What happens to a rosé when it is forgotten in a lonely cabinet full of other forgotten spirits directly above the steam of a stovetop for nearly 20 years? How does a bottle of non-vintage sparkling wine made in the late 90′s hold up more than 10 years down the road? Well, I found out. And it wasn’t pretty.
Subject 1: 1990 Couly-Dutheil Rosé de Loire (100% cabernet franc from what I can gather.) A gift brought back home by my 11 year old self after a school trip to Paris and unearthed during my parent’s kitchen renovation this year. Clearly, they did not fully appreciate my wine selection skills. Neverthless, I decided to put corkscrew to cork to see what became of this unprotected, neglected and abused bottle of wine.
From the sight of it, the wine was a deep pink/orange combo. The orange in the equation being the telltale sign that this rosé was way past its prime. Just below the reflection of my hand holding the camera, you can see a cloudy film of sediment hanging about. A little cobweb of time etched inside the bottle. The cork was moldy and falling apart which resulted in half of it ending up in the bottle. After pouring the wine into my glass and taking a whiff, I didn’t really want to take a taste. But I did. For the good of this blog and its 15 dedicated readers. My suspicions were proved correct after I took a swig; the wine had been maderized. Maderization occurs when wine is heated and oxidized (named for the famed Madeira wine of Portugal made in this style.) As I was boiling all those pots of water for my Kraft mac n’ cheese back in the day, not only the macaroni got cooked, but the wine did too. It tasted and smelled like some kind of rotten fruit and mixed nuts perm solution vinegar wine. Scary stuff. Bon voyage down the drain!
Subject 2: NV Chateau Frank “Celebre” New York Sparkling Wine (100% riesling.) This bottle was a gift from my aunt that she intended to give me during my first year of college. In 1999. It was finally released from a cabinet in her kitchen 3 days ago, 2009. Chateau Frank is the label of Willy Frank, son of Dr. Konstantin Frank famed for his riesling made in the Finger Lakes of New York. Because it’s a non-vintage bottling, I have no idea what years of grapes exist in the wine or when it was bottled. This bottle wasn’t nearly as awful as the rosé, but it was definitely just plain stale and left a bitter aftertaste. There were still quite a few bubbles, but a lot less than there should be.
My ultimate findings in this experiment: if you are going to forget about a wine, try to forget about it in a temperature controlled dark place. And leave the forgetting to the likes of Barolo and Bordeaux.
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