Is it OK to drink very old wine?!
Is it OK to drink very old wine?
My fiancé bought a house over 4 years ago and there were about 10 bottles of wine left in the cellar from the previous owners. Most are red wines with maybe 2 white wines. The years range from 1981-1994 and from what we can see they are just house wines and nothing fancy (the previous owners put "house" labels on the bottles). I've tried finding these wines on the internet but had no luck as of yet.
Neither of us knows a thing about wine, but had heard that most wines over 12 years really aren't good any more. What is the worst that could happen from drinking these old wines? I was assuming they could just taste really bad but probably would not make you ill. Am I correct in that assumption?
Answers:
Wines with high tannin age well as long as the cellar is cool enough. So the red wine has a pretty good shot at being not just OK, but actually better than when they were new. They will have a little sediment in the bottom. That is normal. Just use a decanter.
The white wine is usually low in tannin so it probably didn't fair so well. I'm not saying I would just pitch it, but I would be very skeptical.
You will be able to tell from the smell if it is really bad. And after that the taste will tell you. If it tasts like crap, then it is.