Wines need an effective wine storage space in order to be kept safe. Without an effective wine storage solution, wine will go bad, and must be thrown away. This cannot be allowed to happen; after all, wine does not come cheap. Here are some things check for to find out whether your wines have gone bad or not.
The Two Most Common Causes of Wine Going Bad in a Wine Cellar
There are many things that can cause your wines to become tainted or spoiled. The two most common are: cork taint and oxidation.
1. Cork Taint.
Cork tainting is the wine’s cork being contaminated prior to bottling. More specifically, the wine cork is contaminated by TCA, a type of bacteria that lives in cork. It is important to take note that this has nothing to do with the little bits of floating cork in wine. Rather, a wine cork with an excessive amount of TCA is what will contaminate and consequently spoil wine. The term “corked” refers to spoiled wine.
2. Oxidation.
Oxidation is a process that occurs when wine is overexposed to air. More specifically,wine compounds react to the oxygen in the air. The most common cause of oxidation in wine is improper wine storage. This is why it is very important to invest in a reliable residential custom wine cellar so that wines can properly be stored.
Cues that Indicate that the Wine in Your Wine Cellar is Spoiled
There are a few cues that you can look for to see if your wines have gone bad. To search for these cues, here are somethings that you can do:
1. Observe Its Appearance.
Simply check the appearance of your wine to gain an idea of whether it is still good, or if it is spoiled. Bad wine loses its brightness and takes on a brown hue. A bottle of red wine that has turned brown in color is either old or tainted. If a bottle of white wine has turned deep yellow in color, it has most likely oxidized.
Besides the color, observe also the wine cork. If the cork has slightly pushed out from the bottle, it maybe an indication that the wine has overheated and expanded within the bottle.
2. Smell the Wine.
This is one of the quickest ways to check for spoilage. If your wine smells moldy or musty, it has most likely been spoiled. If your wine smells like sherry and it isn’t sherry, it has probably gone bad. Other scents that can indicate spoilage are stewed fruit,and/or a heavy raisin smell. If you detect a strong vinegar or sulfur smell,similar to rotten eggs, this is a sure sign that the wine has gone bad.
