It is difficult for many Swiss people to imagine an occasion, a party with friends or family, without opening a bottle of wine. You may have already experienced this situation: you had kept a supposedly "good bottle" in reserve to celebrate an important event, but when you wanted to taste it, (bad) surprise, the wine tasted funny! Aroma of blue fruits, taste of cork or vinegar, one thing is sure, it is not good. If this unfortunate assumption concerns you, you might be tempted to throw away this bad wine. However, it's a shame to have to waste an entire bottle; in this article we present you with ways to make up for that precious liquid!

Why is a wine bad?

There are several situations to distinguish. The wine can sometimes change its taste, or simply, it happens that a wine is not up to our expectations, because of a problem during the manufacturing, a problem of mixing, or the quality of the grape or the land on which the vine grew. The entry of oxygen in the tank during the vinification can also give a bad taste to the wine; this can be explained by a defective or too old equipment. Finally, the quality of the cork is often at fault: in fact, the cork can deteriorate, mould or rot, which will give the wine a bad taste. In spite of the treatments applied to the cork material, this situation occurs quite frequently: it is then called corked wine.

Be careful not to confuse undesirable oxidation with voluntary maderization: we say that a wine is maderized to evoke a bottle whose cork has deteriorated and has let in air during the storage period. In this case, it refers to a mutation of the wine which has not been controlled, and which has altered the balance of the aromas: the color changes (it becomes amber for the whites, brown for the reds), and the taste reminds of blue fruits or vinegar, which is not pleasant in the mouth.

This has nothing to do with Madeira wines or rancios, which have undergone a controlled oxidation thanks to an aging and cooking process that is often long and slow, which are sweet wines reminiscent of ripe or candied fruits, vanilla, roasted nuts, cocoa... Other cases of "good oxidized wines" exist: for example, sherry, yellow wine or port wine

It also happens that the wine "reduces": in this case, the wine did not receive enough oxygen during the vinification. From this phenomenon will be born a rubbery taste, unpleasant in mouth.

What solutions to "save" a bad wine?

Is your wine bad? Before opening a new bottle, read the tips below. They will sometimes allow you to save your wine and make it suitable for tasting.

If the wine has reduced, it is possible to decant it: pour the bottle into a glass decanter to let it breathe for one or more hours. This usually allows the wine to catch up. However, if you don't have time to wait, you can choose to accelerate the oxidation process by placing a silver object in your decanter. The chemical reaction will make a reduced wine drinkable very quickly.

Another lifesaving technique is to pour a little port into the wine; this will soften the rancid taste of the past wine to make it a little sweeter and fit for drinking. This grandma's recipe gives a second youth to your bad wine, and adds the touch of alcohol that was missing. In the mouth, the taste will be closer to a cooked wine.

It is like using wine in a cocktail! In this regard, there are other mixtures that can allow you to consume a wine with a past or fair taste. For a refreshing cocktail, we recommend cutting your wine with carbonated water, lemon juice and sugar, or lemonade. This cocktail allows you to put water in your wine to make it fresh and light, but especially pleasant to drink!

If the wine is corky and the aroma is strong, you cannot make it drinkable as it is: forcing yourself to drink it anyway would only spoil the meal.

Is it possible to recycle a bad wine in the kitchen?

Nothing to do, your wine is bad, you can't drink it! However, don't pour it into your sink's siphon just yet: it can be used in the kitchen.

Bad wine can often be used to make a sauce: French cuisine is full of recipes for sauces, especially to accompany meats, made with wine. The disadvantage of using bad wine in this way is that it will generally retain its unpleasant taste. Unless you are not fussy about the taste of your sauce, this solution is not suitable for a bad wine.

We therefore advise you to cook it hot, for a slowly simmered meat: boeuf bourguignon and coq-au-vin are classics of French gastronomy that will go perfectly with a slightly oxidized wine. Think also of the fondue bourguignonne to make up for an oxidized wine.

However, here again, a wine with a too strongly passed taste, vinegar, oxidized... will risk keeping its bad taste during cooking.

Therefore, the only solution if your wine is no longer good enough to be used in cooking is to make vinegar from it.

As a last resort, use your bad wine to make vinegar

One could believe, wrongly, that wine left to deteriorate would turn into vinegar with time. This is not the case! It is in fact a chemical process that can last several months and requires little equipment to be carried out at home.

So, if you want to create your own vinegar, you will need a perfectly opaque container, which will not let the light through. It can be made of glass, ceramic, wood or metal. You have to be careful with the material you choose: the container can give a slight taste to the vinegar, therefore, to get a more authentic taste, it is recommended to choose a wooden vinegar container. All vinegar boats are available with a tap, so that the vinegar can flow out without having to open the container and compromise the seal. Depending on the size, material and quality of manufacture of the vinegar container, it can be purchased between 15 and 100 euros.

Once armed with your vinegar maker, your ingredients will be: your bad wine, and air! This will give birth to the fungus at the origin of the transformation of wine into vinegar, the mycoderma asceti. This is called a "mother": it can be bought in a store, or created naturally. The process can sometimes take months.

To ensure the mother's proper growth, she will need three essential elements:

• The alcohol, which will be provided by the bad wine that you will pour in the vinegar,

• Oxygen, for this, it is necessary to air the vinegar regularly (in this regard, wood is recommended, because the container is then opaque while leaving the mixture). Be careful during this step: flies and midges will be attracted by your mixture. You should therefore consider covering the jar with a cloth, thin enough to let air in, but tightly woven enough to prevent insects from entering.

• A temperature between 20 and 30 degrees Celsius. If the storage place becomes too hot or too cold, you will have to shelter your mother to protect her.

At the beginning, the first few centilitres of vinegar obtained will be acidic, bitter, aggressive; this is normal. The mixture must be given time to oxygenate and oxidize, between 6 and 8 months in total. The vinegar, at this stage, will become much sweeter: it will be pleasant in the mouth and delicious for all your culinary preparations. Patience is the ultimate ingredient for making vinegar! If you don't like to waste your bottled wine or your bad wine and you want to try to create your own products, making your own vinegar is just the thing.

To go further and obtain a high quality vinegar, you can even, in the long run, transfer part of your filtered vinegar into a wooden barrel to store it in a cool place with a constant temperature. You will obtain an aged vinegar with an authentic and rich taste, impossible to find in the shops! 

Now you know what to do if you have the misfortune to open a bad bottle of wine! If you are a lover of this precious beverage, it is likely that you will encounter this situation more or less frequently. We hope that our tips and tricks will be useful to you in order to get the best out of a wine with unfortunate aromas!