WINE CHAT: Bad Wine vs. Wine Gone Bad

As a Father's Day treat, my wife encouraged me to go pick out a splurge bottle of wine.  OK, this didn't require too much convincing.  So the next time I was in a wine shop, with the advice of the manager, I picked up a bottle of 2004 Napa Cellars Cabernet Sauvignon  for $25.  The shop manager was quite enthusiastic about this bottle, so I began to plan a meal around it.

Perhaps it was a harbinger of things to come when the skies opened up and required me to shift my ribeye & portobellas from the grill to the stove.  This wasn't too big of a setback, and I busied myself slicing the mushrooms and preparing to roast the steak.

When the food was close to ready, I opened the wine to let it breathe a bit.  I became a bit concerned when I didn't hear the typical gentle "pop" I get when I open a bottle.  But the cork didn't look broken, so I hoped the wine would be OK.  I poured a glass, and the bouquet was alright, but the taste was very disappointing...it seemed a bit off after one sip, but I'd been nibbling on things as I was cooking and figured I'd try cleansing my palate to get a clear taste.

Taste two wasn't any better.  A harsh taste of alchohol dominated, overshadowing the fruit flavors.  Now, if this were a cheap wine, I might just figured I'd gotten what I had paid for.  But at $25 a bottle, something had definitely compromised the quality of the wine.  And my friend John who'd come to the shop with me had gotten and tried the same wine, with very good reviews.  This was not bad wine, but wine gone bad.

"Corked" is the technical term used for wine that has gone bad due to issues with the cork stopper.  I thought I had a handle on term, thinking it simply meant the cork had broken down.  Actually, from what I gathered from my new Oxford Companion to Wine, a corked wine actually results from something called cork taint, organic compounds that develop on approximately 5 percent of wine corks.  The amount of cork taint varies, such that it can range from having a subtle negative effect to making it totally undrinkable.  This cab in question was somewhere in between, thus required a few tastes to determine it needed to be emptied into the sink.

All was not lost though.  We happened to have a 2003 Gigondas handy.  This hearty red from a Cote du Rhone village had nice leatheriness to give it structure and a distinct cherry fruit.  Maybe not what I was expecting last night but I can't complain too much!

I must be on a bit of a bad streak.  On a recent visit to New York City, a California Chardonnay my friend ordered at Landmarc was  a bit off.  Again, it wasn't horrid, but the flavor profile was off.  We hesitated about whether to send it back or not; our server was friendly and knowledgable about wines so we called him over for his opinion.  He looked mortified after one taste and quickly got us a better bottle.

If you drink wine regularly, you are sure to run into both bad wine and wine gone bad.  The more you can get a taste for what a certain type of wine should taste like, the easier it will be to detect wines that are a bit off.  And with wine prices what they are at a restaurant, don't hesitate about sending the wine back if it doesn't seem right upon tasting!

While there's not much you can do to avoid corked wine, short of swearing off wine altogether, there are things you can do to keep wine you purchase from going bad.  Most importantly, wine should be stored in a cool, dry place such as a cellar or basement.  Finding the optimal temperature is less important than storing it in a place that doesn't undergo a lot of temperature fluctuation.  Wine should also be stored away from light.

If you live in an apartment or home without a basement, you should either invest in a wine refrigerator (there are small 6 bottle ones that aren't too expensive) or generally buy only what you plan to drink over the next few weeks.

It is certainly frustrating to open up a bottle of wine that is corked or otherwise gone bad; fortunately it doesn't happen too often.  May your wines be uncorked!

David Crowley, Gather Food Correspondent

David enjoys sharing good food and wine with family and friends.  David writes about his wine explorations and discoveries in his column, "Wine Chat", a twice-monthly feature of Gather Essentials:  Food.  He also blogs at Cooking Chat. By day, David is the President and Founder of Social Capital Inc.