What happens if you drink opened wine

If you notice an unpleasant smell in your wine similar to band-aids, a barnyard, farm animals or manure, this is a sign of too much Brett, or Brettanomyces. This yeast bacteria add a pleasant complexity to your wine in small doses, but too much will ruin the bottle.

Brett in wine is often caused by poor hygiene in the winery, although the grapes used by winemakers can also be the source of this fault. Every wine enthusiast needs to know how to tell if wine is corked. If your wine has a cork taint, you might be able to smell a wet cardboard aroma, even like a wet dog. Trichloranisole is a chemical that might be left behind in the cork by mold even if the mold is no longer there and creates a highly unpleasant aroma.

Even a tiny trace of TCA can cause negative flavors in your wine, enough to make the bottle undrinkable. A very low level of cork taint can strip your wine of good flavors, without exhibiting the bad smells. Usually, this is confined to the part of the cork that never comes into contact with the wine, and under no circumstance means the bottle is corked and undrinkable.

Arguably the most common reason for wine to go bad is oxidation. If too much air and oxygen comes into contact with your wine, a chemical interaction takes place. The acetaldehyde in the brew converts to acetic acid, essentially turning your wine into vinegar. This can lead to smell like nail polish remover, a fault called volatile acidity VA. However, too much can lead to an unpleasant vinegary taste. This oxidation process is also what causes the brown appearance of older wine.

There are less common reasons for wine to go bad, such as the formation of sulfur, and other yeasts and bacteria. If a wine gets too little oxygen during the winemaking process, it can develop sulfur compounds. This can make the wine smell like burnt rubber, cooked cabbage, or rotten eggs. This highly unpleasant smell is unmistakable, caused during the process of fermentation.

Another microbial fault makes the wine smell mousy, caused by spoiled yeasts and lactic acid. If your wine undergoes additional fermentation in its bottle, usually due to storing at an incorrect temperature, this can also cause the wine to go bad. If your wine has no aroma at all, this can also be to do with its temperature.

You might be worried about drinking old wine, now you know about all these tiny details which can ruin it. Fortunately, although all these flaws will make your wine taste bad, none of them are harmful when ingested.

The same goes for flat wine which fermented to have fizz; you can simply enjoy the wine with more bubbles than expected. However, oxidation can cause acetic acid in the wine, which can feel like burning or stinging in the mouths of some wine drinkers.

Most bottles only need to be opened and left to sit for a while, and the aroma will disappear. An old copper penny, or similar copper object, can be added to your wine. This will react with sulfur compounds and almost always completely eliminated the smell.

After that, you can relax and enjoy your wine! This will allow any sediment, or broken cork, both of which are common in aged wine to settle at the bottom of your bottle. The wine will be much more pleasant without any floating bits.

E-mail us. By Esther Mobley. Shawn Zylberberg. Explore Newsletters. Hello there! I'm Dr. Vinifera, but you can call me Vinny. Ask me your toughest wine questions , from the fine points of etiquette to the science of winemaking. And don't worry, I'm no wine snob—you can also ask me those "dumb questions" you're too embarrased to ask your wine geek friends!

I hope you find my answers educational, empowering and even amusing. What would happen if I left a bottle of wine open for 10 days?