Today’s Monday musings is about aging white wines. During a recent class from the Vinitaly International Academy, part of our exam was to choose three Italian white varieties to watch. To me that also meant three Italian varieties that can age. My group choose our three – Garganega, Fiano and Verdicchio. In keeping with that theme, I am looking around at other countries and their white wines and seeing which ones I can age. By aging I don’t necessarily even mean five years. I’m starting with just two to three years so drinking some 2016-2017s now. Today I opened a Portuguese blend from 2017 made with Gouveio, Viosinho and Cercial from the Douro. It was lovely with great waxy notes and tropical fruit. It had a lot of viscosity as well. It’s a style I like. I am thinking of why these types of wines are never seen past one or two years. Likely because they are more the everyday wines for the wineries and because people assume the best whites are those that are freshest.  I no longer agree. I’m doing a dinner tomorrow with wines from Lugana and will be bringing a couple of 2016 and a 2015. Let’s see how they fare. I think it will be great. Turbiana, a biotype of Verdicchio, is one of those Italian whites that ages nicely.

I think it would be great if we start to think of white wines as ones we can drink after a couple of years. Some will develop nice aromas and flavors, others will not but it is worth trying it out I think. Who else is in?