How to tell if wine is bad: cork taint and other faults

Cork taint: musty rather than cork fragments

Cork taint is commonly associated with TCA and can smell like damp cardboard, a musty cellar or wet newspaper. It can also suppress fruit, making a wine seem unusually dull. A broken cork or a piece of cork in the glass does not by itself mean the wine has cork taint. Wines with other closures can occasionally be affected by contamination too.

Oxidation and wine past its best

Unwanted oxidation can bring bruised-apple, nutty or sherry-like notes and a loss of fresh fruit. Some wine styles deliberately use oxidative character, so context matters. A mature wine can have attractive developed aromas; a wine past its best tends to lose the balance and freshness that make it enjoyable.

Other things worth checking

Unexpected fizz in a still wine, strong vinegar notes or a persistent unpleasant smell may suggest a problem. Some reductive aromas can change with air, while cork taint does not reliably disappear. Sediment and harmless crystals are not, on their own, wine faults.

What should you do?

At a restaurant, explain what you notice and ask the staff to check. At home, keep the bottle and contact the seller when appropriate. You do not have to force down a faulty wine. If there is visible mould in the wine, foreign material or suspected contamination, do not drink it.

Wouter on spitting and waste

Spitting has never been my first choice, unless the wine really is faulty. I hate seeing lovely wine go to waste. If you will be driving, though, I advise you to spit. That does not guarantee zero alcohol intake. Arrange a sober driver or another way home if you plan to drink. At the end, ask whether some of your favourite wine can come home with you in a properly sealed bottle. A good wine deserves a second meeting.

Read next

• When is a wine ready to drink?
• How to store wine at home