A wine is considered aged when it has adequate characteristics that allow it to mature in the bottle. Normally, it is made with certain red wines that evolve and improve over time in the bottle. Not all wines are suitable for aging.
Aged wines are normally complex, with strong tannins, a rather high alcohol level and acidity; a quality required for a wine to behave very well in the aging and aging process that improves over time. They may be young, but not without qualities; over time they will develop another dimension due to their tertiary aromas.
We tend to think that all wines can be stored, and this is not the case. There are wines, usually young, that are made for consumption within the year and that, with the passage of time, all they do is fade, losing their freshness and elegance. We say that the wine “has fallen.”
The wines most suitable for aging are those that have been aged in barrels.
The key to intuiting whether the response of a wine over time is brilliant or not lies much more in the so-called terroir (combination of vines, soil and climate) from which the grapes come out than in the work in the winery. A wine made from large plots in climatologically optimal years results in a great vintage for that wine. Today, huge bottles of legendary vintages continue to be opened