A Few Good Uses For Bad Wine

With as much wine as I drink, and report, you can only imagine how much bad wine I get to taste. You will never know which, because my no-scorched-earth policy doesn’t allow me to write bad stuff. (For those who want to know which wines not to drink just look for the ones I don’t write about.) Nonetheless, I do get to taste some pretty nasty stuff from time to time.

So, the question really comes up about what to do about a bottle of bad wine. What do you do with stuff you don’t drink? Well...I have a few suggestions. You can use them or toss them any way you see fit.

First, there needs to be a discussion about “bad” wine. There is a big difference between “bad” and “BADDDDD!”. My first rule of thumb is to never do anything except dump and throw away wine that has a barnyard odor or flavor. If it tastes or smells like the working end of a cow, throw it away. It is likely to have a bad bacteria that may or may not make you sick.

Also, if a wine is strangely bubbly it is likely struggling with a bad bacteria. One way to know if it has this problem is if the cork is pushed out from the pressure inside the bottle. I’m not talking here about sparkling wines. I’m talking about wines that shouldn’t sparkle when you drink them. Once again, dump them or take them back to the place you bought them.  Of course, my dear departed grandmother would have suggested that you rub that vinegar on your body to relieve arthritis and joint pain.  (Don't knock it.  She lived to her 90s!)

Now that we’ve talked about the crap you can’t do anything with, let’s talk about what you can work with. In most cases we’re talking about wines that are either too hot from a high balance of alcohol, wine with too much sulfur dioxide, or wines that are old in the bottle or oxydized by too much air from an opened bottle.

Wines that have been sitting in the bottle for many years will often open up a little skunky initially. They are old and have been sitting a long time. Much like an old root cellar or closet they just need to get some air. I recommend that you just decant the wine or use an aerator to infuse air into it.

Wine that smells like eggs when you open it happens quite often, especially in wines that are from other countries. They have had to infuse extra sulfites during bottling. Just like old wine I recommend decanting. In both cases if the wine is still skunky...Cook it!

A wine that just can’t be consumed even after you have tried to fix it, or one that you got too tipsy and forgot to vacuum or preserve from the night before are great wines for cooking.

One of my favorite uses of red wine is to make spaghetti sauce. Another is my wine reduction barbecue sauce. For whites, they are great for poaching fish or using in soup stock.

My spaghetti sauce is easy. Brown Italian sausage in olive oil over medium heat. Put in garlic, onion, mushrooms, and peppers. When the meat is crispy and the veggies are tender pour in a bottle of your favorite brand of canned spaghetti sauce. Rinse the bottle with about 1 cup of your “bad” wine. Reduce heat and simmer for 1 hour. People will think you and Uncle Guido worked at it for hours!
Cheers!!

What Does A Good Wine Taste Like?

Over the past few months I’ve been working out at my local Club 24 with a couple of people pretty regularly. With the help of our personal trainer (drill sergeant) Jen, we’ve all been able to get our girlish figures back a little. In working our arms and legs, I personally think we work our mouths just about as much.

This week one of the ladies in my group told me she had purchased a few of the wines I had written notes on, and was impressed with some, and disappointed with others. Personally, I expected that.

When I write notes on a wine, any wine, I am careful to not give my subjective opinion. Rather, I like to focus on the facts as much as possible. The reason for this angle of approach is that if I only wrote on the wines that really turned me on, this column would die in a few short weeks.

Frankly speaking, all of the wines that I write up are “good” wines. Otherwise I wouldn’t write them up. I have a firm resolve to never say anything if I can’t say anything nice. On the other hand, some wines are just far far far superior to others.

The choice to be made is in price point more than anything else. Please don’t expect a $3.99 bottle to be just as fulfilling as a $90 bottle. I don’t care what Charles Shaw says, it just ain’t so!

At the same time, even among bottles in the same price range, there are distinct differences. I can walk down the street in Walla Walla, or Sonoma, or Rickreal and hit a series of wineries charging the same amount for their wares. For example, in Walla Walla the average bottle of Merlot is somewhere in the range of $28. Just because I spent that much doesn’t equate to me liking it.

The difference comes in the experience and education in the winemaker, the equipment used to manufacture the wine, and equally just as important, the grapes the wine was made with.

Now, for my money I just have to know what I want. Do I like a wine with jammy flavors? Do I like my wines a little leathery and aged? Do I like the acidic flavor of a touch of vinegar in the bottle? Those things are all up to my own taste preferences.

Personally, I feel that the best wines offer a full, rich cornucopia of scents when you smell them. Depth of fruit and spices come right out of the glass and into your nose as you swirl the glass. None of the scents are offensive, and the smell of fruit and spice far outweigh the smell of alcohol or vinegar.

When you taste the best wines, the flavors seduce you. You taste one fruit, then another comes forward, possibly followed by another. Spices overflow the mid and back of your tongue. The flavors linger and change as you hold the wine in your mouth.

Then, as you swallow that delicious sip of great wine, you sense yet more flavors, followed by a long silky finish. You are so in love that you can’t wait to repeat the whole process over again and again.

Honestly, 99% of the wines I drink don’t do that for me. It doesn’t mean that they’re bad. It just means that they aren’t as good as the best I’ve ever had.

Your Opinion Needed!!

Ok...so I've been writing this little diddy for a few years now. My newspaper article, and the subsequent blog has become bigger and more successful than I ever dreamed. I have to say that I'm quite honored that people read my stuff.

The question that I have comes from a few discussions that I've had in the past few days regarding editorial integrity. I'm all about integrity. That is key to everything that I do.

When it comes to editorial integrity I have always taken the stance that if I don't have something nice to say about a wine, winery, or point of distribution I just won't say anything at all. You've even seen me rant a few times in the past years, and I didn't mention who I was pissed at.

On the other hand, some people feel that it would be refreshing for me to give my negative opinions as well. I'm not sure how I feel about that. The consequences could be quite negative. When you are negatively speaking about a winemaker's wine, you are basically doing the same as calling their children ugly.

The question that I have to ask is this: Do you, my readers want to hear about the ugly children in the industry as well, or will you continue to accept my don't ask don't tell policy?

You can reply to this by email, by responses to this article, through twitter, or on my facebook. I really do want to hear from you so I'm thanking you in advance for your responses!

Rich