Wet dog and wine - not good together.

Gramma’s basement. Stinky gym socks. Moldy newspaper. Wet dog. However you describe it, wine that smells like any of the above, is bad wine. Not what anyone is looking for when they pull the cork.

And unfortunately, there is no way to predict whether a bottle will be corked before you open it, so it is always an unwelcome surprise.

What is it? Will it hurt you? What do you do if you are in a restaurant? How often does this happen?

Bad, pungent aromas can be caused by many things, but the most common cause is “cork taint” or TCA (2,4,6-trichloroanisole.) Molds that grow in the bark of cork trees react with chemicals that are used to treat the cork before the corks are stuck in the bottles and the result is an off odor in the wine. It is a hotly debated topic right now as to the percentage of tainted wines on store shelves, but it is usually estimated at between 3-5% of bottles.

Smelling and drinking wine that has TCA or cork taint will not hurt you. In fact, depending on your own smell and tasting thresholds, you may not even smell something wrong with a wine, as your spouse across the table is gagging.

If someone at the table drinking the wine is bothered by the smell of the wine and describes it as moldy, or basement, and you have gotten it from a restaurant, the bottle should be sent back. This is why the waiter will pour a small taste of the wine before he or she serves the table, to try to catch a bad bottle before the whole table gets it.

All you have to say is, “We think this bottle is bad and would like another.” Period. You are the customer and you are paying for the wine. If you get an argument from the waiter, or push back from the manager, just don’t go back. Who knows what their smelling threshold is? A reputable establishment wouldn’t want a guest drinking a bad bottle of wine.

If you purchased the bottle from a liquor store or market, they will typically give you another bottle of the same wine, IF you return the almost full, bad bottle. No go if you don’t return the wine.

And yes, screw caps eliminate the possibility of cork taint, although there are still other bads odors that can be present caused by other fun things like sulfur dioxide, mercaptan, butyric acid, etc. But not much gets in my way at 5:30 p.m. on a weeknight when I have a wine bottle with wine in it. Cheers!

Somehow, when your friend pulls out a bottle of Champagne* from the ‘frig, the tone of the get-together changes. A few more giggles, a comment about “Wow, what’s so special about tonight?”, and anticipation at hearing the pop. What is it about Champagne that makes us a bit giddy?

Consider yourself a product of brilliant marketing that started a little over 300 years ago.

Towards the end of the 1600′s, the Champagne region of France was trying to compete with its neighbors that had more southerly addresses: Burgundy and Bordeaux. Due to Champagne’s northerly latitude, their grapes did not get as ripe, the juice was higher in acid, and they had this problem where they’d bottle the wines in the fall, and all would be fine until the spring came when suddenly they would see bubbles in the wine. The bubbles weren’t predictable and sometimes would cause bottles to explode dangerously. (Cool fact: The wine makers in the Champagne region used to have to wear baseball-catcher’s-like masks to protect their faces from flying glass.)

A Dominican monk named Dom Perignon was working in the region and was actually trying to stop the bubbles from happening. He experimented with different types of grapes to see if, say, the juice from the Chardonnay grapes was causing the bubbles. Finally, he, along with a couple other monks in the area, decided to go with the bubbles instead of trying to prevent them, even though they were still unsure as to why the bubbles were happening.

The bubbles appeared because, although in the fall, it looked like the yeast had finished eating the sugar in the grape juice, they had actually only gone dormant because of the cold. When the weather warmed back up each spring, the yeast would waken and would start eating the sugar left in the juice, causing the by-product, carbon dioxide to be trapped in the capped bottle.

So after the region wine-makers decided to embrace the bubbles, and they added thicker, English bottles to the mix, they had a product that exclusively belonged to Champagne. Now, here’s where the marketing comes in…

Guess where the kings and queens of France were crowned? You got it: Rheims in Champagne, France. So since new royalty was recognized by opening bottles of Champagne, the middle class folks wanted to get in on the “royal” look and the Champagne houses easily began connecting celebrations with serving Champagne.

Hence, we look for a “POP” instead of just a “pop” at our celebrations, a great tradition that carries on to this day.

* I am using the word “Champagne” here because of its history as the first sparkling wine. Technically, if you use the word “Champagne,” you are referring ONLY to the sparkling wine that comes from the Champagne region of France. All other sparkling wines from other areas around the world should be referred to as either the local name, “Cava” from Spain, or “Prosecco” from Italy, or just “sparkling wine.”

I admit it. I’m a wine professional who relishes when I can open a bottle without a corkscrew. Now, I realize that my school specializes in wines under $30, so I probably see more of these types of opening devices than my dad, who collects wine as an investment. But seriously, for today’s pedal-to-the-metal lifestyle, screw caps are the bomb.

• They are fast.
• They are simple.
• They allow access to wine for folks with physical challenges.

We are committed to publishing, not only our students’ reviews of the wine they taste, but also what type of closure device is used on the wine. It helps to know for so many different reasons. And unless you are holding the wines for years, studies I’ve read are showing that the caps are keeping the wine fresh, along with preventing cork taint, which ruins anywhere from 4-7% of corked bottles.

So in a word, “Yes,” screw caps are awesome!

Happy wine tasting!

Wide-bottomed decanter

I was teaching a class last month at a home for a couple celebrating a birthday and anniversary. We were discussing tannins in wine and what they are and what happens to them in your glass, or a decanter or a bottle over time. (Beginner note: “Tannins” are the compound in red wine that makes your mouth feel dry or grippy. Think of over-steeped tea or biting into a grape seed and you will know what tannin is.) We took a relatively young Cabernet Sauvignon from Chile, (Marques de Casa Concha 2008 Cabernet Sauvignon, Maipe Valley, Chili, $20.49,) and poured half the bottle into a decanter about an hour before the class.

We poured tastes of the wine directly out of the bottle in one glass, then we poured the decanted version in a second glass. The wine students thought the wine was okay straight out of the bottle… “pretty strong,” “abrasive but good,” “I need some food with this,” were heard around the room.

Comments about the decanted Marques de Casa Concha 2008 Cab?, “Amazing!” “This wine is so smooth and velvety,” “I could drink this all night.”

So aside from being used to separate drinkable wine from sediment in the bottom of the bottle, as with vintage Ports, it also works to help make a wine tastier, for some reason. Scientists are currently studying why. It has been the theory that the tannin molecules bind with the wine’s pigment molecules and drop out of the wine, thus softening the astringent aspect of the wine. But that is currently being debated.

So it works to help soften tannins. What red wine should you decant?

There are three wines that if young, say younger than 10 years old, I would decant them. Any Cabernet Sauvignon, Nebbiolo, or Syrah. You can take that Chilean $20 Cab and make it taste like a $75 aged Napa Cab. Works for me!

And, yes, to your follow-on question. Those aeration devices that bubble or churn the wines that clip to the top of a bottle do work. Maybe not with the panache of the decanter, but they’re a heck of a lot easier to clean.