When Good Wine Goes Bad

Have you ever had a bad wine? I’m not referring to a wine that just didn’t strike your fancy. I’m talking about honest-to-goodness bad wine. I sure have. I’ve had lots of them.

There are several reasons why a wine may go bad. When you get a bad wine at a restaurant or in a store, the most common reasons are poor handling, a bad cork or a contaminated bottle. At home, the most common reason for bad bottles is waiting too long to drink your wine.

In this column, we’ll talk about what can make a wine go bad, what you should do when it isn’t your fault, and how you can minimize the times when it is your fault.

First, let’s explore the most common defects found in wine:

● “Corked” wine – When wine experts refer to a wine as being “corked,” they typically mean that it has been spoiled by the presence of 2,4,6 trichloroanisole (“TCA”). TCA usually results when a naturally occurring fungus comes in contract with chlorophenol. TCA in wine usually comes from a cork that is contaminated with chlorophenol, which is found in some pesticides and can also be the result of the chlorine bleaching used to sterilize cork. It’s ironic that the very chemicals used to prevent contaminated cork sometimes end up ruining the wine it was supposed to protect! A bad case of TCA is easy to spot – its smells like moldy cardboard, a wet dog or a damp basement. TCA, which gets worse as wine ages, is primarily a flaw in winemaking and not in handling or storage.



● Oxidized wine – Oxidized wine is wine that has been exposed to too much oxygen. The first clue is typically the color of the wine, which will be brownish. Another early clue is a crumbly cork, which may indicated that a bottle hasn’t been properly stored and the cork has been allowed to dry out. Because cork is quite porous, a dry cork allows too much air into the bottle. Oxidation can also happen when wine is exposed to extreme temperatures. An oxidized wine will taste flat or like unpleasant dried fruit. In extreme cases, it will taste or smell like vinegar or nail polish remover. Oxidation is usually attributable to improper handling, transportation or storage and not to poor winemaking.

● Wine contaminated with brettanomyces – “Brett” is a yeast commonly found in wine. When it appears in large quantities, it can give a wine a very earthy or animal-type aroma. Think barnyard or hamster cage. How much of this kind of taste is too much is a point of debate in the winemaking industry. Some winemakers believe that a little brett adds complexity to wines. Others believe that attitude just reflects laziness among winemakers who don’t want to fight brett in wine-making. Brett in the extreme renders wine undrinkable. In excess, it is a flaw in winemaking and not in handling or storage.

If you find a wine that has a serious flaw, such as those described above, you may be able to return it. If the wine was served to you in a restaurant, you can send it back. The reason the server uncorks the bottle in front of you and pours the host a small taste before serving the rest of the party is to give you a chance to test the wine for any problems. Since he (or she) is offering, take him (or her) up on it! Pay attention to the cork and the taste and the smell of the first sip the server pours. If you notice that the wine is bad, say so. Don’t be surprised if the server then samples it himself or herself. Once you’ve both confirmed the wine is bad, you can exchange it at no charge for a new bottle. Note that “bad” in this context does not mean “after tasting it, I decided I’d rather have something else.”

If you purchase a wine from a store and you open it and discover that it’s bad, you can generally return it for a refund or a replacement. However, you should return the bottle with the remaining wine promptly. Returning it quickly assures the retailer that you didn’t do anything to the bottle or the wine. Returning the spoiled wine rather than just the empty bottle gives the retailer and the winemaker the most significant clue to what went wrong and whether it was isolated to one bottle or something that affected a whole vintage. But what if you discover that the wine is bad months or years after you bought it? The painful truth is that you’re probably out of luck. Not only will you have trouble proving where you bought it, but you will also have trouble proving that the harm predated your ownership and storage of the bottle.

This brings us to the most common reason why wine at home goes bad – because we tend to hold it too long. Most wine, perhaps 95% of what is sold, is made to be drunk within a few months of release. But if this is true, why have all of us heard that good wine improves with aging? Because really good, complex, well-made wine does improve with age. But it’s important to note that we’re talking about a very small number of wines, the most common being expensive Bordeaux, high-end Napa cabernet, top-flight pinot noir or chardonnay, vintage champagne, certain German Rieslings and vintage port. Most of us will never have those in our cellars.

Almost anything else in your wine rack was probably meant to be enjoyed immediately. Although it is sometimes disappointing to realize you have opened a great bottle of wine a year or more before its prime, it is far worse to hold a wine too long – especially since any of the flaws described above only gets worse with age. So, if you have a bottle of wine that someone brought to your house several years ago for a party and you’re pretty sure it’s not among the list above, I recommend that you do what I do – invite some friends over and pop it open. Help assure that at least one more bottle of good wine won’t have the opportunity to go bad.