My elderly aunt brought out an unlabeled bottle of wine for Christmas Eve. There is no indication how long she’s had it probably sitting around in her kitchen.
It was a color I’ve never seen before in wine: golden, almost amber. It smelled… bizarre, like coconut oil and wine mixed together. I am not a drinker anyway but there’s no way in hell I would touch something like this. Two of my brothers were more than happy to experiment and said it tasted unusual, but not bad. Both of them ended up having more than one glass.
So, is this a real wine? Or is this something that’s been through hell and back and turned into… something else? It definitely wasn’t vinegar either.
A golden color suggests the wine is oxidized, in this case probably because of a leaky cork that allowed some oxygen to get in. It’s still perfectly safe to drink. Oxidized wine (if it hasn’t gone too far) will be less fruity, and can start to get a caramel-like aroma or taste.
Some wine is purposely allowed to oxidize. Orange wines, which are made from white wine grapes and allowed to ferment on the skins, are traditionally aged in clay containers that allow some oxygen exchange. Darker sherries get their color and taste from oxidation.
Nah, more likely they starve to death in most wines, as they ferment out all the sugar before the alcohol content gets high enough to inhibit them in most wines.
