One of the most common wines for people to age for many years is Champagne. Couples get a bottle as a wedding present and save it for their silver anniversary, or some other special occasion that may never arrive.

Ironically, while older Champagne has fans, it may be the ageworthy wine that novices are least likely to appreciate.

As Champagne ages, its effervescence dissipates, the crispness disappears, and if all goes well, it becomes a rich, mellow, almost-still wine that bears little resemblance to the frisky bubbly served at a wedding reception.

"Some Champagnes are not meant to be aged," says Stephane Lacroix, wine director and sommelier for the Ritz-Carlton, San Francisco. "People get a nonvintage Champagne for a wedding present, and they say, 'Let's try it in 10 years.' They won't like it."

Another common mistake is stockpiling wines from grapes harvested in a year of personal importance -- the year you were married, or your first child was born -- regardless of whether that vintage or varietal is ageworthy.

"People get very emotional about old vintages," Lacroix says. "There's more of an emotional connection to the bottle than to the taste of the wine itself."

So which wines should you age?

With the caveat that you must have the proper storage and that there are no hard-and-fast rules, here are a few guidelines.

Wines worth aging

Fortified wines, like Port and Madeira. These are the most ageworthy of wines. If you really want to lay aside wine for your silver anniversary, these are your best bets.

The reason is the higher alcohol and sugar levels of these wines. Both alcohol and sugar act as antioxidants, slowing down the natural deterioration of wine over time.

Fortified wines that predate the United States are drinking well now.

"The oldest wine I had was a Madeira from 1745 and that was still brilliant," says Larry Stone, a master sommelier and general manager of Rubicon Estate in Rutherford. "Madeira just might keep getting better with age."

Stone says some dessert wines, particularly those with good acidity and higher alcohol, will also age for decades.

Cabernet Sauvignon-based wines, from California, Bordeaux and elsewhere. Cabernet Sauvignon is the focus of many oenophiles and the auction market for a reason: With the possible exception of Barolo, well-balanced Cabernets are the only non-sweet wines likely to be better in 15 years than they are upon release.

Great Cabernets can last far longer than that. At the Paris tasting re-enactment in May 06, wine professionals on both sides of the Atlantic raved about the 1971 Ridge Monte Bello Cabernet Sauvignon, which finished first overall.

And at a private tasting in San Francisco in May 06 of pre-1980 California wines, one of the stars was a 1953 Martin Ray Winery California Cabernet Sauvignon, which was like a delicious blackberry pie in which one could taste the individual berries.

But just because the label says Cabernet Sauvignon, or Bordeaux, doesn't mean the wine's drinking window will extend until the polar ice caps melt and San Francisco goes underwater.

"Ninety percent of the wines from Bordeaux won't age more than 10 years, with improvement," Stone says. "Some vintages drink better young."

So how can you tell if a Cab will improve in your cellar? Will it develop alluring secondary characteristics like notes of violet or mint? Will its tannins soften until they caress your tongue like a silk-draped courtesan? Or will it simply die in the bottle, losing its fruit and tasting like little more than dust?

The first rule, as with all wines, is to know the producer. Some make their wines to age; others do not.

Stone cautions that tasters have to be trained to recognize the characteristics that allow a wine to age well. Tannins -- chemical compounds found in red wine that make it taste "dry" -- are important, because they protect the wine from deterioration. But it's not enough to recognize that a wine is very tannic -- it also has to have balance.

"Structure, acidity and concentration," Lacroix says. "When you taste this wine, it has tannic structure. It has nice acidity and very concentrated fruit."

For all wines you plan to cellar, not just Cabernets, sommeliers recommend buying a 12-bottle case and tasting one wine every six months to a year, so you can appreciate its development -- and avoid discovering, too late, that the wine is past its peak.

Italian reds. Nebbiolo-based reds from Barolo and Barbaresco are among the world's most ageworthy wines, gaining fragrant, floral aromas over time. However, because they are changing in nature, the longevity of current releases is unpredictable.

Giancarlo Paterlini, co-owner and wine buyer for Acquerello restaurant in San Francisco, recently held a series of tastings of Barolos from the 1950s, '60s and '70s and discovered to his surprise that the wines from the '50s were best. The reason is that winemaking was more primitive, Paterlini says, and the wines were released with ferocious tannins.

