Six Common Culprits of Flawed Wines

Let’s face it – bad wine happens. Sometimes, you just do not like the wine you picked off the restaurant list or liquor store shelf. Is it too dry? Or perhaps it is too earthy? Not what you expected? Did you want the flavour profile of some other brand? That is your fault.

But, from time to time, wine consumers all over the world will get a bottle that is flawed and it is worth understanding a little about common faults to protect you, both as a wine lover and as a smart consumer in general.

Faults can be broken down in several ways, but it can help to identify if the problem stems from the source, the winery, or from the handling of the wine after that point.

At the Winery

1. Cork taint, or TCA contamination, is a wine fault that clearly rests on the little piece of bark jammed in the neck of a bottle. This chemical, in lower concentrations, mutes the fruit characters in wine, but in increasing concentrations develops distinctive aromas ranging from old cardboard, wet dog and, well, wet cork. This is not the fault of the winemaker, it simply means that a bad cork was put into the bottle you selected. Statistically, it is bound to happen, but as many as 10% of cork-sealed bottles have some of this “corked” character. A word to the paranoid, drinking a wine that is corked will not hurt you one bit, it just might not taste or smell as good as it could.

2. Volatile Acidity, also known as VA, is acetic acid making an appearance in your wine. This acid appears in wine as a by-product of fermentation or spoilage in the bottle. Despite no one wanting their wine to taste or smell like vinegar, in smaller concentrations it can add a little punch or complexity to the wine. Some of the bigger, richer red wines on the market will often contain a higher concentration of VA, but they are generally desirable to drink unless the smell or flavour of the wine is dominated by vinegar.

3. Sulphur and its compounds are present in virtually every wine and you probably will not notice them at all. However, when problems happen, they are very obvious. Hydrogen sulphide will add a rotten egg aroma; sulphur dioxide, a matchstick quality; Dimethyl sulphide, a cabbage or asparagus note; and undesirable Mercaptans, a pungent skunk spray stench to a wine. You’ll know it when you smell it.  

4. Finally, there are microbial faults. This includes Brettanomyces, commonly known as Brett. This is a variety of yeast that brings descriptors of fabric bandage, horse, bacon, sweat, cheese and even mousiness. At some concentrations, Brett can be mistaken for cork taint, but these Bretty notes are not always a bad thing. It used to be acceptable to have noticeable Brett characters in traditional wines, but the new, modern styles of wines are cleaner and more fruit driven and therefore consumers of those wines are less tolerant of Brett. Other bacteria and microbial related problems can add swampy, dirty, cabbage or musty characteristics.

Handling Faults

5. One common error in storing wine is over-heating or Maderization. The wine has literally cooked in the bottle due to storage in excessive heat conditions. The experience on the wine is similar to what happens with the fortified wines of Madeira, but, those wines are made to handle that heating and improve with it. This over-heating can be your fault, like leaving wine purchases in your car’s trunk over the August long weekend, or happen along the shipping process, like sitting in an unrefrigerated storage unit or being misplaced on a tarmac somewhere. The wine gets a caramelized or cooked sugar quality, usually at the expense of fruit, that is better experienced in a Madeira over your New Zealand sauvignon blanc.

6. Lightstrike, occurs when wine is exposed to too much UV light. This is why you should not buy the bottles sitting in the display window, with the sun bleached label. Wine is always better stored in a cool, dark place, but do not worry too much about having a bottle or two on your kitchen counter for a few days. This fault can go hand in hand with wines stored in a place with excessive vibration, which also is rough on the wine.

Faults do happen all the time, sometimes it is worth powering through as the fault is at a very low level. Is it worth asking for a new bottle of the same wine if you are splurging on a special wine and it happens to be corked? Absolutely! If the problem is microbial though, it might be better to try a different vintage, as the fault could be found in a greater number of bottles.

Photo provided by quinn.anya