wine is not destined for a barrel cellaring tannins are used for the same reason. When tannin binds to anthocyanin two things happen. The first is “softening” of the tannin. Actually, there is less tannin in the wine so some bitter notes are reduced. The second thing is that the resulting product (phenolic?) helps to preserve color.

 

[Rice_Guy]

Does anyone have comparable or conflicting stories?

In 2020 learning how to blend crabapple tannin I put together a bouchet with 10% crab and 90% mixed apple juice. At bottling the astringent notes were dominant enough that I back sweetened to 1.020 for balance. Since then the percentage of crab has been lowered and the required back sweetening has been lowered.

The 2020 bouchet is cleaner tasting than products since 2020 where I lowered the percentage of crabapple.

 

[wood1954]

Tannins are also anti oxidants and anti microbial so contribute to aging.

 

[Jezroti]

Either a low ph or higher tannins will help preserve your wine. But not both together, the tannins will be too harsh. Also, keeping up on so2.