Aging Like Milk? Why Your Wine Smells Rotten

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Heyy Winers! Have you ever pulled milk out of the fridge and the minute you opened it, you knew it was bad? Well, wine can be the same way! Join me as I break down things that can make your wine smell [and taste] bad.

Introduction:

When a wine is chemically out of balance, it begins doing things it shouldn't and this can result in a host of different ‘faults’ that makes a wine unpalatable. While drinking wine that has gone bad won’t put your life in any danger, it can be a very unpleasant experience for both your taste buds and your stomach. From rotten eggs to nail polish remover, read below to learn all the things that can make your wine smell weird.

Culprit One: Sulfur

Imbalances in Sulfur: This category of wine faults has everything to do with a certain infamous preservative. Sulfur is added to wine as a preservative to keep the wine from turning during transport and shelf life. However, when the sulfur becomes unbalanced you can have one of two things develop: Sulfur Dioxide or Hydrogen Sulfide. Sulfur Dioxide will smell like burnt matches while Hydrogen Sulfide will assault your nose with the smell of rotten eggs.

Culprit Two: Bacteria

Imbalances in bacteria: This category of wine faults has everything to do with one of components wine shares with vinegar. The Acetobacter bacteria, present in both wine and vinegar, can be quite the pest if it gets out of control. One of two things can happen if acetobacter is not kept in check:

• Volatile acidity: This happens when the acid in your wine becomes overwhelming, the fruit flavor becomes undetectable and your wine is beginning to turn into vinegar. While it won’t necessarily smell weird, it won’t smell like much of anything and the taste will make you turn your nose up immediately. 

• Ethyl Acetate: When the Ethyl Alcohol (ethanol) combines with the acetic acid in a wine, it can result in wine that smells concerningly like removing gel polish at the nail salon.

Culprit Three: Everyone Else

Materials other than grapes (M.O.G): This category covers everything else that can happen to a wine. These faults can be caused by temperature changes, yeast culmination, too much or too little oxygen or straight up anomalies in the wine itself.  

• Brett: Government name Brettanomyces, this particular yeast tends to linger in oak barrels. Closely related to Saccharomyces, also known as brewer’s yeast, Brett often gives wine an outdoorsy flavor. In small quantities it can add character to a wine but when out of balance, it can cause wine to smell like Barnyard, Band-aid or your grandmother’s medicine cabinet. 

• Mercaptan: This one can result in a smell similar to burnt plastic or cooking species. This particular wine fault happens when a wine becomes too warm. 

• Stemmy: This wine fault is exactly what it sounds like. Stemmy happens when there is too much stem contact during crushing and maceration. This results in a bitter green vegetable smell and taste.

  
  

• Reduction: Like with most things, oxygen is essential to the wine making process. However, balancing the amount of oxygen a wine sees is a very important job. Too little oxygen will cause your wine to smell like burnt rubber or tires while too much will cause it to lose its color and flavor. 

So there you have it! While funky wines suit the palette of many, Unbalanced wines suit the palette of none.