When you stick your nose in a glass of wine, what do you smell? Most of the time, the aroma will be fruity, floral or spicy. The wine may even be earthy or smell of smoked meats (as in a Northern Rhone Syrah), or buttery and tropical. All pleasant scents. But what if you smell rotten eggs, wet newspaper or a barnyard? More than likely that wine is flawed. And that’s a wine you don’t want to keep in your glass. If you’re at home, dump it down the drain; at a bar or restaurant, send it back (more on this later).
One of wine’s dirty little secrets is that there are bottles on the market that contained flawed, faulty juice. Read more