This Is Why Your Wine Sometimes Smells Like Farts
When we taste wine, we usually pay attention to two things: is it corked and does it taste good? But have you ever experienced a wine that mostly just smelled really bad? Something too earthy, kind of like boiled cabbage, well, actually just like farts.
Don’t immediately give your neighbor a suspicious look. It really is the wine you’re smelling. It’s probably reductive.
Reduction: what is it?
The opposite of oxidation is reduction. An oxidized wine has had too much exposure to air, while a reductive wine has had none at all. The wine is hermetically sealed off from the air. Usually, that’s the intention, to prevent oxidation (and therefore spoilage). But if a wine gets absolutely no oxygen at all—for example, because of the use of stainless-steel tanks and a screw cap—it can start to smell bad.
Reduction: how do you recognize it?
Does your wine smell, to some degree, like boiled cabbage, canned vegetables, mushrooms or rotten eggs? Don’t let anyone tell you that this is simply the wine’s ‘earthy’ aroma and that you clearly don’t know anything about wine. No, you’ve actually discovered a flaw. Bravo!
Reduction: what can you do about it?
Luckily, the solution is simple: give the wine some air. Don’t have a decanter? No problem—pour the wine into a water jug for a moment or swirl it around in your glass; it all works. The point is simply to slosh the wine around a little so that air can get to it.
Actually, it’s just like with a regular fart: give it some time and air, and the stink will disappear.
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