Many of us assume that aged wines are better than their youthful counterparts, but we all have different palates. If you don’t quite understand your tastes, it’s difficult to manage your cellar and know when to withdraw your wines. So, what exactly happens when a bottle is laid down to rest? To illustrate the ageing process in action, we lined up three vintages of the same wine to see how each is tasting.  

It’s a familiar adage that wines get better with age, but the question of “better” is a subjective one. Do you prefer your wines brimming with fresh fruits, or nuanced and complex with hints of mushroom and leather? There are no wrong answers – it’s all down to what you like to drink. But it’s good to know when to pull the cork, so you end up with a wine in your glass that you’ll enjoy.  

Wine is a constantly evolving thing. When it is young, the fruits in the mix are all crying out for attention: vibrant, tightly woven and tart. At this stage, the tannins are at their thickest, and you’ll feel them furring your teeth and gums. While that may not sound especially pleasant, tannins marry particularly well with dishes rich in protein and fatty meats, making such young wines perfect for pairing with hearty meals.  

As a wine ages, these fruits gradually fall away. The acidity levels come down, the tannins soften, and the overall profile is one of greater complexity, with more savoury elements coming to the fore. Some wines have long lives, and given the right conditions, can happily keep evolving this way in the cellar, developing all sorts of nuanced tertiary flavours.  

To taste this process in action, we lined up three vintages of exactly the same wine: the 2018, the 2005 and the 1995 bottlings of the grand vin from Château Gruaud Larose in Bordeaux.  

2018: young, fresh and lively 

At the time of writing, this wine is around five years old – which, for this style of wine, is very much youthful. As you’d expect, the colour is a deep purple, brooding, like forest fruit compote. The fruit character is very dense and dark, with notes of sticky black cherries, plum jam and blackcurrant cordial, alongside touches of menthol, liquorice and lilac.  

The acidity is high, but this is partly masked by the intense bursts of fruit leaping out of the glass. The tannins are particularly thick, clinging to your teeth in as little as one sip. The overall picture is one of vibrancy and intensity, with all the elements in place to settle in for a long resting period. Acidity, tannins, body, complexity – ticks all round.  

Add to cellar

2005: in elegant middle age 

At almost 20 years old, many of the elements that were so tightly coiled in the ’18 have now unfurled. The wine is much more relaxed and open, with the fresh fruits giving way to a more muted dried fruit profile – dried cranberry, raisin, prune – with notes of leather, oak spice and leaves coming to the fore. 

The tannins have softened considerably, joining together and creating a more silken texture. Gone is the striking bruised fruit hue; the colour here is a mellow kind of garnet. Conversely, the acidity is perhaps more noticeable here than in the ’18, in the absence of fresh fruits. As Barbara Drew MW says, “our brains take all sorts of short cuts when you smell and taste a wine.” Acidity levels don’t change too dramatically with time, but our perception certainly does, depending on the accompanying flavours in the liquid.  

Whether you like the wine or not will inform how much you notice the acidity. If you like the wine (as I do), you might interpret the whole profile as fresh, silky and balanced. If you don’t like it, your attention might be drawn to the acidity, and it may still seem a little sharp. But overall, the impression is one of elegance and poise.  

Add to cellar

1995: funky, smoky and savoury 

We’re inching closer to the 30-year mark here. There is a heady perfume leaping out of the glass, but it is not especially fruity. To me, I can’t help smelling funky aromas of mushroom and fermented tofu, plenty of Chinese spices, soy sauce and miso (but that may be a reflection of how much time I spend in Asian supermarkets). There’s certainly plenty of leather, tobacco, dried meat and smoke at play, alongside dark chocolate, graphite and dried fruits.  

The colour here is a delicate light garnet. With even more fruit having fallen away at this point, you might start to notice the tannins again. Although softer, they may also seem somewhat “chewy”. The acidity is much more muted, the brightness gone, contributing to a much more tertiary and savoury character overall. 

