Need a good Wine

[jones2r]

Chris,

Very informative. Thank you. I was aware of breathing and decanting, but didn't know the other details. The cork thing is absolutely new to me. Thanks.

[Giulietta]

Originally Posted by chris_gee

I don't know where the idea of getting rid of sulphites by adding hydrogen peroxide comes from. Metabisulphite is added as a preservative and antioxidant. It is at low levels as a little too much kills the flavour particularly on whites. It disappears with time.
What the writer was probably thinking off is that sometimes one can get H2S which is rotten egg gas so stinks. This can be gotten rid of by oxygen, but air rather than peroxide.
The problem can occur in winemaking. A test is to put a copper coin in the wine and it will quickly improve, and sometimes a little copper is added to a barrel. Generally just aerating it by decanting or pouring it from glass to glass will do the trick.
Too much sulphite or H2S is bad winemaking. However some off odours may occur which may disappear by opening and letting it breathe. This or decanting will help open up the flavours of a young red, but too much will ruin a white.
I agree a red may need chilling briefly to make it a cool room temperature about 17 or 68f, and whites often have the flavour destroyed by being too cold. Since they are often drunk in warm weather the temperature rises quite quickly so the trick is to say give it an hour or two of refrigeration or bring it out half an hour or an hour before opening depending on how hot the ambient temperature is and how quickly the bottle goes.
These tricks can make a difference but while the average punter can tell a good wine is good, most are just as happy with a quaffing wine.
The most common problem effecting wine is that it is corked. This has various degrees from minimal to horrible. It effects 1 in 5-10 bottles and smells like wet rotten wool or old socks. Usually you can pick it up by a sniff or it will just taste unpleasant but in small doses it is often missed and the wine just dismissed as not very good. It comes from a contaminant in cork. It is worth training yourself to recognise as a suspect bottle will get worse with air, and it is just not worth drinking. All wineries will replace such a bottle unless it is very old and valuable. That is the advantage of screwcap bottles they are much more reliable.
Cheers.

Very nice explanation, thank you.

Now try to remember all that at 30 kts wind and 30deg. bank. while you taste the wine.