Age is the one thing about a wine that changes without anyone touching the bottle. A red Burgundy at six years is a different wine from the same bottle at two; a white from Chassagne or Meursault at ten has found a second life. This page catches that middle stretch: old enough for the tannins to have softened and the aromas to have turned, young enough for the fruit still to be there. It is the stretch in which wines bought for the cellar become wines to open.

We group the cellar by the age of the vintage: recent for the last five vintages, mature from five years up to fifteen, collector from fifteen on. The groups move with the years: a wine passes to the collector wines once its vintage turns fifteen, and a wine from the new arrivals may already belong here if it came to us with some age. Non-vintage Champagne, which has no year on the label, is left out.

Age says nothing on its own about whether a wine is ready. A Pauillac from a great year may still be closed at twelve; a Beaujolais may be past its best at eight. The page is a way of looking at the cellar by year, not a promise about the glass. For that, see the notes on each wine, or ask.

The wines above are the current selection. To follow one year across the cellar, use the vintage page; for the years recognised as great for their region, the great vintages.