- Bottle variation
Bottle variation is the degree to which different
bottle s, nominally of the samewine , taste and smell different.There are many causes of bottle variation, some relating to the wine, some to its container and some to storage. Before the advent of inexpensive
stainless steel tanks, it was not customary to blend all the wine together and bottle it at once, a process called "assemblage". Instead, thewinemaker would take his or hersiphon from barrel to barrel and fill the bottles from a single barrel at a time. Some traditional and/or idiosyncraticwineries still do this, includingChateau Musar . Also, buyers and sellers ofbulk wine typically do not have access to a multi-million litre tank, and so often the wine will vary depending on which tank it came from.Bottle variation that increases over time typically comes from the packaging. Exposure to heat or light can cause a wine to mature more quickly or even make it taste "cooked". Bottles aged in the chilly
cellar s ofSweden 's alcohol monopoly are famous for tasting younger than the same wine stored at a more typical 13 °C (55 °F). Finally, not all corks seal equally well, and a faulty cork will allow air into the bottle,oxidizing it prematurely. However, a corked wine would be described as a simple fault rather than bottle variation, even though the corked bottle would be clearly different from a non-corked example.Sometimes, it is not clear what causes the variation. Bottles stored together their entire lives, with no obvious faults, can taste completely different. Thus there is a saying, "There are no great old wines, only great bottles."
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