Cork taint?

[Tom_S]

Tonight I opened a bottle of my dry red Concord wine from 2008 since I wanted to see how well it aged. I poured a glass of it, but the smell and flavor is off. I did some googling on cork taint, which is often characterized by a moldy or musty smell, but this wine doesn't quite smell musty, but it kind of smells burnt for lack of a better word. The color is good, there are some tiny suspended particles in it, and only just a tiny bit of carbonation. I'm just curious if anyone knows what the problem is and if this bottle can be saved. I think I might have one or two other bottles of the same batch which I haven't opened but could open them to see if the same problem exists.

 

[Arne]

Maybe try decanting it for a while. See if the oders will blow off. Try it for an hour or so and see what happens, let us know. Arne.

 

[Tom_S]

I let the glass of wine I poured sit for probably around an hour but it still smelled the same. I may just have to pour this one out.

 

[Rocky]

Tom, it sounds to me like oxidation has started in this wine. Pour some wine into a wine glass and tip the glass slightly over a sheet of white paper so that you can clearly see the color profile of the wine in the glass against the white background of the paper. Try to determine if there is any "browning" or "rust" color around the edges. If so, it could be oxidation.

 

[Tom_S]

I set the bottle in the fridge overnight with just the cork stuck in the bottle, and just now poured a glass to check for oxidation (it's all red, no brown). The burnt smell is gone and the wine tastes a lot better now, and in fact tastes like it should taste (actually good). I guess it just needed to breathe a bit. I'm glad I didn't pour it out like I was going to last night.

Do you think maybe some residual SO2 could have caused that odor? I know that sulfur is supposed to smell like rotten eggs but this didn't smell like that.

 

[Tom_S]

On my second glass of this wine and it is really good now. I can't say that it's any better now than it was 4 years ago, but it's still good nonetheless. It's still a bit fizzy so I must not have degassed this one enough. I'll have to remember to decant the other bottles from this batch a few hours before drinking.