At Christmas I was given these wines by a friend who is not well. He said I need to keep them cold.
Do I stick them in the fridge? And how do you drink a 3 litre bottle of wine ?
Zealousideal_Push147
The cognac you can keep anywhere you’d keep spirits. The wines should be kept cool but not fridge cold. The Chateneuf du Pape is old so maybe fragile. Drink the 3 liter bottle in good company.
mphbusiness
Anything under cork needs to be rested on its side so the cork remains moist and doesn’t dry out. If you don’t have a wine fridge, cellar or can use a friends cellar , Find a dry and stable place in your house that doesn’t fluctuate in Temperature or humidity. You want something around 5-15 degrees Celsius and 20-50% relative humidity but more important is stable temp/humidity.
The 3L Relic is a fantastic wine. Australian Shiraz Syrah) mixed with small portion of Viognier from Dan Standish. It will last 10 years + especially in that large format and could easily go 30 years or more.
sercialinho
Best not a fridge, too dry. Do you have a cool-ish cupboard under the stairs? That’s a good place. Or the bottom of a lesser used wardrobe. You want dark, no vibrations, as little temperature fluctuation as possible and only then a below room temperature (ideally around 12°C) temperature.
Some might recommend a dedicated wine fridge, and while that is the best, it’d be a malinvestment here: – the Sauternes doesn’t care so much about temperature and you’ll drink it well before its developmental decline anyway — these things can live for 50 years easily and many for much longer; accelerating the ageing a bit is no problem – the Cognac really doesn’t care (and isn’t a wine!) – the CnDP should definitely get drunk first of these and a year or two of slightly suboptimal storage likely won’t show – the 3L will presumably be broken out at the next reason to celebrate with a larger group of people
un_rancais_infiltre
I’d say keep the wines at a cellar temperature if possible (~15°C or 60°F).
Interesting point, you’ve got 3 different bottle sizes meaning they should age differently. Half-bottles [Château La Tour Blanche], Full Bottle [Mont-Redon] and double-bottle, known as a “Magnum” [The Relic] all have a “normal” size cork, and therefore about the same amount of air in each bottle. ***However***, the amount of liquid varies, which means you will have twice the air/wine ratio between a half and full bottle and 4 times between a half and magnum. So theoretically, the bigger the bottle size, the slower the ageing and the less likely your wines will go bad.
I can only speak to the Château La Tour Blanche. It is known as a “Sauternes”, a sweet white wine from the Bordeaux region. What you have there, however, is a “Premier Cru Classé”, or First Growth, meaning it’s amongst the top top wines produced in the region. I would expect something absolutely wonderful, given it’s already 15 years old and should fell 17-18 with that bottle size. Sauternes is known for being quite sweet and fruity and La Tour Blanche is quite on the exotic fruit side (think pineapple). Perfect age for me, enjoy it in very good health and with very good friends!
Hope the long message helps, I tend to nerd out a bit with these things…
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I only drink cider so I am a bit ignorant
At Christmas I was given these wines by a friend who is not well. He said I need to keep them cold.
Do I stick them in the fridge? And how do you drink a 3 litre bottle of wine ?
The cognac you can keep anywhere you’d keep spirits. The wines should be kept cool but not fridge cold. The Chateneuf du Pape is old so maybe fragile. Drink the 3 liter bottle in good company.
Anything under cork needs to be rested on its side so the cork remains moist and doesn’t dry out. If you don’t have a wine fridge, cellar or can use a friends cellar , Find a dry and stable place in your house that doesn’t fluctuate in Temperature or humidity. You want something around 5-15 degrees Celsius and 20-50% relative humidity but more important is stable temp/humidity.
The 3L Relic is a fantastic wine. Australian Shiraz Syrah) mixed with small portion of Viognier from Dan Standish. It will last 10 years + especially in that large format and could easily go 30 years or more.
Best not a fridge, too dry. Do you have a cool-ish cupboard under the stairs? That’s a good place. Or the bottom of a lesser used wardrobe. You want dark, no vibrations, as little temperature fluctuation as possible and only then a below room temperature (ideally around 12°C) temperature.
Some might recommend a dedicated wine fridge, and while that is the best, it’d be a malinvestment here:
– the Sauternes doesn’t care so much about temperature and you’ll drink it well before its developmental decline anyway — these things can live for 50 years easily and many for much longer; accelerating the ageing a bit is no problem
– the Cognac really doesn’t care (and isn’t a wine!)
– the CnDP should definitely get drunk first of these and a year or two of slightly suboptimal storage likely won’t show
– the 3L will presumably be broken out at the next reason to celebrate with a larger group of people
I’d say keep the wines at a cellar temperature if possible (~15°C or 60°F).
Interesting point, you’ve got 3 different bottle sizes meaning they should age differently. Half-bottles [Château La Tour Blanche], Full Bottle [Mont-Redon] and double-bottle, known as a “Magnum” [The Relic] all have a “normal” size cork, and therefore about the same amount of air in each bottle. ***However***, the amount of liquid varies, which means you will have twice the air/wine ratio between a half and full bottle and 4 times between a half and magnum. So theoretically, the bigger the bottle size, the slower the ageing and the less likely your wines will go bad.
I can only speak to the Château La Tour Blanche. It is known as a “Sauternes”, a sweet white wine from the Bordeaux region. What you have there, however, is a “Premier Cru Classé”, or First Growth, meaning it’s amongst the top top wines produced in the region. I would expect something absolutely wonderful, given it’s already 15 years old and should fell 17-18 with that bottle size. Sauternes is known for being quite sweet and fruity and La Tour Blanche is quite on the exotic fruit side (think pineapple). Perfect age for me, enjoy it in very good health and with very good friends!
Hope the long message helps, I tend to nerd out a bit with these things…