Have you ever held an old bottle of wine and wondered if its still okay to drink? If you have, you’re certainly not alone. Determining if a great wine has gone bad and when to throw it out can be a bit tricky.
While many wines certainly improve with age, this rule does not apply to all bottles. In fact, both opened and unopened wines can go bad over time. The good news is that unopened wine is often good long past the recommended drinking window — if the smell and taste are still pleasant. For the sake of your health and your wine investments, its important to know how long different wines typically last, how to tell if wine has gone bad, and the different factors that can cause wine to spoil.
An unopened 20 year old wine is perfectly safe to drink. Whether it is tasty and appealing to drink is an altogether different question. Few white wines improve during that length of time unless they were produced as sweet dessert wines and stored properly (i.e. under cool constant temperature away from light).
How Long Does Wine Typically Last?
When stored properly and kept unopened, white wines can often outlive their recommended drinking window by 1-2 years, red wines by 2-3 years, and cooking wines by 3-5 years. Fine wine — as you may have guessed — can typically be consumed for decades. Wine storage best practices dictate that you keep your wine in a cool, dark space. Bottles should be placed on their sides in order to prevent overdrying the cork.
Opened wine, however, is another matter. When you open a bottle of wine, its contents are exposed to heat, light, bacteria, and oxygen. These elements cause a variety of chemical reactions that quickly work to affect your wine. Although storing wine in a cooler temperature can help mitigate these reactions, opened wines will inevitably go bad. In general, white wines go downhill quicker than reds. As a rule of thumb, once opened:
- Ports will last between 1-3 weeks
- Dessert wines are good for 3-7 days
- Red and rich white wines last roughly 3-6 days
- Lighter white wines last 4 or 5 days
- Sparkling wines go quickly, with only 1-2 days to enjoy
To make the most of your opened wine, seal it tightly and store it in the refrigerator. Or better yet, keep a smaller glass vessel (such as an empty 375ml half bottle) on hand to pour the remainder into where there will be less oxygen in contact with the liquid. Just make sure its completely clean or sanitized so there is not any cross-contamination.
How Can You Tell if Wine Has Gone Bad?
Many wine aficionados can tell immediately if a wine is no longer good. They are attuned to qualities of the wine that give way its overripe state to the drinker. Three ways to tell if your wine has gone bad include:
Once a wine has passed its prime state, there are several visual cues that will give it away. These include:
This rule applies to wines that were originally clear. When a wine grows cloudy or creates a film within the bottle, its probably time to get rid of it. The cloudiness points to bacterial activity beginning within the bottle.
Similar to fruit, wines often brown over time when exposed to oxygen. Color changes happen naturally as an unopened wine ages, and do not always indicate that your wine has gone bad. But it is certainly worth noting that chemical changes have begun in your wine. So, if the bottle was not really meant to age and you note a change in color, its probably no longer any good.
The appearance of bubbles in your wine indicates the beginning of a second fermentation. Unlike in champagne, these bubbles mean that your wine has likely soured and needs to be thrown out.
Smell is often one of the most noticeable ways your wine will let you know that its time to move on. These scents are often unpleasant and medicinal — like chemicals or vinegar — but they can also be sweet, depending on the way your wine reacts to external elements. Common changes in smell include:
When bacteria in your wine starts to form acetic acid, you might notice smells that are:
- Similar to sauerkraut
- Reminiscent of vinegar
- Sharp or tangy
When oxidation occurs, wine becomes stale and yields scents that are:
- Unusually nutty
- Similar to apples or sweet applesauce
- Smoky and sweet like burnt marshmallows or caramel
Due to wine faults, some wines go bad before they are ever opened. When this occurs, you might notice odors like:
- Cabbage
- Garlic
- Burnt rubber or garbage
If you miss the cues of changed appearance and scents, you may notice strong or unusual flavors in wine that has gone bad. These flavors often include:
- Sharp or sour vinegar flavors
- Horseradish-like taste
- Sherried or caramelized flavors
What happens if you drink old wine?
FAQ
Is 20 year old wine still good?
Is it safe to drink 21 year old wine?
Is wine from 1999 still good?
Is 2005 wine still good?
Is a bottle of wine too old to drink?
If you taste something unpleasant in a bottle of wine, then there’s a good chance it’s too old to drink. Similarly, if there’s little to no taste at all in your bottle, then, unfortunately, you just might have left it in your cellar for too long.
How much red wine can one drink per day?
Despite the popular belief that a glass or two of vine is good for health due to the amount of resveratrol and polyphenols, the amount of these substances in wine is small, making their benefits to be achieved in the long term and difficult to confirm even in large studies. That way, consumption should not be daily, and the dose would be a glass at most 3 times a week.
Is a 16 year old wine the same as a 40 year old?
The 16-year-old version and the 40-year-old version are the same person. The older one should display well-earned wisdom in its maturity while allowing you to sense extra soul that had been underneath the youthful vigor. Well-aged wines show you more of who they really are.”
Should you age red wine?
Other red wine varietals you should consider aging are Merlot and Syrah. Most Pinot Noirs are not meant for aging. You should drink those within three years of their release. Contrary to popular belief, white wines can also be aged—just not every varietal.