Tannins and Time

There’s a certain kind of person who talks about aging as if it’s a craft. They swirl their years like wine in a glass — letting oxygen rewrite the story. They say they’ve “mellowed,” that the edges have softened. What they really mean is that the bitterness has finally found company.

Wine, at least, has the grace to transform under pressure. Left in the dark, it learns how to carry its flaws. Astringency becomes structure. Harshness becomes depth. Most people just become more sure of their own taste — certain that their preferences are wisdom, not habit.

Maturity, they’ll tell you, is knowing when to stop fighting the glass. But that’s the quiet trick of time: you stop calling it resistance once you realize the cork isn’t coming out on its own.

Some learn to breathe, to let the sharpness dissolve into something almost generous. They begin to taste what they once swallowed whole — regret, pride, old arguments. They pour slower now, speak softer. Their patience reads as grace, though it’s often just exhaustion that’s learned to look elegant.

Others seal themselves tighter every year, convinced that nothing outside the cork is worth tasting. They label themselves vintage, mistake stillness for value, and call it character.

Some wines never open up, no matter how long you wait. Some people never should’ve been bottled in the first place.