“The older wine changed a great deal over the course of the lunch. It had obviously been stored well and its deep-red colour showed no hint of browning, a sign of a wine being over the hill,” writes (well aged) wine columnist RICHARD CALVER.

It was a cold and grey day. A last-minute lunch was called to lift the spirits and to get out of the house where hunkering down seemed a good option but then, in retirement, when isn’t it?

Ah, retirement when “getting lucky” means you find your reading glasses on the first try.

We ended up, predictably, at a Thai restaurant on the foreshore where the warming properties of massaman curry with a good shiraz were anticipated.

I hadn’t even arrived at the venue, but was emotionally committed to the second bottle.

I took a Kurtz Seven Sleepers shiraz 2023. This is a red that resonates with the style of the Barossa Valley: rich, full-bodied and fruit-forward.

Dark plum and blackberry lead the charge, with enough weight and warmth to stand up to the curry without being bullied by it. It is only $20 a bottle from the winery, but mate Tom and I shared a case that substantially reduced the bottle price. This is good drinking now but will keep for at least five years.

Friend Ian plucked one of his older wines from his cellar and surprised us with a Pirramimma Stock’s Hill 2004 shiraz. This is a winery in the McLaren Vale in SA and the current release 2023 Stock’s Hill sells for around $25 a bottle.

Ian indicated that when he purchased this wine, circa 2006, he paid $18 a bottle.The prices of both of these good SA shiraz wines shows how blessed we are in this country with good value-for-money wine.

These wines both had an ABV of 14 per cent so part of their richness and mouthfeel derived from this higher alcohol element, although the 2004 had far less fruit complexion than the younger wine

In fact, lunch turned out to be an unexpected competition between young and old.

The younger wine was, as I said, fruit forward: red fruits fill the palate, with a touch of oak that gives a hint of vanilla.

The older wine changed a great deal over the course of the lunch. It needed air to fully show its complexity. It had obviously been stored well and its deep-red colour showed no hint of browning, a sign of a wine being over the hill.

The nose changed over the course of the lunch as did the development of the wine, with the bouquet changing from a broom cupboard smell on first opening to a lovely liquorice aroma after about 15 minutes.

The taste changed too, from slightly astringent to smooth and full bodied, again after about 15 minutes. 

The aged wine was more complex and required more patience than the immediately rewarding younger wine. The fruit hadn’t disappeared so much as stepped aside. In its place came layers that build with time, savoury edges and softer tannins.

Both wines went very well with the massaman beef curry, as anticipated. 

But neither went well with the green curry chicken dish. That was a clash of flavours. Red wine and chicken curry don’t get along. It was like the sauce and the tannins formed a committee and voted me out of enjoyment. I’m sure if it could, the chicken would have apologised for not being lamb. 

The lunch turned into a simple but satisfying lesson. The younger wine gave everything up front: fruit, weight, warmth. The older wine asked for patience but repaid it with complexity and evolution over the course of the meal.

Youth is about fruit. Age is about everything that happens after the fruit waves goodbye.

“You don’t stop laughing when you grow old, you grow old when you stop laughing.” –George Bernard Shaw