Our Taste Test Is Proof Wine Dies and Decays!

Photo by Stuart F. James

We recently posted an article entitled Wine Has A Life: It Lives, Ages and Dies. After we posted the article, we decided to put the premise to the test.

We left wine in an open bottle of Chateau Ste Michelle Sauvignon Blanc for a week. The wine was mostly consumed at a recent dinner party. Instead of “polishing it off” the day after the party, we decided to leave it on the counter. After the week passed, we decided to take a taste and smell test.

The smell test failed. We smelled the wine, and it had a faint odor that is hard to describe. There was little smell of freshly cut grass, peas, and asparagus, tropical and ripe passion fruit, grapefruit, or even mango associated with the wine. The smell was decaying.

The flavors of lime, green apple, passion fruit and white peach were dead. In their place was bitter stale essence that is hard to describe. The wonder of wine was dead…it left an unpleasant indescribable aftertaste which makes MD 20/20 taste like the Dom Pérignon of wines.

From the MD 20/20 website. No, we are not paid for posting this picture.

If the wine sat another week in this state all flavor, and alcohol, will be lost making it taste like a bad drink of water. It is obvious from our taste test that the wine was dying…it was dead and decaying.

In fact, “[b]oth the water and the alcohol in wine are subject to evaporation, and…the alcohol [was evaporating]…faster than the water...” Wine Spectator This is another symptom of wine’s slow death with decay.

There you have it. Wine dies and decays if not stored properly. Even when stored as we previously posted, wine does have a life, a death, and a period of decay.

So here is the big lesson: drink wine and celebrate life.

Unless you are extremely curious, don’t try what we tried. All we can say is…

Yuck!

Stuart James