WHEN WINE GOES BAD

WHEN WINE GOES BAD

Today I’d like to share three quick tips with you about how to tell if a wine has gone bad.
Now to be clear, this isn’t about whether someone likes a particular wine or not. Good vs. Bad can also be a personal opinion.
This is about if the actual liquid inside the bottle has encountered some kind of fault that has made the wine go bad.

OXIDIZATION
Oxidization is the result of wine that has been over exposed to oxygen. You may notice a brownish coloring of the wine and the taste will definitely be off.
One way this can happen is if there’s a problem with the wine’s cork. For example it may have crumbled or dried out and allowed air to get past the cork and to the liquid itself.
When you’re being served a bottle of wine at a restaurant, always check the foil over the cork and then the cork itself once it’s pulled.

EXPOSURE TO HEAT
If a wine gets too warm it can spoil. I look for a sweet jammy smell and a metallic or chemical like taste.

SECONDARY FERMENTATION
In this case, something icky got into the wine during processing and the residual sugars are interacting with it and causing a secondary fermentation to occur.
Look for bubbles in a still red wine as a symptom and flavor that has some unexpected sizzle to it.