What do prominent wine critics -- Parker, Robinson, Tanzer and their ilk -- generally do about young, tannic wines? Wait for them to open in the glass? Decant? Or somehow judge them immediately after popping and pouring? A friend asked me that question last night and all I could say was that I knew any Port taster worth his tongs wouldn't think of tasting a young first rank Oporto without giving it eight or more hours of air. But Bordeaux and other tannic red table wines? I don't know.
What triggered the question was my tasting club's lineup of young, inexpensive Bordeaux, vintages 2004 through 2006, a hard, tight, unyielding lot poured only minutes before what for me became the impossible task of evaluating and ranking them. My first-time-through the six wines my notes, in their entirety, read "tight as a drum," "ditto," ditto," "ditto," "ditto," "ditto." An hour later they yielded only a hint of their potential, but it was time to judge the wines.