You wouldn’t necessarily want to decant a wine like this, apart from to remove the sediment, as the aeration would age the wine even further.  

Add to cellar

A note about the wine 

Château Gruaud Larose, based in the St Julien appellation on Bordeaux’s Left Bank, is famed for its full-bodied and long-lived wines. Every vintage is dominated by Cabernet Sauvignon, with Merlot playing the supporting role, and a little Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot. These expressions are fairly typical of red Bordeaux, giving a good indication of how you could expect a wine of this style to develop. 

We recently opened our cellars for an En Primeur tasting of the latest vintage from the Rhône Valley. Across the range, the wines showed great promise for the long term. Below, we delve into just a few highlights from a fantastic vintage. 

In early March, we welcomed almost 30 producers to our cellars for a tasting of the 2022 vintage from the Rhône Valley. Across our cellars, the wines – of which there were over 100 – were split into Northern Rhône and Southern Rhône. 

In the north, the Syrah grape reigns supreme, reaching its (very steep) zenith in the villages of Côte-Rôtie, Hermitage and Cornas. Here, the red wines are renowned for their power and grace, with plenty of black fruit and spice character (some even with a distinctive note of bacon fat). Whites are made from Viognier, Marsanne and Roussanne, and tend to be fresh and aromatic, with some styles displaying tropical fruit flavours. The appellation of Condrieu is particularly famed for its white wines, which are renowned for their richness and body.  

In the Southern Rhône, the reds are warmer and riper than their northern counterparts, typically made from a blend of Grenache, Syrah and Mourvedre (often referred to as GSM blends) as well as other grape varieties such as Cinsault. Châteauneuf-du-Pape is the most famous appellation in the south, producing many fine collectible wines. However, many of the wines made in the South are sold as Côtes du Rhone; although they are not celebrated for their complexity, many are reliably delicious and offer excellent value. Beyond the reds, there are many delicious whites to explore too. These can be made from Grenache Blanc, but also Clairette, Roussanne, Viognier and Marsanne.  

With such choice and breadth at your fingertips, where to start? You’d need hours to try every wine in earnest. Add to that the fact that your palate is dulled after a few wines, and things quickly begin to taste the same. However delightful it may sound, tasting wines in this manner can truly be hard work.  

When it comes to tastings such as these, my personal strategy is to choose just a few wines in each style and from each region. This helps me build a broader picture of how the region is tasting overall, rather than honing in on a specific producer or sub-region.  

Diligently tasting my way through 20 wines, I was struck by high levels of acidity across the range, in both the reds and whites. In the reds, this manifested as a sort of sour cherry character, and in the whites as a zippy lemon profile. High acidity is key to ensuring a wine has good ageing potential, alongside structure and tannins. Suffice to say that the wines showed great promise for the long term.  

Below, I’ve included six wines from across the region that stood out to me in particular.  

2022 Condrieu, Côte Bonnette, Mouton Père et Fils 

This white wine had delicious notes of orchard fruits such as golden apple and pear, with a floral perfume and a zesty lemon twist. The palate was marked by a distinct salinity, with more waves of orchard fruit emerging. It also had a subtle savoury character, with a touch of bread and biscuit from time spent on the lees, which also gives it a pleasing sense of body.  

2022 Châteauneuf-du-Pape Blanc, Domaine des Saumades 

This was beautifully lively and fresh, with notes of nectarine, juicy pear and white grapes, alongside touches of white flowers and freshly cut grass. With a high acidity and great freshness, it was zingy and ripe in equal measure. Just the sort of wine I can’t wait to enjoy on a hot day, perfectly chilled. 

2022 Viognier de Rosine, Stéphane Ogier  

This ripe white wine had notes of peach, nectarine and orange blossom, with a lovely florality and hints of chamomile, as well as a subtle wax note. The palate was characterised by more lush stone fruits, with great acidity and freshness. All the elements are in place for this to age wonderfully, as the components harmonise. 

