The woman reached under the sink and took out a bottle of white Zinfandel. “I’ve been saving this for four or five years for a special occasion,” she said, and proudly handed it to me. “Has it aged enough now?”
We were at her house for a wine tasting; a dozen or so people gathered for a Wine 101 class. And she was more than excited to show off her aged wine — because all wine should be aged, shouldn’t it?
So imagine her shock when the wine, which should have been light pink, had turned rusty, almost like pipe water. And it smelled like rubbing alcohol instead of sweet strawberries. That wasn’t better; that was much, much worse.
What happened?
Yes, this was inexpensive white Zinfandel and not a $100 red Bordeaux. But the principle is the same. Age, despite the assumption of many wine drinkers, is not necessarily a wine’s friend. Neither is heat or too much light. Says Sonoma winemaker Ryan Prichard, “Wine is essentially a point in time between fresh grapes and vinegar. And our job in the wine realm is to make that time last as long as possible.”
Much can go wrong between the time the bottle leaves the winery and when it ends up on the dining room table. It can turn to vinegar, change colors, or morph into an almost brandy-like liquid. And those are just the most obvious changes.
The good news is that 21st-century technology in winemaking, transportation, and storage, has reduced the chances of that happening. The bad news is that it’s still possible, and a wine’s journey from bottling to consumption is “one of the biggest and least recognized problems in wine,” says Dallas sommelier Jeffrey Gregory.
The best way to prevent those defects is to understand what causes them and, when possible, to take the necessary precautions. And, if something does happen, then to understand that Prichard’s point in time can be fleetingly short, even for the most expensive of wines.
Some basic truths
Wine, for all of its art and romance, is chemistry. Talk to winemakers, sommeliers, and wine judges, and the conversation can quickly turn to molecular bonding and sulfur reactions, featuring terms like esters and phenolic compounds — none of which sounds like something to pair with dinner. Yet despite all that science, there is still much that isn’t certain, save that all wine will eventually turn to vinegar.
Generally, wine has two opportunities to go bad. The first is at the winery.
Many things can happen; among the most common are TCA, or cork taint; Brett; and volatile acidity, or VA. The first — technically 2,4,6-trichloroanisole — is a chemical that reacts with natural cork and can cause musty aromas and flavors in wines, including a wet dog smell.
Click HERE to read the full article.