Wine Flaws

[jv38]

One of the hardest things for me to learn related to wines are the flaws that can show up the wine. I do know that a wine could be Corked (TCA), cooked, tainted, oxidize, etc. The problem that I have is that when I try a wine that is flawed, I don’t know what is wrong with it.

For example, last night I opened a bottle of Montevina Zinfandel 2002. I opened this wine because I tried once and I like it, so I saw it in a special (a three bottle gift set for 17 bucks) and bought it.

Thing is that when I opened the bottle it have a smell like a room that have been close without fresh cool air with a humid carpet on it.

I know that this is not the characteristic smell of this wine, but I not sure what is the flaw that is causing this smell.

I just splash decanted the wine and left it for 15 minutes. The musty smell went away but the wine stay just closed, unresponsive, just plain death.

This happened to wines that I open once in a while and I’m not sure if is something that I’m doing wrong.

Other case was on two Italian wines that I tried some time ago. I was not able to enjoy any of those wines because the smell was of an overpowering aroma of Olive Oil. And the flavor followed suit. Again, the interesting thing is that I had tried the before and never had that problem. Decanting did not help, so I just dumped it.

I would like to know what that flaw was.