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July 05, 2004
Bad wine?
Mom wrote:
> How do you know if a wine is bad? Just because it tastes
> like vinegar?
I used to wonder, too. Then one day I opened a bottle that had gone bad.
When that happens, you find the distinction less subtle than you perhaps originally imagined. I wonder if the mystique of subtlety surrounding wine arises from the difficulty we have describing tastes and smells.
A way to look at this is to say, "How do you know if a tomato is bad?" Tomatoes resemble wine in a way. They're both produce. They both may improve with age. They both can go bad. We've all had a tomato that got moldy. Some of us didn't notice and we ate a bite. That's the experience with a wine that's gone bad.
We've also eaten disappointing tomatoes that hadn't gone bad, but had no flavor, had disagreable flavor, or had a mealy texture. We've also probably eaten a few tomatoes that made us say, "Wow! That tomato tastes delicious."
Wine seems similar. So setting aside wine that has gone bad like a moldy tomato, I would say you know a wine is bad if it doesn't taste good to you. That explains as well why you want to taste wine before you buy it.
Posted by Mark at July 5, 2004 08:43 AM