Brett or mold taste question

Could be mold, brett, TCA or a number of other spoilage problems. Air getting into the bottle causes some; bad corks the remainder. No way to fix it. Sorry. :^(

Tom S

I have a burgundy that had a smell like you describe that you could smell three feet away from the wine, but it tasted ok. I used Bocksin to clear up the smell. I do not know if it would do anything for the taste.

Roy

From the descriptions I can find I think the problem is TCA . The article also says there is no danger to people and that up to15% of the commercial wine is infected (the industry will only admit to 1.5%).

Anyway I can definetely smell and taste it so I can't drink it. But I accidently served a bottle and the others didn't notice. They complimented the wine. I should be able to use the remaining bottles for cooking?

Joe

It's a common misconception that it's OK to cook using inferior wine. If you do, your dinner will become inferior to what it would have been if you had used good wine.

That said, you don't need to use Château Lafite for marinading a roast. Any good red wine will do - but it should be something that you'd enjoy drinking.

FWIW, the best gravy I ever made started with a bottle of 1975 Carneros Creek Petite Syrah. That wine was a huge, dark, tannic, high alcohol _monster_ - and wasn't particularly cheap.

As for the TCA issue, you might try pouring the wine into a wide mouth decanter and dunking a wadded up sheet of Saran Wrap* into it for several hours (or more). Supposedly, the plastic has a greater affinity for the TCA than does the wine, and the TCA will "dissolve" into the plastic. Depending on the degree of taint, this may or may not be effective - that is if it actually _is_ TCA.

If this doesn't work I'd probably dump the bad bottles and chalk it up to experience. But hey, it's _your_ wine.

Tom S