Common Wine Flaws

Wine is a fragile beverage and things can happen to spoil it. These are the common problems, how to recognize them, and what you can do.

Oxidation usually is from a bottle that's been open too long though it can happen in the wine making process or be present in a really old bottle of wine. Some oxygen is good, too much is not. How can you tell? It might look a bit brown, you won't smell fruit, but you might smell vinegar or a nutty characteristic. If you've ever tried sherry it'll remind you of that.

Cork taint means there's a chemical on the cork that reacted with the wine. If there's enough taint the wine has a wet newspaper or wet dog stinky smell. Other times it might just be no fruit smells or flavors, but you don't get much of the stink and that's when if tough to tell if the wine is flawed or just not very good.

Cooked wine can easily happen during the hot months and the wine gets overheated. It doesn't take much heat to ruin a wine this way. The physical sign may be the cork has been pushed out slightly by the expanding liquid or wine has seeped onto the cork; maybe the foil around the neck of the bottle is wet and sticky. Of course, if it's a screw cap you won't see any of this. The flavors will be off; maybe raisiny or pruney. The wine will taste astringent/bitter.

Drinking any of these will not hurt you, but will be damn unpleasant.

If you happen to be ordering wine by the glass somewhere and suspect one of these faults ask your server to check it out. There's a good chance they'll just open another bottle.

If you are having a bottle of wine at home and one of these problems show up what happened? If when you first open a bottle it's oxidized and it's a recent purchase (not a ten year old wine) then you can return it to where you purchased. If there's cork taint then return it. If it was overheated it could be the store or maybe you put it in a hot car or were storing it in a warm area.