Frequently Asked Questions

Can vintage wines be drunk?

All the wines on our website are basically drinkable.

All our wines are stored in the best conditions and undergo quality control to ensure the best possible quality. Wine goes through a long process when it is aged and with +20 years in the bottle, aroma and taste notes can be very different.

What can you expect when drinking vintage wine?

It is first and foremost important to consider what you are going to encounter when you venture into this special universe. It is certainly not the same as when drinking young wines.

The primary fruit is no longer dominant, but rather the tertiary aroma and flavor notes that only develop with aging. If you are lucky, these vintage wines are some of the most wonderful, and the aging notes are complex and diverse. The wine is old and has been trapped in the bottle. There will often be notes of mushrooms, gunpowder and parmesan before the fruit penetrates through oxygenation. The wine is ok if there is fruit in the aroma and flavor.

How do you prepare and open vintage wine?

It is important to ensure that the wine has stood upright for at least 2 days and preferably longer before opening.

This is solely to allow it to settle and the sediments to settle to the bottom. If the wine has travelled by parcel post, it is even more important that it is given the opportunity to settle as motion sickness can be expected.

Opening can be done with a regular corkscrew, but it is definitely easier to open with an “Ah-so”. If you don’t already have an ah-so opener, you can buy one on our website.

Should there be any residue left in the wine, these can be poured into a sample glass or through a strainer into a carafe.

Find your Ah-So bottle opener here

How long should the wine be oxygenated?

There is no exact science to oxygenating vintage wine, but after opening 1000+ bottles, a picture begins to emerge. The challenge with oxygenation is that wine turns vinegary relatively quickly when exposed to oxygen.

Whether it takes 30 minutes or 24 hours is individual from bottle to bottle and depends on the method you choose for aeration.

The first oxidation variant is Slow Ox in the bottle , where you pour a little from the top of the bottle, so that the oxidation surface in the bottle becomes a little larger. Then you let it stand for at least 5 hours and in some cases even longer. This method is slow, but is particularly effective with Riserva variants.

Another variation is Slow Ox in a carafe or marguerite bowl, which in principle works like the first method, although more uncontrolled. The recommendation with this method is to keep an eye on the wine while smelling or tasting it during the process.

The third variant is an aeration of approximately 30 minutes in a carafe, where you also ensure that no sediment comes from the bottle.

The fourth variant is oxygenation in the bottle for about 1 hour followed by about 10 minutes in the glass. Here you will find that most of the stuffy notes from many years of confinement have disappeared and the fruit comes out of the glass.

The fifth variant is the one I personally use, where you pour the wine directly into the glass after opening and take the entire journey of experience from the first strange, stuffy notes, and quietly experience the fruit penetrating before oxidation takes over and the wine finally collapses. A wonderful journey that can vary from 30 minutes to 24 hours and sometimes longer.