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WORDS PHILIP HARRIS
IN PRAISE OF THE
OLDER VINTAGE T
he question: ‘Will my tinned tuna still be usable two years after the best before date?’ was probably never asked at the official medical briefings during the pandemic. However it will have shocked many to find a forgotten tin did have a limited shelf life. Similarly, that pack of dried mushrooms had spawned enough life to entertain a botanist. The arrival of the new season’s produce brought freshness, youth and vitality to shopping baskets. These same characteristics are keenly anticipated in the new white and rosé vintage now on the market. But are we really helping ourselves by ditching the old in favour of the new? With rosés, a qualified ‘yes’, but with whites we need
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to adjust this default setting. With food, particularly meat or fowl, youth is not the best friend of flavour or texture – where would we be without the aged Rubia Gallega beef? White wine is similar and made me think that more guidance is needed for it: no, not units per bottle, or good with tinned sardines but ‘do not open before’. Many in the UK believe that ageing white wine means the time taken from purchase to opening! For the Friday evening bottle, this is usually 20 minutes (allow an extra 20 minutes to chill) so a UK version of ‘do not open before’ would show a clock not a year. Here’s a little help for those afraid of the unknown.
