Can a Bad wine turn Good??

Worst that could happen is to get vinegar as was the intention of your chum.

mination, I believe. No one could tell me what it was, but it tasted, simp ly, bad. Not drinkable. I know it was contaminated only because I had sev eral demijohns, and the bad ones had been topped off with what must have be en a bad cab franc, which tasted abysmal (but fine at the time of topping). So, my wine making friend saved the best of the worst. Still not drinkab le in my estimation, but he was planning to make vinegar. Long story short , he tricked me yesterday and served me some of the "bad 09". Upon first s ip, I declared it was among the best homemade wines I had ever had and aske d him where it came from.

that it tastes ok now evidence enough that there is nothing harmful about this stuff?

ff notes that turned me off years ago, but now more subtle.

You definitely have to watch for contamination but I always make sure it go es through the whole process until I sample the wares. Time cures a lot of problems so what it was you sampled too early. Usually tastes like crap u ntil the last few weeks.

Until the yeast has settled out and the wine is relatively clear, it will be very awful tasting. If it is to be a sweetened wine, it will still not taste right until it's sweetened, but the really awful taste of new wine will be gone as long as you've waited long enough for th eyeast to drop out or have removed the yeast by filtering it out.

Time is a better answer than filtering, though, as you also filter out some of the flavor components in the process. I typically do 4 rackings before bottling. Once after fermentation is completed, then every 30 days. The last one is at bottling time.

Donald