Some time ago, a clever fellow purchased a spanking, new Corvette with a brilliant idea. He would build a small house around the car and 20 years later, he would knock the house down and, voila, he would have a brand new, 20-year-old car that he could sell in mint condition for big bucks.

There was a slight problem. When he broke the house down, the Corvette was full of rust, rot and ruin.

Some time ago, a clever fellow and friend of mine purchased a couple of cases of the first vintage of Napa Valley’s famed Opus One with a similar brilliant idea. He would put the wine away for 21 years and keep one case for his son and sell the other case for big bucks. There was a slight problem. He had left the cases of wine in an extremely bad place — a spare bathroom. The bathroom sprung a leak — drat the luck — the floor was flooded up to there, the cases were soaked, the labels were ruined and there was the smell of rot and ruin.

There is a lesson to be learned. 1. Don’t age wines. 2. Unless.

First, let us examine the “don’t” part, then the “unless” part.

When you look at wine globally and taste and read about the multi thousands of wines being produced, there is a subtext not often discussed. Take this down — probably 99.3 per cent of all the world’s white wines should not be aged and probably 98.6 percent of all red wines should also not be “laid down” as we say in winespeak.

Did I hear you say, “You are kidding?” Nope. Most white wines are inexpensive, uncomplicated, light-bodied and not even meant to be aged, so aging them will do absolutely no good and surely do some harm.  That nice fresh pinot grigio that you just plunked down $12 bucks for will never be any tastier and fresher than it is the minute you return from your shopping trip. Throw it in the fridge and pop it soon! Tonight! In fact, be sure to get the latest vintage of said wine, just to be sure it wasn’t hanging around some warm warehouse gathering dust and must. Sunlight, especially the kind of light we have in California, can cause a wine to be “light struck” and lose its crisp edge. We are speaking of just a few days.  If a wine is left in a warm warehouse for six months, the wine will experience oxidation and ruination and you will experience deflation and consternation.    

Ditto Champagne. Yes, I know the Krug fans will want to lynch me, but I stand on a platform of fresh Champagne, not semi-oxidized, flat wines.

On the same topic, most red wines should not be aged. Heresy? No, again the truth. There are, in fact, extremely few red wines in the world that will truly benefit from aging, and even so there is a big “unless.”

The red wines that do, can and should be aged for years or even decades, are the big, glorious and rich wines of the world — wines like the major classified growths of Bordeaux, the very top wines of Burgundy and pinot noirs of California, the powerful cabernets and cabernet blends of California, the muscular shiraz wines of Australia, the great Rhone wines of France and California and a precious few of the very top of the line late-harvest wines like French sauternes and the trokenbeerenauslese wines of Germany.

All these wines have something in common. They are often extremely expensive, so if you are fondling a $12 bottle of light Beaujolais, the price tag is telling you something about its ageability, or lack thereof.

For many reasons, a great French Bordeaux or great California cabernet, to mention two wines, are made to age. When these wines first are released, the wines generally have a very strong structure, also known as backbone, also known as big tannins. That’s the stuff that puckers your mouth at the end of a taste. Aging these wines soften the tannins’ hard edges and the wines mellow out. Some great Bordeaux may develop for as long as 50 years or more and those are the wines that wine writers love to write about, even though mere mortals can’t find them. Such a wine, like a 1945 Chateau Petrus, will put you back about  $6000 to $10,000, so you have to be serious about this genre.

So, now we know a little more about the “unless” part. There is a further “unless.” Don’t go into buying cases upon cases of great Rhone wines, classified Bordeaux, top of the line Burgundies, big California cabernets, etc., unless you build a great place to store them (cool, dark and dry) and build nice racks to place them in, so they don’t fall over when you hit the garage wall some night. Then, you must have the time, desire, patience and accounting skills to write your wines in a cellar book, or in your computer and try bottles from your stash on a regular basis to make sure they are progressing like your wise child at prep school. Otherwise, be prepared to open a lot of vinegar at the end of your waiting game.