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How do you recognise wine faults?
It is estimated that five to ten percent of all wine bottles are defective. The faults can manifest themselves in very different ways; in most cases they are caused by microorganisms. However, some phenomena that may seem unusual are not wine faults.
What you can see
Especially with young wines, a Cloudiness is often a sign of a defect. Cloudiness may appear as a fine haze or in the form of flaky or cloudy precipitates. In older red wines, however, temporary turbidity can also be caused by swirled up Deposit swirled up. However, this settles again and is not a wine defect. Cloudiness is also not necessarily a defect in the case of unfiltered Wines.
Also Tartar is not a wine defect. These are salts of tartaric acid that precipitate in the form of small, transparent crystals. Tartar is completely harmless to health.
With older wines, you should pay attention to the Fill level of the bottle. Over the course of several decades, liquid gradually evaporates through the cork. Bottles of very old wines are therefore sometimes no longer completely full. However, this should not happen with wines that are less than 15 years old and is a sign of a faulty closure; the wine may then already be heavily oxidised.
If the cork has Mould if mould has formed on the cork, this alone is no cause for concern; it rather speaks for an intact cellar flora. However, the cork should not stick out of the bottle. If the cork has already been driven out of the bottle by a few millimetres, the wine has probably been exposed to too high temperatures and may have suffered damage.
On the other hand, it is harmless if there are cork crumbs floating in the bottle or glass after opening because the cork was not pulled out completely. This is not an indication of a cork defect(cork taint), and the crumbs can simply be fished out.
What you can smell and taste
One of the most common and most prominent wine faults is cork taint. It manifests itself in a dull, musty, musty smell and a dull, bitter taste. It is mainly triggered by the chemical compound trichloroanisole(TCA), which is formed when microorganisms break down certain chlorine-containing substances from wood treatment. Typical of the cork defect is that the smell in the glass becomes stronger and more unpleasant. If in doubt, let the glass stand for about ten minutes and then smell it again. If the smell has then disappeared, it was not a cork taint.
Cork taint, by the way, can be treacherous and cannot be detected immediately or clearly. Sometimes the wine appears to be flawless in aroma and taste, but in the reverberation (the smell that comes directly from the throat to the nose after swallowing) a musty tone then appears. It is also possible that only in the course of time - a quarter or half an hour after opening the bottle - a "hidden" cork taint becomes noticeable. Sometimes a wine simply smells and tastes peculiarly "muted" without one being able to precisely fathom the impairment; a cork defect can also be the cause of this - especially in the case of agglomerated corks. On the other hand, a musty, musty smell can also occur with wines that are not sealed with corks.
Another defect is the "atypical age tone" (UTA). This is caused by the chemical compound aminoacetophenone (AAP), which produces a dull, soapy-bitter smell and taste reminiscent of mothballs, floor polish, dirty, damp rags or wet cardboard. UTA often occurs when the vines have suffered from a lack of water, nutrients and/or nitrogen, as well as with high yields and early harvests.
The third common wine defect is sulphurboil. It is caused by hydrogen sulphide and its smell is reminiscent of the exhalations of a billy goat (hence the name) or of rotten eggs, decaying meat, cooked cabbage or burnt rubber. Possible causes for the formation of Böckser are insufficient nutrient supply of the vine, high fermentation temperatures or hygiene deficiencies. Since hydrogen sulphide reacts with copper, you can put a copper coin (e.g. a penny piece) in the glass and swirl it a little to get rid of the gust; but it is better to simply buy a new bottle of wine - as with all other wine faults.