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Sometimes a wine may smell funny even though your glasses are spotless
Give it time to breathe
Sometimes a wine may smell funny even though your glasses are spotless. There are several reasons for this beyond the obvious, that the wine is not to your liking.
Often older wines can have a bit of “bottle stink” apon opening. This is easily remedied by allowing the wine to breath either in your glass or in a decanter. I have found that almost all wines, young and old, inexpensive, and not so inexpensive tend to improve with some exposure to oxygen. This “breathing” of the wine allows for off aromas to dissipate while the wine slowly releases it’s good aromas.
In addition, breathing can allow for a wine to improve its mouthfeel by softening some of the tannins and allowing the acidity to integrate into the wine. While red wines benefit most from breathing whites certainly can improve with time in either a decanter or even the open bottle.
When serving wine I like to take a small sample of the wine when I open it. Not only does this allow me to judge the state of the wine but, by reducing the volume of wine a bit and thus lowering it’s level in the bottle, I’m exposing a bit more surface area of the wine to air, allowing it to breath more freely in the bottle.
Well those are just some of the basics to get you started. Don’t be too particular about any of these suggestions for they are just that. Try and remember there are no rules here except for one. Have some fun!
Sometimes a wine may smell funny even though your glasses are spotless. There are several reasons for this beyond the obvious, that the wine is not to your liking.
Often older wines can have a bit of “bottle stink” apon opening. This is easily remedied by allowing the wine to breath either in your glass or in a decanter. I have found that almost all wines, young and old, inexpensive, and not so inexpensive tend to improve with some exposure to oxygen. This “breathing” of the wine allows for off aromas to dissipate while the wine slowly releases it’s good aromas.
In addition, breathing can allow for a wine to improve its mouthfeel by softening some of the tannins and allowing the acidity to integrate into the wine. While red wines benefit most from breathing whites certainly can improve with time in either a decanter or even the open bottle.
When serving wine I like to take a small sample of the wine when I open it. Not only does this allow me to judge the state of the wine but, by reducing the volume of wine a bit and thus lowering it’s level in the bottle, I’m exposing a bit more surface area of the wine to air, allowing it to breath more freely in the bottle.
Well those are just some of the basics to get you started. Don’t be too particular about any of these suggestions for they are just that. Try and remember there are no rules here except for one. Have some fun!
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