Certainly safe. Possibly not as palatable as when it was first opened.
Thank for everyone’s opinions.
I had a glass of it last night before bed, and after the first couple of sips it didn’t actually taste that much different - sharper is the word I’d use to describe it.
My stomach feels fine too.
That being said, I’ve tasted wines straight off the supermarket shelf worse than this, so it really is a matter of, well… taste.
So to sum it up… a half bottle of 11 day old Merlot kept at room temperature for the duration of that time is safe to drink, and to my idiot senses anyway, still tastes pretty much like a red wine.
I wouldn’t say that’s true. It’s about half and half, in my experience of buying mixed cases (in the £8-£11 a bottle range) from a wine club.
Yeah, that’s the worst that’ll happen – it’ll taste vinegar-ish.
Hmmm. Well I will bow to your greater knowledge as far as the UK is concerned. I can’t remember the last time I saw corked wine in Australia. I was in the UK a few weeks ago and only saw screwtops but that may have been anomalous.
Refrigeration probably does slow down oxidation, since most chemical reactions proceed more slowly at lower temperatures. It might not slow it down enough to be significant, though.
And how well a wine keeps will also depend on how strong it is (i.e., what proportion of alcohol). The limit of strength in wines is that eventually, you get enough alcohol that it kills off the very yeasts that are producing the alcohol in the first place. Since such yeasts are generally more tolerant of alcohol than most microorganisms, very little of anything is going to live in a high-strength wine.
Wine should be drunk with friends, and you should never have any left in the bottle.
It makes a big difference over the course of, say, a week or two. Your best bet is to get one of those vacuum sealer things. It’s just small hand pump with some stoppers that seal the wine bottle and keep the air out.
This … ethanol is poisonous … even kills off the yeast that done did ferment the grape juice to begin with … but as noted above this isn’t complete proof against bacterial contamination … but it is proof against many many microbes …
The problem is ethanol is more volatile than water, and quickly evaporates out of the wine glass … leaving behind a somewhat nutrient rich soup that can be contaminated by molds, microbes, cats or bacteria …
So, we’ve drank half our bottle and screwed the cap back on leaving the other half for another time … there’s oxygen in there now but only a limited supply … once all the oxygen does it’s nasty and makes vinegar the process is done, now the wine will taste a little fouler but still safe to drink … also the ethanol streams out of the wine, but again because of it’s limited space only so much can leave the wine, most stays put continuing it’s anti-bacterial action … so all the dust, dander and cat hair covered in microbial filth that gets in won’t generally create unhealthy colonies … again, not complete protection, just far better protection than without …
No one’s mentioned sunlight … I’ve heard that this is really bad for beer … thus the dark green or brown bottles the better quality beers come in … I believe I heard this from a beer brewery who had just started shipping beer-in-a-can … and that was their claim that canned beer had a longer shelf life … Sierra Nevada, I’d rather pick glass shards out of my mouth than drink any other beer !!!
Lysol spray disinfectant uses ethanol as a propellant … makes a fairly good dog repellant … spray a bit at the dog’s nose and he’ll sense it as poison … although it isn’t as effective with cats, the residual fragrances do seem to deter them for a few days …
A question: the alcohol and vinegar themselves are both relatively fine to consume, but the intermediate (acetaldehyde, the result of partial rather than complete oxidation) is more toxic than the other two. Is there a risk of acetaldehyde building up in the wine if it’s left unrefrigerated?
Not 100%. Once in a great while opened wine will get mold. But you will see that.
Sunlight is bad for beer, milk and olive oil. It is actually good for some chutneys. (Up to a point.) Sunlight can cleave some bonds in the hop flavour compounds - leading to “skunking”. Basically off flavours. Similar problems in milk (cleaving some short chain fats leads some spectacular tasting and smelling results), and in olive oil. Close proximity to florescent lamps is bad as well. Don’t buy olive oil in clear glass.
Wine however seems to mostly unaffected. Beer can go nasty after only a short time in the sun.
How do you get your friends out of the bottle? Need answer fast.
I’m more interested in how to get them in…
I remember reading in Consumer Reports that wine that simply has the cork (or cap) replaced keeps just as well as vacuum-sealed wine. That was some time ago though and I can’t find a link now–probably dates to pre-internet days.
Liqour can be stored open indefinitely, or at least until the alcohol evaporates. It does not oxidize significantly unless mixed with water or another base. Liqueurs, on the other hand, will degrade and can even grow mold depending on the sugar content, and should be recycled annually.
This doesn’t help. When you pour the wine from the original bottles to your storage bottles you are essentially decanting it, exposing it to enouhg air to oxidize.
These are referred to as wine or bottle pumps (VacuVin was the original, or at least the one that popularized the concept) and at best you’ll get an additional two or three days of useful life before the wine starts to turn. Or course with sweet, relatively simple wines this may not make much of a difference; with more complex, dry wines, the change will be distinct and offputting, like going from sparkling water to flat tap.
Blink your eyes and nod your head. (It worked for Barbara Eden.)
Stranger
I’ve found that if you don’t hear that twangy noise in the background, it doesn’t work. I’m sure that’s the only reason.
It depends on what you are twanging while watching Barbara Eden…
That’s what I was coming in to post- at worst, it’ll turn into vinegar. (vin aigre = “sour wine” as it turns out).
That said, it’s almost certainly going to taste godawful. 2015 merlot is cheap enough to not bother with drinking old, unrefrigerated wine.
We keep wine up to 3 - 5 days after the bottle has been opened… Some of my friends told me, continues over many days the wine is made undrinkable but as for my experience we have tried to drink 1 month old bottle even without recork or refigerate the bottle. So no worries.