The Full Bottle: How long should you keep a bottle of Grange?

Q: I own a bottle of 1980 Penfolds Grange. Will it still be good drinking, or would I be better off selling it and spending the proceeds on younger wine? STUART PENNY, SYDNEY, NSW

A: This is a "how long is a piece of string?" type of question. So much depends on how old the wine is, how it has been stored, and the personal taste of those drinking it. Do you prefer your red wine younger or older seems a simple and rather obvious question, but you might be surprised how many people don't "get" the taste of old wine, if only because they seldom have the opportunity to taste it.

Illustration: Simon Letch.

Was the wine in a cool cellar, and was it always in the same cellar, or has it accumulated a lot of frequent flyer points? A famously collectable wine like Penfolds Grange can be traded many times in its life, and can have a history of being moved around a lot. Ideally, a long-term aged wine should have been moved as little as possible and kept in perfect conditions.

When we buy an old bottle at an auction, we usually have no idea of its history. However, with noted cellaring wines such as Grange and the other top Penfolds reds, top Bordeaux and so on, there is plenty of information online to help drinkers decide when to open the bottle. Modesty doesn't quite prevent me from mentioning my own app, The Real Review, which has all the Grange vintages. And there are others.

Then there's the "don't mention the war!" issue of cork variability. I get to taste a lot of aged wine in my job and I think most people would be outraged if they knew how variable it is, from bottle to bottle, because of the frailties of natural cork. Not only can cork-sealed wine be "corked" (tainted by hostile compounds in the cork) or oxidised (because the cork failed to seal properly), but the degree of maturity of different bottles of the same wine can vary alarmingly, because different corks let in different amounts of air. The older the wine, the worse all of these risks become.

The 1980 Grange is a good but not outstanding vintage. The last time I tasted it, a decade ago, it was at its peak. Assuming it has been well looked after, it could still be good. Open it next time you have friends around who like aged red wine. And always remember rule number one: don't keep your wine too long. It's much better to drink it a little too soon than a little too late.

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