Natural Wine Corks Help a Wine to Age but Can Also Lead to Oxidation

Over the years, I’ve had my share of wines go bad even with proper storage in a wine refrigerator that’s in a dark location. These were medium-bodied California red wines that were 7-10 years old and I had expected them to hold up well. But, upon pulling the cork and pouring a glass, it was immediately obvious by the brown-orange hue and the nutty smell and taste that they were oxidized.

It’s always greatly disappointing to have a bottle go bad and have to dump it. But why?

During some recent reading, I was again reminded that natural corks in wine bottles allow a tiny fraction of oxygen through them - this actually helps a wine age. But, what I hadn’t appreciated was that a natural wine cork can actually allow enough oxygen through it in two to three years to breakdown the sulfites that are added to wines to prevent a wine from oxidizing!

It’s often said, and I’ll repeat it again, most wines are not meant for aging. And, I’ve proved that to myself several times. So, when you purchase nice bottle of red wine, my recommendation is to enjoy it within a year or two if properly stored in a wine refrigerator that’s in a dark location. Beyond that you can run into trouble. Cheers!

Ever Wonder? Does a Wine Need to Breathe Before Being Served?

You may have heard about pulling the cork on a bottle of wine and “letting it breathe.” Those that follow this practice may give the un-corked bottle thirty minutes to an hour before declaring that “the wine is now ready to drink!”

While pulling the cork does allow air to enter the bottle, it is only filling the top-most part of the neck of the bottle with air and exposing the wine’s surface area equivalent to the size of a dime to the air.

Pulling the cork and leaving the opened bottle exposed to air will affect the wine over a long period of time (days to weeks). But, to really allow a bottle of wine to “breathe” before serving, the wine needs even greater exposure to air.

Exposing a wine to air, even briefly, while pouring it into a glass can help. But, wines will typically need more.

Why is this? Well, although wine is produced just from the juice of grapes and yeast, the chemistry that goes on during the fermentation process can yield a few undesirable bi-products. One of these bi-products is hydrogen sulfide that can smell of rotten eggs when sampling the wine’s aroma.

So, when you transfer wine from its bottle to another vessel (e.g., a decanter), the first process that kicks-in is evaporation. Not evaporation of the wine, per se, but evaporation of highly volatile components that are in the wine from the natural winemaking process. The second process that begins is oxidation. This short-term exposure of a wine to oxygen can be beneficial. Oxidation and evaporation both help to smooth out a wine’s rough edges and make them taste more balanced and expressive.

Thirty minutes to an hour in a decanter can help release these volatile compounds. But, you probably don’t want to exceed two to three hours of decanting in order to keep your wine’s flavors from actually becoming deadened.

In order to find the peak flavor of the wine after you have opened a bottle, you need to taste it immediately after you open it to establish a baseline. This understanding of where the wine started will help you determine when the evaporation and oxidation processes have peaked the wine’s flavors — it’ll just taste better and have a smoother mouth-feel.

Highly tannic and full-bodied wines benefit most from this – wines such as Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet blends, Syrah, and Syrah blends.

While this discussion is meant mostly for red wines and maybe a few aged white wines, most everyday young white wines do not need any exposure to air before consuming.

Do you need a fancy, expensive decanter to get all these benefits? No. So, next time we’ll look at different types of decanters and ways to best decant a wine. Cheers!

Ever Wonder How to Tell if a Wine has Gone Bad?

Imagine ordering a glass of a light, crisp fruity Sauvignon Blanc expecting the glass to look like the one on the left side of the photo. But, instead you are served a golden-brown glass of wine like the one on the right. You will have been given your first clue. Then you lift your glass to take a sip but even before you do you get a whiff of a nutty aroma. That’s your second clue. But, you go ahead and take a sip and it tastes more like a sherry than a Sauvignon Blanc. You’ve gotten your final clue.

This wine has gone bad. The color, aroma and taste are dead giveaways of an oxidized wine.

Much like an apple or a banana will turn brown if exposed to air, so too will a wine.

Is an oxidized wine drinkable? Well, yes. It won’t hurt you or make you sick. And, if you are a sherry lover, you’ll probably like an oxidized wine. But you won’t get to enjoy the bright, crisp fresh fruit flavors that a Sauvignon Blanc, or most any white wine, should have.

Oxidation is just one of several wine faults that can occur in a ‘sealed’ bottle of wine. And, it can happen to both white and red wines. So, next time we’ll get into the various ways that wines can go bad and how to detect them. Until then, here’s to drinking good wine! Cheers!

Ever Wonder Why Wines Turn Brown?

Have you ever opened a bottle of red wine that had turned brown? Or, seen a bottle of white wine that’s turned brown? Well, this is a real issue with wines - as they age.

As wines age, they can become oxidized especially if the cork is not entirely sealed in the neck of the bottle. When the pigmentation in wine gets exposed to oxygen, it turns brown.

White wines can get darker and turn a golden brown.

Reds wines can turn slightly orange, brown or brick color as they age. The red wine on the left is young and the one on the right is showing some signs of aging and oxidation.

As a wine ages, you’ll often also see color variations along the edges of the glass as you look down into a slight tipped glass. You may see the red and purple hues of the wine in the middle of the glass but you’ll also see the secondary colors of orange, brown or brick along the edge.

This is a phenomenon that’s most easily seen with Pinot Noir. As Pinot Noir ages you’ll see more brick-like color around the edges.

So, always look at your wine. You can learn a lot about its age. Cheers!

What Can Be Learned From a Wine's Color

You may have seen it.  Someone with a glass of wine looking very closely at it. Or even slightly tipping the glass of wine over a bit to take an even closer look.

Well, there are several things that can be learned by just looking at your wine. And, using a white background, as shown in the photo, will greatly help in this activity.

The first thing that you can learn by looking closely at your glass of wine has to do with the body, or boldness, of your wine. A lighter colored wine will have a lighter body, or lighter flavor, than one that's a deeper hue.

A red wine will vary in color from a pale, almost pinkish, red to a deep purple.  Pale reds are going to be lighter in flavor and intensity. Prime examples would include Gamay (Beaujolais) and Pinot Noir (Red Burgundy). A medium-bodied wine will be more opaque but will usually have a lighter hue around the edges. These wines include Merlot, Zinfandel and Sangiovese (Chianti). Then, you get to the full-bodied red wines that are deep purple in color, opaque, and full of flavor. These will have big flavor and, when young, big tannin (which leads to that astringent mouth-drying sensation). These wines include Malbec, Petite Sirah, Syrah and Cabernet Sauvignon.

Color also varies with the age of a wine. Older red wines will generally get lighter in color and often take on some orange or brown hues around the edge of the glass. Older red wines can be amazing as their tannin softens. But an oxidized wine will have off-flavors (nutty) and generally be undesirable to drink.

The color of white wines can also tell you a lot about the wine. And, we'll get to that next time. Until then, Cheers!