08/31/07 Uncommon Wine Flaws

Welcome to Vine to wine this is your host Linda Moran. Today, at the behest of some friends, we are going to address some wine flaws beyond simple cork taint. Every once in awhile someone asks me how will they know when a wine just isn't right? Recently some friends ordered a bottle of wine at a restaurant. It is a wine they are familiar with and when they tasted it, it just wasn't the same. But they couldn't put their finger on it. Now these are people who know what a corked bottle smells like and they claim that just wasn't it. They said the wine was sort of, almost fizzy but not like champagne. If in fact this was the case it surprised me as that is a sign the wine had sugar and some amount of yeast or element still remaining after fermentation, which was causing a slight fermenting process in the bottle. This is a nightmare for a winery especially since this wine is meant to be dry. In my experience this is an unusual occurrence. Another wine flaw these same friends have experienced was wine that had lost its fruit and some color accompanied by a scent of sherry of Madeira. This is wine that has probably been baked as a result of being stored in a place that was way too warm for wine. The characteristics they described are referred to as maderized. This is also a less common flaw as most everyone knows that wine is fragile in this way and cannot be subject to warm temperatures. So those are a couple of considerations if the wine you normally enjoy just isn't right to you. Remember to send your wine questions to Linda at Vine to Wine dot net and thank you for joining me on today's Vine to Wine.