Roberta wrote:

> I hope that I am able to ask this question in a way so that you will
> understand what I mean
>
> It is my understanding that if you keep wines long term - there will
> be certain times (years?) that it will taste better than others. (So
> if you keep a wine for 10 years it will taste different than if you
> waited 15 to open it) I could be wrong :/


Your understanding is correct. Wine changes in the bottle. In general, most
wines get better for a while, then go downhill. Wine can be too young to
have reached its full potential, and it can be old enough that it no longer
tastes good at all.



> I am looking for somewhere that there is perhaps a chart showing
> vintage/area/best years to drink or something like that.
>
> The reason I ask....
>
> A few years ago (back when money was much tighter than it is now) I
> bought my husband an "expensive" (relative to what we could normally
> afford) bottle of wine - He has saved it. My concern is, how long is
> too long to wait to open it - is there a way to know when we should
> drink it??
>
> In case it is important it is a bottle of
>
> Caymus 1995 Cabernet


Yes, it's very important. How wine changes in the bottle, and how long it
lasts before starting to go downhill depends on several things: what part of
the world it's from, what the specific wine is, what the vintage is, and how
it's been stored. There are vintage charts that you can use as a guide
(Google will turn up lots of them), but they are never as specific as you
might like them to be, and no chart can take storage conditions into
consideration.

What many people do when they buy a wine to put away for aging is to buy a
case of it, estimate when it might be ready, then start tasting a bottle
every year from then on.

Getting back to your bottle, again, how it's been stored is very important,
but my guess is that is that either now or some time over the next few years
would a good time for it.

--
Ken Blake
Please reply to the newsgroup