Cellartracker drinking windows.

[Jon Peterson]

Now that I have inventoried my cellar and have put every wine into cellartracker.com (CT), I can finally pay attention to that application's recommended drinking windows as well as its other wonderful features. One of the cellar management tasks I am doing is to drink wines that CT says should have been opened some time ago, like 2009, for example.
So far, while expecting to taste wine that is well past peak, every one of these wines has been pretty wonderful.
My question is, have others found this to be the case or not. Is there any pattern to CT's recommended drinking windows like they great for Bordeaux but not for Burgundy?
Thanks in advance for your thoughts!

[Brian Gilp]

When I saw that the drinking window on the 1999 Corison regular cab was 2004-2008, I knew that this is a useless feature.

[James Dietz]

I may be wrong, but I think those windows are inputted by CT posters, not wineries or critics.

[JC (NC)]

It indicates whether the source is "community"--i.e. contributors or a professional critic. They often underestimate the ageability of a wine.

[Otto]

It would be a useful feature if one could see the suggested drinking windows of individual posters - because spending just a little time on CT will give you an idea whose preferences are similar to yours. But unfortunately I don't think you can do this (or can you?) so the drinking window feature is for me completely useless and always worth ignoring.

[Ian Sutton]

Indeed it's user input.

FWIW I set my own dates, even if I agree with the community... after all, later additions by others could significantly change the user average unbeknown to me.

I tend to find they lean on the cautious side overall, though it's worth bearing in mind that I do like maturity in wines. Although there are occasional instances of singleton windows that I'd very much disagree with, it is a useful community-led tool... for me more useful than the points, but each to their own.

One sanity check that can be useful, is to glance down the drinking windows for earlier vintages and indeed more usefully the recent tasting notes for your wine and earlier vintages. It helps give a good benchmark of ageing potential for a well-established wine.

Finally, although I do enter windows for all the vintage wines I have, the greatest use I have from them is for sorting the wines in order of relative maturity, so that when I'm looking to start drinking up some of the mature/over-mature wines, the more pressing candidates are grouped at the top. It's very rare that I pay close attention to the actual dates I entered, perhaps only when I have a few bottles and I re-adjust the window based on that experience.

regards
Ian

[David M. Bueker]

I ignore the drinking windows. Any tool that says drink up top 1999 Volnays by 2006 is useless at best.

[Jon Peterson]

I ignore the drinking windows.

Thanks, everyone. I'll be doing the same.

[Eric LeVine]

Indeed it's user input.

FWIW I set my own dates, even if I agree with the community... after all, later additions by others could significantly change the user average unbeknown to me.

That is a good practice. The intent of the feature is that, if people disagree with a community window, they then (a) set their own while in the process (b) make the community average smarter.

[Jon Peterson]

It's nice to have your input, Eric. I love the application and await the Android app.

[Matt Richman]

Buyers probably input drinking windows published in their favorite magazines on purchase/release. I've noticed that those drinking windows can change drastically in those magazines. Look at drinking windows in WA on release vs. 10 year retrospective tastings for example.

[Peter May]

I ignore 'em. Especially the ones on NV wines that tell me a Champagne I have just bought should have been drunk two year previously!

Irritates me greatly that the drinking window is the only text that you can't choose to remove from the CT bottle label.

[David Cohen]

Some people seem to like bambino's. I find notes of this year saying the wine is in mid life and we should have downed it all three years ago according to CT. I do find the descriptors useful because many talk about shut down wine as poor etc and it lets me know where it is at. That being said, it would appear that I have alot to drink sooner or later.