“Like fine old wine…”
Television news anchors, characters in movies and just ordinary folks often use this phrase or variations of it to imply that wine gets better with age.
Some of it does. But the vast majority of older wine is not better for additional time. In fact, most of it is not better.
It is true that the best red wines, whether in France, Italy or California, can improve with time in the bottle. But that really represents just a tiny fraction of all the wine produced worldwide.
If I were to guess how much wine is made to be consumed almost as soon as it is in the bottle and the cork or screw top is fixed into place, I’d estimate that it’s roughly 99%. Older wines that are better for their age are so rare as to be essentially nonexistent….