Archive November 10, 2006

Bad Wine?

Here’s an email I recently received:

Dear Lynne:

A couple of years ago someone turned me on to a chardonnay from Central California that was really great. Yesterday I got a mailer from a wine shop advertising the 2005 version of that chardonnay for $6.99 so I grabbed a couple of bottles to try. It was undrinkable even for me – and I’m not that picky. We threw it out. So, my questions are: what do I do about the 2nd bottle? Is it even worth trying? Is it possible to return wine to the store? My friend says you can’t cook with anything you won’t drink. Is she right? I really hate to throw away an unopened bottle of wine, even if I suspect it’s lousy.

Rebecca in Chicago

Dear Rebecca,

That’s a very good question.

First of all, just because one bottle is bad doesn’t necessarily mean the other one will be. Some bottles just go bad or get corked. You might want to find out how the wine was stored. If there was a lot of light and temperature variance on the bottles or they weren’t stored horizontally, odds are the second bottle will be bad too. Or again, that one bottle could just be corked.

Your friend is right about only using wines you’d drink in a dish you cook. When wine is added to sauces or other dishes, the heat reduces and concentrates the flavors, along with burning off the alcohol. Good wines get better and bad wines get worse.

Different wine shops have different policies on returning wines. Some will take them back unopened and some will credit you if you open it and it is corked. You would need to find out your particular wine shop’s policy.

If you want my opinion (and I assume you do since you sent me an email), for $6.99, pop it open and give it a try. If nothing else, you can put it in the fridge and use it to get out red wine stains!

Cheers,
Lynne

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