Corked or Cooked or Just Plain Bad?

[Randy Caparoso]

Stealthman:

Sounds to me that you drink more than your share of wine, and so you know a good one when you taste it. Always start with common sense -- YOUR sense of what is good, and not-so-good.

"Corked" wines are subtle to obvious. Either way, if it smells like damp, wet wood or cardboard, whether than like fresh fruit or bottle bouquet (the latter more common in wines that are at least 10 years old), then most likely it's "corked" -- or tainted by the bacteria that causes this smell.

The Cabernets you found to be tasteless, however, are puzzling, since they're fairly young -- and it's hard to "cook" young, vigorous Cabernets. You see, I live in Hawaii where it's always warm -- and even bottles stored in super warm temperatures take years and years before actually being "cooked" to flavorlessness.

Therefore, I would surmise that what you are often finding is that wines are either "dumb" -- that is, going through a rough, tannic stage during which fruit qualities are simply buried under the intrinsic weight of the wine -- or simply not that good in the first place.

But it's hard to make that judgement from afar. Like I said, you have to trust YOUR taste and experience -- which you seem to have a good amount of already.