"Back then, wines in Italy were made by farmers," Paterlini says. "Also, Italy was very poor in those days. People did not invest in barrels and equipment. In those days, wine was made in a fashion that for the first 10 years, you could not drink it."

Paterlini says of today's wines, Amarone has as much longevity as Barolo, as does a good Brunello di Montalcino. Super Tuscan blends with high percentages of Cabernet Sauvignon may also age well.

Riesling, particularly from Germany. Most white wines don't improve much with age, in part because they are so low in tannins. German Riesling -- high in acidity and sugar -- is the big exception.

"Rieslings are virtually immortal," says Mark Squires, a wine educator and consultant who runs the bulletin board at wine critic Robert M. Parker Jr.'s Web site, erobertparker.com. "They age as well as the best red wines. Riesling (fans) talk the same way Bordeaux people talk."

Note that wines from particularly ripe grapes, such as Beerenauslese and Trockenbeerenauslese, are higher in sugar and alcohol than most Rieslings -- giving them the same antioxidant protection as Ports and Madeiras.

Age with caution

Pinot Noir. Everything about Pinot is unpredictable, and aging is no exception.

Generally, the recommended drinking window for Pinot Noir is not as long as for Cabernet Sauvignon. Most Pinots are best within 10 years of harvest, while many Cabernets are just starting to open up at that point. But some legendary Burgundies -- which are made of Pinot Noir -- age as well as the finest Cabs.

Many sommeliers caution Pinot fans not to age their wines too long, because, as Stone says, "Most Pinot is delicious young. I think most Pinot is meant to be enjoyed within the first five years," particularly the newer, more fruit-forward styles from California.

Because that view is widely held, Pinot-philes like Jamie Kutch can find tremendous values in older wines compared with Cabernets, which can stay high-priced for decades.

Kutch, 32, became so entranced by the taste of older Pinot Noirs that he quit his job on Wall Street to move to San Francisco to make wine -- he hopes his Pinots will be ageworthy. He says he has tasted about 200 Pinots aged 10 years or more and has tasting notes on all of them.

At his apartment, he opened two bottles from the Summer of Love: a 1967 Louis M. Martini Mountain Pinot Noir and a 1967 Inglenook Estate Bottled Napa Valley Pinot Noir that he acquired for just $15 each. He bought them from a store in Chicago that had good storage and had been unable to sell them since their release.

Here's one of the odd things about old wines: the Martini was clearly the better of the two when the bottles were tasted by themselves: It still had bright cherry fruit along with a soft leather character. The Inglenook had no fresh-fruit flavors, only orange peel, earth, raisins and spice. But with roast duck, bought whole in Chinatown, the Inglenook was better.

"Do you want to eat a piece of duck and then put a grape in your mouth?" Kutch asked. "Or would you prefer to eat a piece of duck and have notes of earth, leather and orange peel?"

That's the reason some sommeliers recommend older wines -- because they're less tannic and their flavors more subdued, they won't overpower a dish. In fact, the opposite is the worry.

Lacroix says, "Older wines are more delicate and elegant. You don't want to have them with any sauce that is overly sweet or powerful. Not too much seasoning, or salt, or powerful flavors. If you really want to enjoy the bottle of wine that you've stored for so long, you should plan the menu around it."

Chardonnay. Whether or not your Chardonnays are worthy of aging depends completely on the style of wine you like. If you like it rich and buttery, drink now.

Rajat Parr, wine director at Michael Mina restaurant in San Francisco, says that many Northern California Chardonnays are "low-acid wines that will fall apart after a couple years."

But if you like a Burgundy-style Chardonnay, with vibrant acidity and interesting minerality -- rather than tropical fruit flavors -- try putting some aside for five to 10 years to see how the secondary flavors develop.

"I used to age Chardonnay and white Burgundy," Stone says. "I have been disappointed by both. There are great ageable white Burgundies, but you have to know the producer and even then you might be disappointed."

Shiraz/Syrah. Some Syrah-based wines from the Rhone Valley region of France -- most famously from Hermitage -- are considered very long-lived. But for lesser wines, their ageworthy reputation may have as much to do with their rustic tannin levels as anything else.

