Opened this lovely bottle of Mazis-Chambertin (1988) to celebrate the weekend. Unfortunately it seems passed it’s best. A shame for a grand cru.
We don’t have a cellar in this house and my dad’s wine collection is stored in a normal room with no temperature or humidity control unfortunately. A 1995 Chateau Magdelaine opened a few months ago had exactly the same characteristics (cardboard taste/wet dog/musty). Is this normal for such wines stored without temperature/humidity control?
by Fade2Black767
8 Comments
If anyone has any insights on the second paragraph that would be much appreciated!
Thank you! It surely can’t be possible that the last few bottles of older wines from the cellar are all corked? My logic tells me it must be the storage conditions
Doesn’t sound like it was past the prime, it sounds like it was corked. The way you described it is exactly how a corked wine comes across. There’s a fungus that can rarely grow on corks called TCA, it’s a bane on winemakers. That’s a damn shame
For me personally, when reds are way passed their prime they can have similar tastes to TCA taint. I’m going against the others and say that it’s your storage, and to expect a lot of other wines to be in similar condition. That’s just an extremely long time to age something in less than ideal conditions.
It’s definitely cork taint / TCA if you’re tasting cardboard and dampness, but the colour suggests it’s really oxidised too. If it’s not been in a cellar the corks will be drier and letting more oxygen in too. Why has nice wine sat in bad conditions for so long? Completely throwing money down the toilet.
Have opened a 2010 “Le Petit Pas” Saint Emilion Grand Cru instead which is drinking lovely!
Can i have it?
I’ve had surprisingly good results storing at room temp for a handful of years with ageable wines in the past before I had a proper wine fridge. Aging happens faster and a little unreliably – not going to get the exact same results as a longer time at ideal temps, there are actually some studies on this. Obviously high risk and not something you should do with top bottles, and not going to work for 20 never mind 30+ years.