The Uncorking Ritual

[joeyz6]

Three years of fascination with wine, countless books, magazine articles and web sites consulted, 275 posts here, and I'm still asking basic questions on the novice thread. Sigh.

Anyways, on this topic of checking for bad bottles ... if the wine smells a little funny right after it's opened, but then the odors improve considerably after an hour or so of decanting, is the wine still corked? I've noticed this a couple of times recently, always with a fairly young red (2000 or 2001). Initially, I thought, 'uh oh,' but then I let it sit out for an hour, and normal wine smells started to emerge. Should I have dumped them from the outset?