Good Morning!

I was reading another blog and found this article and it is so easy to understand, I thought I would share it with you. This article is about when your wine smells off or just plain stinky!

Check it out and you might learn something just like I did!

These are the notes from a article written by Mary Orlin. She gave a run down on how to spot tainted, corked or just plain bad wine. I’ve distilled down her article to reveal the six chemical signatures that tell you your wine stinks:
Oxidized – The wine will smell stale, burnt marshmallows, nutty, sherry-like or of stewed fruit. The ethanol in the wine has probably been exposed to air for a prolonged period and is heading towards ethanoic (acetic) acid, better known as vinegar.
Volatile acidity – If your wine’s bouquet smells of nail-polish remover (acetone) or vinegar it has “volatile acidity” caused by bacterial spoilage. It’s off. Spit it out.
Sulfur – Wine makers often use sulfites as preservatives (which can be irritating to asthma sufferers and others) but if your wine smells of rotten eggs, there’s hydrogen sulfide in there, or dimethyl sulfide, and that’s bad. The wine is literally rotten.
Brettanomyces — If your quaffing reminds you of taking cherry cough syrup, sticking plasters or the farmyard, then it’s got brett – a yeast infection caused by Brettanomyces. Some old world wines have a tiny whiff of brett, which some connoisseurs enjoy, but if your wine reminds you of a wet horse blanket, probably best to get another bottle.
Cork taint – Many people don’t know when their wine is corked, but if you know the smell of 2,4,6-trichloroanisole, TCA, then you will recognize corked wine. It’s a moldy, musty, wet newspaper, dank basement, smell, a bit like brie cheese or a wet shaggy dog. Send it back.
Sulfates – Sulfates prevent bacterial contamination, but they do give a sulfurousness to the aroma and taste of wine, ans like I said, can be problematic for some people. Best avoided, but not a real problem unless you react or cannot get past the smell/taste.

I bet you will never sniff your wine the same way..will you?

Much LOVE and wine,

Tammi