Saturday, July 13, 2013

Heat Damage - a Brief Addendum

A friend who is visiting her family in Italy sent an email to me yesterday:

"Hey, look what I found in my grandpa's closet... kept for 40-50 years there like this. Standing, no temperature control, forget about humidity... What a pity!"

Yup, those wines are from the 1950's and 60's. I wonder if anything in there could be drinkable. The corks have to be dry and shriveled. The wines must be oxidized, right? Who knows though...

4 comments:

Becca @ The Academic Wino said...

I'm sure the corks would crumble....it also depends on how they were stored (i.e. temp and light). I think there is only one way to find out ;)

Matthew Cummins said...

Crack one open and give us an update!

Anonymous said...

If you notice that the old wine on the right says 1954*2004 that means these might have been old wines only bought a few years ago .. like how chambers street sells old wines from cellars

the actual friend said...

I've been on the road, however I was able to get grandpa focus on this and:
1) this shelf is from another relative and the wine arrived here just a few years ago, so it may have been purchased more recently, which raises my hopes dramatically! Thanks for pointing it out, especially since. ..
2) grandpa allowed me to pick one to open and one to take with me! Will it make it on a plane??? There's more, actually:
3) he showed me his bottles in his cantina (yes, other bottles from the 60s and 70s) and most are simple local wines in poor conditions but a Gattinara caught my attention.

As soon as I'm back from my trip I will taste (if I figure out which one to pick). Stay tuned.