"Most Rhone wines I would drink within 10 years," Stone says bluntly. "They really will not improve beyond that."

As for Australian Shiraz (what the grape is called Down Under), with the notable exception of Penfolds Grange, very few were made to high-quality standards 20 years ago, so there isn't much of a track record. Keep in mind these wines are popular because they're so approachable now.

Sparkling wine. Assuming you prefer your bubbly mellow and rich, rather than crisp and refreshing, be advised that the best aged sparkling wines are not those that have been sitting in a collector's cellar.

Instead, they have been undergoing long, slow secondary fermentation -- which creates the fizz -- at the winery until they are released as "late disgorged" wines many years after harvest. These are more expensive because the winery has done the maturing for you. You'll have much better luck with a recently released late-disgorged wine than a much older, ordinary vintage wine.

Even then, aged wine fans "can get crazy about it," Squires says. "You get people who want Champagne to have no bubbles. They want it to not taste like Champagne anymore. Why not just buy something else?"

Merlot. The great Merlot-based wines of Pomerol in France certainly can age, as can some Merlots made from mountain fruit in Napa Valley.

But this ignores the principle pleasure of Merlot -- it's more approachable, earlier, than Cabernet Sauvignon.

"One of the great things about a great bottle of Merlot is you don't ever feel like you're robbing the cradle," Scott Tracy, sommelier at La Toque restaurant in Rutherford, said last year. "You're not punished for waiting five years, and you're not punished for drinking it now."

If your cellar space is limited; why devote space to a wine you can enjoy today? Ignore Myles from "Sideways" and drink Merlot, but don't stockpile it for your dotage.

Zinfandel. Enologist Andre Tchelistcheff, one of the men most responsible for bringing post-Prohibition California winemaking into the modern era, is credited with the observation that old Zinfandel eventually begins to taste like old Cabernet Sauvignon.

This is a mixed blessing. Old Cabernet Sauvignon can be wonderful. But it doesn't have Zinfandel's uniquely spicy, brambly character.

"I personally don't think Zinfandel is a very good ager," Squires says. "Even when you're dealing with the very best wines, like Ridge Lytton Springs, it doesn't taste like Zinfandel. It tastes like somewhat odd Bordeaux."

If you want to appreciate the Zin-ness of Zinfandel, drink it within about five years of harvest.

Wines to drink now

Sauvignon Blanc. Not one sommelier or wine expert interviewed for this article would say they had ever had a good aged Sauvignon Blanc. It's odd, because Sauvignon Blanc is a genetic parent of Cabernet Sauvignon, the most ageworthy of non-fortified wines. But still, this is a fresh wine to drink now.

Pinot Grigio. Because Americans' affection for Pinot Grigio is recent, we may be tempted to throw a bottle in the cellar for five years. Save yourself the trouble -- others have tried.

"Pinot Grigio doesn't seem to age very well," says Lee Miyamura, a winemaker for Meridian Vineyards in Paso Robles. At least she answered the question; some others just laughed.

Anything that costs $15 or less upon release. Lower-priced wines, worldwide, are made to drink now. Winemakers don't want to say their wines aren't ageworthy, but putting a $12 wine in your cellar for 10 years is ignoring its reason for existence.

"We want consumers, when they're at a supermarket, to pick up a bottle of our wine and enjoy it that night," Miyamura says. "We're trying to present a fruity, easily approachable wine."

If a cheap wine tastes too tannic to drink, it's not that it needs time -- it's simply poorly made.

In the past, "to say a wine was ageable, that was the answer to everything," Stone says. "It explained why a wine doesn't taste good today."

If an inexpensive wine doesn't have good fruit flavors now, it's not going to acquire them in your closet. Drink something else and chalk it up to experience.

Rosé. Squires says he recently attended a tasting of a prominent French rosé producer where he was served a 5-year-old wine that the producer proudly pointed out still had some fruit flavors.

"He proved the wine could hold," Squires says. "But have you gained anything?"

Rosé is the quintessential drink-now wine. And there's nothing whatsoever wrong with that.

E-mail W. Blake Gray at wbgray@sfchronicle.com.