Is there any use for stale wine?

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Laurence Shanet 784 Community Answer

There really isn't any such thing as "stale" for wine. Typically, wine goes bad after opening in one of two ways. The first way is when bacteria consumes the alcohol and metabolizes it into acetic acid and acetaldehyde. This causes the wine to have a sharp, vinegar-like smell. That's because it is essentially becoming vinegar. The other way wine can turn is that the alcohol can oxidize, causing a nutty, bruised fruit taste that is reminiscent of sherry. The wine loses its fresh fruit flavors and bright acidity.

It's worth noting that neither of these is likely to be dangerous, so you can experiment with them a bit. Go ahead and taste it, and see which thing has happened. If you like the way it tastes, there is no harm in drinking it. Many people actually like the oxidized taste, which is why sherry, madeira, and oxidative orange wines are popular. Chances are you won't love it straight, so here are some things you can do with oxidized wine:

Make a sauce. Even though many people say never to cook with a wine you wouldn't drink, oxidized wines can be an exception. But don't use it in the same way you'd cook with a normal red wine, as it might not have the desired result. Instead, try emulsifying it with some butter and stock, and maybe some herbs. The resulting sauce will taste great with meat, poultry or over mushrooms. Basically, you want to use it in the way you'd use sherry or madeira in cooking. The sauce will be rich and add umami to many things. You could even dip fries in it.

Marinate some meat in it. Even though the acid is gone, there are still tannins in the wine. So they will help make the meat tender by breaking down some of its fibers. You can add garlic, spices, and even some soy sauce to make a nice marinade.

Macerate some fruits in it and/or bake with it. Just as you might soak fruit in port or sherry, oxidized red can work well for this. It adds complexity as it macerates. Serve the resulting stuff over vanilla ice cream or warm baked goods. Yum.

Make punch or sangria. Again, the oxidized flavors are expected here, so they won't taste off or bad. It can also work in warm, spiced or mulled drinks.

You can also freeze some of it in small portions so you can add it to stuff later in any of the above ways.

Using wine that has become sour or "vinegarized" is a little more limited, but there are still things you can do:

As with oxidized wine, you can still use it in marinades. The tannins will be very good at breaking down and tenderizing meat. Just make sure you account for the acidity in terms of how much you use compared to oxidized wine. It will be like mild vinegar. Combine it with olive oil, minced garlic, Worcestershire sauce, and/or something sweet (honey or maple syrup) and you'll have a great marinade.

Make dressing. It's basically vinegar, so use it like vinegar. It'll have really nice flavor and make a good dressing when combined with the things you'd usually add to red wine vinegar.

Make actual vinegar. While sour wine tastes a bit like vinegar, it really isn't vinegar yet. But it can be. A quick internet search will turn up a variety of recipes for vinegar, and they'll only require that you add some "mother", which is basically the vinegar equivalent of the starter you use to bake bread. You can get what you need at many home brewing stores or health food stores.

Make red wine jelly. With minimal ingredients, like sugar, fruit, and pectin, you can make a really nice jelly that's great on a vareity of foods, including both desserts and savory courses.

So now on to what you can do the next time to make your leftover wine last longer. (There are some of us who swear that there's no such thing as "leftover wine", but that's a separate discussion.) Basically, there are two things that will make your wine turn: contact with air and warm temperatures. So you want to reduce those as much as possibkle. If you keep the leftover wine away from air and warm temperatures, you'll be really surprised how long it can stay good. So what should you do? Here are some steps:

Stick it in the fridge. Really. This is the single best thing you can do to add lifespan to your unfinished wine. Keeping it cold (but not frozen) will extend the time your wine is good by a surprising amount. So make sure you put the wine in the fridge as soon as possible if you're not having any more. I've had wines last much longer than a week in the fridge when kept properly. which brings me to:

Seal it up. Worst case scenario, you can put the cork back in if you don't have a better method, as long as you're keeping it cold. However, your wine will retain its appealing qualities much longer if you get some kind of a vacuum sealer. They aren't very expensive, and can be found at many home stores and even supermarkets. The most famous brand is Vacu Vin, but they all work in essentially the same way. You insert a little rubber cork in the bottle and then pump the device a few times until you've generated a vacuum. While this alone doesn't do a perfect job in terms of getting all the air out of the bottle, when combined with refrigeration, you can keep your wine drinkable for many days.

Stand it up. Generally, bottles that are relatively full fare better than almost empty ones, since you don't have to try to get quite as much air out. But ultimately, what you're trying to do is eliminate surface area that's exposed to air. So definitely store the wine upright after using the vacuum system. Putting it on its side not only runs the risk of having it leak out of the bottle, but also exposes much more surface area to the air in the bottle.

Have another glass:) Is it really that late? Are you really that drunk? Will anyone on your morning Zoom call really be able to tell? If you only have one glass of that lovely old bordeaux left in the bottle, maybe you should just enjoy it now. It may not get much worse, but it probably won't get better either.

UTC 2021-02-02 10:09 PM 0 Comments

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Is there any use for stale wine?

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