2022 Côte-Rôtie, Rose Pourpre, Domaine Pierre Gaillard  

This wine comes at the top end of Pierre Gaillard’s offering. It was displaying notes of rich black fruits, blueberries and spice, with a beguiling perfume of violets. It is not quite approachable yet, but with firm tannins, great structure and a sharp acidity, it has everything needed to age beautifully in the cellar. 

2022 Hermitage Rouge, Domaine Marc Sorrel  

My favourite wine of the evening, this was beautifully rich, complex and layered, with notes of blackcurrant and black plum, alongside pepper, flashes of vanilla, and a hint of violets. This richness was counterbalanced by an uplifting freshness, and the overall texture was wonderfully silky. Although it’s delicious to drink now, it’ll develop even more complexity with time in the bottle.  

2022 Châteauneuf-du-Pape, Vieilles Vignes, Domaine de la Janasse  

This was Mediterranean warmth in a glass. It was brimming with ripe, sticky fruits such as cranberry, blackcurrant, plums, with a hint of raisins. Very concentrated, rich and full-bodied, this will continue to develop more savoury notes of leather and tapenade as it ages.  

Browse our Rhône 2022 En Primeur offer here

To celebrate International Women’s Day, we wanted to share the stories of three significant women in our history. Each one has played a huge part in forming the Berry Bros. & Rudd we see today. Here, Alexandra Gray de Walden introduces them.  

With the word “Bros.” in our company name, people are often surprised to discover that our history starts, in fact, with a woman. While very little is known about the Widow Bourne, she was clearly important enough for her reputation to outlive that of her husband (unusual for the period) and the inevitable passing of time. What we do know, however, is we have her to thank for the founding of what is today “Berry Bros. & Rudd”.

Our business is Bourne

From the early 1500s, Whitehall Palace had been the primary residence of the British monarch until it was almost totally destroyed by fire in 1698. It is no coincidence that this is the same year the Widow Bourne opened her shop at No.3 St James’s Street. The Royal Court moved from the wreckage of Whitehall to St James’s Palace that same year, bringing the great and the good of London society, the affluent and aspirational.

While not trading the wines and spirits we offer today, the Widow Bourne was certainly in the business of trading goods from far-flung shores at her Italian Grocers. Foreign spices, tea from the distant lands of Asia, snuff and most importantly, coffee were all on sale at No.3 St James’s Street. The fashion for this new beverage had seen swathes of coffee houses opening in the St James’s area. Here, businessmen would meet to make deals and share the news of the day. Indeed, the humble newspaper has its origins in these coffee houses. Weighing scales at No.3 were employed to measure customers’ coffee purchases and before too long, the shop sign hanging above No.3 St James’s Street was a picture of a coffee mill. An unofficial, alternative address for No.3 has been “At the sign of the coffee mill” ever since.

So little is known of the Widow Bourne that we don’t even know when she died. Her hugely successful business outlived her and was inherited by her daughter Elizabeth and son-in-law, William Pickering.

• 

Ethel takes the chair

Fast forward over 200 years and another woman is making her mark on the history of Berry Bros. & Rudd.

In 1949, then Chair of Berry Bros. & Rudd, Major Hugh Rudd died at the age of 66 and his wife, Ethel, stepped up to the plate, becoming Non-Executive Chair. The Second World War had been hard for Hugh and Ethel – not only had they shouldered the business through the conflict, but their son Brian was killed in action in Italy at only 20 years old.

Ethel knew what was required when she became Chair at the age of 63. The international conflict came with an unusual set of challenges for the new lady at the top.

Not only did rationing continue in England for another nine years after the end of the war but the business had no wine stock. German occupation of Europe made export impossible, so existing stock was all the Berrys and Rudds had to offer. Our Cutty Sark Scots whisky, so beloved by customers in the USA, couldn’t make it overseas either – much to the delight of American soldiers stationed in London who could, once again, get hold of it – as our sales ledgers confirm.

