Hi Felafelhut - and welcome. Others may disagree but cyser - indeed, all wines really need to age about 12 months. They are certainly drinkable earlier but there is no comparison between a wine that has aged a couple of months and one that has aged for a year or longer. That said,
The higher the starting gravity of a mead or wine the longer it may need to age; the more aggressive the yeast, the longer it may need to age; the hotter the ambient temperature and the hotter the temperature at which you ferment the must the longer the wine may need to age.
You can age in a carboy (the evidence is that bulk aging is better than bottle aging) or you can age in a bottle. One thing that happens is that over months sediment (lees) drop out of suspension and in a bottle such sediment is considered a sign of poor workmanship. In a carboy you have the ability to rack the wine off the lees every few months. That said, lees will still drop out months after you think that there is no more sediment left to fall out.
Aging in a carboy has another advantage - over time the CO2 that is trapped and absorbed by the liquid is slowly, slowly expelled. If that CO2 is trapped (when you bottle, for instance) then as the sediment drops out of suspension the CO2 now has points of nucleation. Those points of nucleation allow the CO2 to gather with the need for less energy than they would absent such nucleating points. The upshot is that the CO2 builds up pressure in the bottle enough to force off corks (or explode bottles if capped with crown caps (compare beer bottles). So you want to "de-gas" wines or have the gases expel themselves before you bottle.
You can degas mechanically using a stirring rod attached to a drill or by pulling a vacuum of about 22 inches or by racking the wine every two months or so and allowing the wine to flow into the carboy by placing the racking tube close enough to the inside wall of the target carboy (the vessel you are filling) so that the liquid flows down the wall and not so that it pours down the middle of the carboy's neck.
So, bottom line: how long do you age a wine or mead? You age it until all the alcohols and flavors and aromas have nicely blended, the yeasts have transformed various acids into flavors we prefer; no more sediment is dropping out and essentially the wine is CO2 free (remember that half the weight - half the weight - of the fermented sugar is converted into CO2 and if you hammer in a bung and airlock a few moments after you have pitched the yeast essentially , all that CO2 is absorbed in the wine (which is why most wine makers ferment in loosely covered buckets and not carboys but age in carboys... (what CO2 also does is increase the acidity of the fermentation, stress the yeast and can stall the fermentation process)... OK I exaggerate. All the bubbles in your airlock comes from CO2 being expelled under pressure but there is still an enormous volume of CO2 trapped and absorbed in the mead.
Last point: wine making is like cooking. Don't be afraid to taste the mead as you make it. It will tell you when it is ready to be bottled and drunk... and what you may need to do to improve the mouthfeel and taste (and smell) of the mead. Good luck.