While having a healthy work/life balance is a common topic in the 21st century it was not so for Ethel. The relentless bombing of London made the city an unsafe place to be. After No.3 St James’s Street was damaged by bomb-related fire in 1943, the company’s export office moved to Ethel and Hugh’s home in the countryside – along with several Berry Bros. & Rudd employees.

“It really was a question of survival”, says Lizzy Rudd, our current Chair and Ethel’s proud granddaughter. “I remember her always being very calm. She was firm but fair. She will have held a steady hand on the tiller.”

Ethel’s steady hand remained at the tiller, in the role of Non-Executive Chair, until she was 79.

A very busy Lizzy

Ethel’s granddaughter Lizzy joined Berry Bros. & Rudd in the 1980s, working first in the marketing team for the Cutty Sark whisky. She briefly left the company to concentrate on family and was then appointed to the Board as a Non-Executive Director before becoming Deputy Chair in 2005. Less than 60 years after her grandmother, Lizzy became Chair of Berry Bros. & Rudd in 2017.

It was under Lizzy’s stewardship that the world was plunged into the confusion and panic of the Covid-19 pandemic and its associated lockdowns and dangers.

“It was quite frightening to begin with,” Lizzy says of those uncertain days in 2020. “I remember being very worried about the safety of our colleagues, but I very much drew on my grandmother’s strength at that time.”   

I have heard others in the wine and spirits industry say the secret to Berry Bros. & Rudd’s longevity is its forward glance – always steering the ship ahead, not merely harking back to its illustrious history. This is one of many reasons why Lizzy is so committed to the company’s environmental sustainability and that of its business actions. Berry Bros. & Rudd’s first Sustainability Report was published in 2021 and Lizzy has firmly cemented sustainability and positive impact as two of the company’s core values.

At the time of writing, Berry Bros. & Rudd is in its 326th year of trading at No.3 St James’s Street and has women in the roles of Chair, CEO, CFO, CTO and CCO.   

What can the women of Berry Bros. & Rudd’s future learn from the Widow Bourne and Ethel Rudd? “To be confident”, says Lizzy. “If we put our minds to it, we can all take the plunge and swim.”

Tenuta San Guido’s Guidalberto is an exceptional wine and a wonderful expression of its legendary Bolgheri terroir. Now, justifiably, it’s being celebrated in its own right, rather than compared to others that came before it. We spoke to Priscilla Incisa della Rochetta, the third-generation face of Tenuta San Guido, about how – and why – this change has come about  

Bolgheri has no shortage of iconic producers. This small Italian appellation, located on the coast of Tuscany’s Maremma region, is home to some of the country’s most famed wines. 

Bolgheri’s history is inextricably entwined with that of the Super Tuscans. In the 1970s and ‘80s, a small group of winemakers defied Italian norms to create wines from international varieties. Amongst these, and perhaps the most famous of them, is Tenuta San Guido, best known for creating Sassicaia. 

In the early 1940s, Mario Incisa della Rocchetta realised something about his home of Maremma: its soils, rich in pebbles and gravel, were incredibly similar to those of Graves in Bordeaux. Alongside that, its unique microclimate, tempered by rolling coastal breezes, meant that the Bordeaux grape varieties – Cabernet Sauvignon in particular – had a better chance of thriving there than Tuscany’s favoured Sangiovese.  

As Mario’s granddaughter Priscilla describes, some of her grandfather’s friends had already begun producing wines based on Cabernet Sauvignon in surrounding farms. He believed that his land, on what today is the Tenuta San Guido estate, could produce something even better. 

“He asked his friends to give him some cuttings of these Cabernet Sauvignon vines, and he started experimenting,” she recalls. The result was a success – for Mario himself at least, if not on a commercial scale. That was still to come.  

“He was making a wine for his own consumption, to be shared with family and friends,” Priscilla says. That lasted about 20 years, until Priscilla’s own father, Nicolò Incisa della Rocchetta, came onto the scene. The youngest of Mario’s three children, he was entrusted with the agriculture of the estate, the family’s other pursuits of horse-breeding and racing being looked after by his siblings.  

“The wine was transformed into something different,” Priscilla says. Nicolò had seen an opportunity to sell the wine on a far wider scale, and had taken it. The result was Sassicaia, now one of Italy’s foremost fine wines, and the “grandfather”, as Priscilla describes it, of the Super Tuscans.  

The Guidalberto story  

Many are acquainted with Sassicaia, but – importantly – it’s not the only wine that Tenuta San Guido produces. At the turn of the millennium, an exciting new name emerged: Guidalberto.  

“The idea started in the mid-1990s,” Priscilla explains. Discovering clay threads running through the gravelly soils of the estate, Nicolò knew what to do. After all, the example had already been set by Bordeaux’s Right Bank estates, their clay soils, and their multitude of Merlot plantings.  

Guidalberto was born, representing the Tenuta San Guido team’s demonstration of exactly what they could do with this grape. Despite being a new venture, they were keen to keep it closely rooted within the estate’s long history. 

The wine is named after the Incisa della Rocchetta family’s ancestor, Guidalberto della Gherardesca: “a pioneer in agriculture for his time”, as Priscilla describes him. This Guidalberto was responsible for the famous Viale dei Cipressi in Bolgheri: the avenue of cypress trees so often featured in pictures of the area. “It was very significant to my father, to give the wine the name of somebody important in our history.” 

More than a “second wine” 

While Bolgheri has mirrored Bordeaux in many things, there’s one likeness that Priscilla is keen to minimise: the term “second wine”. In fact, it’s a description that the team vehemently reject when it comes to Guidalberto. 

“[Guidalberto] has its own identity,” says Priscilla. “It has its own expression, and its own purpose.” There’s no attempt to follow in Sassicaia’s footsteps here, either in the vineyard, or in the winery itself – and no sense of it using lower-quality fruit, or fruit from less desirable sites. “It has its own vineyards that we have planted over the years, which are mostly Merlot.” 

“Of course, you can tell that they’re related,” Priscilla concedes – the Tenuta San Guido hallmarks of elegance and drinkability still shine through. “But it’s an alternate expression of our terroir. You can’t compare [Guidalberto and Sassicaia]. They’re completely different things.”  

Now, she says, people are recognising Guidalberto’s quality in its own right – and rightly so. “At wine tastings, many customers are asking if they can try the Guidalberto, without asking for the Sassicaia.”  

Why does she think this is? “It’s all a question of taste,” she says. “There’s this portion of Merlot which is fantastic. With this bottle, you can maybe enjoy it younger – it’s easier to approach in a younger age. But we’ve been producing it now for just over 20 years, and sometimes we do vertical tastings, going back through the vintages. And it’s actually holding very nicely, all the way back to the first vintages. It’s a wine that you can collect.”  

The 2022 Guidalberto  

On the day that we speak, we’re on the cusp of releasing the 2022 Guidalberto – a vintage, Priscilla says, that has enormous promise. 

“The 2022 vintage was a bit warmer than 2021,” she says. “But that’s not a negative for grape varieties that ripen earlier. It was a good year for Merlot.” In 2022, the percentage of Merlot sits slightly higher than the norm, at 40% of the blend – imparting extra layers of dark, ripe, juicy fruit to the wine. 

 “The 2022 is very approachable, very nice,” she confirms, confident that this marks another year of success for Guidalberto. It’s good news for collectors of Italian fine wine, and Super Tuscans, in general. “It’s one that will do well with a little time.”  

The 2022 Guidalberto is now available to add to cellars here. To discover more about the Bolgheri region and the wines produced here, visit our blog post.