Port in decanter for 4 months...

[Miguel Simoes]

Got lazy after the last NYC tasting back in May and never got around to finishing this one bottle that i had in decanter (decanter had a rubber lid on it - little air coming in and out).

As i went to clean the decanter yesterday, there were tons of additional sediment. I assumed it would be terribly vinegary and didnt filter it properly, poured it into a glass out of curiosity.

Turns out it is tasting great. No fat, sort of like a tawny that isnt viscous at all.

I tend to like these highly oxidized VPs. Thinking I should give another such bottling a shot. Pour it in decanter now to enjoy around Xmas time :)

Sadly cant recall what VP it was. Thinking it was a bottling from the early 80s but honestly couldnt find a record for it. As i think more about it, it may have been a half-bottle of 1983 Graham...

Have you had similar experiences? I assumed it would be vinegary as can be... Has anyone actually experienced VP turn to vinegar or is it a myth?

[Bradley Bogdan]

I've definitely had VPs that have had too much air that have "accidentally" turned to good or great tawnies. I've found this to be the case both with bottles that were open too long and with bottles with flawed corks. While the failures far outnumber the successes, it can definitely happen and make for some interesting and tasty port!


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[Andy Velebil]

Can't say I've left any Port lying around that long. Maybe a few days at best, so I haven't had any vinegar issues. As with Bradley, I've had duff bottles that have gone tawny as a result of poor corks or just a VP/LBV that spent too long in bottle and should have been consumed decades earlier.

[Eric Menchen]

Vinegar comes from acetobacter, which is everywhere. Expose your wine to it, and you can make vinegar. On the other hand, if you can expose your wine to oxygen without acetobacter, you can make tawny. If you wanted to try this experiment in a safe way, you could put the wine in a decanter with a stopper and a sanitary filter: http://morewinemaking.com/products/sani ... ?site_id=8

Oh, and you need to santize the decanter first.

[Roy Hersh]

Talk about a science experiment. Wow!

[Miguel Simoes]

Vinegar comes from acetobacter, which is everywhere. Expose your wine to it, and you can make vinegar. On the other hand, if you can expose your wine to oxygen without acetobacter, you can make tawny. If you wanted to try this experiment in a safe way, you could put the wine in a decanter with a stopper and a sanitary filter: http://morewinemaking.com/products/sani ... ?site_id=8

Oh, and you need to santize the decanter first.

Pretty awesome!
Thought vinegar was the result of oxidation (alcohol turning into acid in contact w oxygen), clearly my chemistry was off!

[John M.]

Eric;

Could you please tell me how to mature my 2011 VPs so they taste like they're 45 years old?

[Phil W]

Could you please tell me how to mature my 2011 VPs so they taste like they're 45 years old?

Wait 41 years?

[Eric Menchen]

Could you please tell me how to mature my 2011 VPs so they taste like they're 45 years old?

Wait 41 years?

On a more serious note, oxidation is easy to produce. But wine sitting in a bottle goes through oxidation-reduction reactions that I'll fathom are much more difficult to accelerate. And I don't know how you make tannins settle out more quickly. Shaking the bottle and taking it through heat cycles will do something, but I'm afraid the results will more likely give you wine stew than perfectly aged VP.

[Andy Velebil]

Could you please tell me how to mature my 2011 VPs so they taste like they're 45 years old?

Wait 41 years?

[Roy Hersh]

Or use a microwave powered time tunnel.

[Bradley Bogdan]

Could you please tell me how to mature my 2011 VPs so they taste like they're 45 years old?

Wait 41 years?

On a more serious note, oxidation is easy to produce. But wine sitting in a bottle goes through oxidation-reduction reactions that I'll fathom are much more difficult to accelerate. And I don't know how you make tannins settle out more quickly. Shaking the bottle and taking it through heat cycles will do something, but I'm afraid the results will more likely give you wine stew than perfectly aged VP.

Nah, no microwave, time machine or heat cycles needed. You just need some wine aging magnets: https://skeptoid.com/blog/2013/11/03/ma ... ine-aging/


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[Al B.]

I assumed it would be vinegary as can be... Has anyone actually experienced VP turn to vinegar or is it a myth?

I've had some pretty flawed bottles with the usual flaws (TCA, VA) making the wine undrinkable, unusual flaws making the wine undrinkable (a weird bacterial contamination that made a Taylor 1945 taste like a cross between rising bread dough and paint thinner) and low ullage bottles which have exposed the contents to lots of air over many decades.

Never have I come across a port which has become vinegary. My experience is that exposure to air tends to turn a port tawny with too much exposure to air turning the sweet, sugary, nutty tawny flavours more towards a savoury rosemary oil / antiseptic kind of tone. Different, but certainly not undrinkable as far as my taste goes.

[Phil W]

Has anyone actually experienced VP turn to vinegar or is it a myth?

I've had (just) one. It was a bottle labelled ""Whites of Leicester 1873" and was heavily ullaged (below low-shoulder) and sold cheaply due to the low fill. It arrived intact, but shortly after on tilting the bottle to examine it, the bottle leaked heavily; the cork appeared to have failed completely and the contents smelled just like strong vinegar.

[Glenn E.]

Has anyone actually experienced VP turn to vinegar or is it a myth?

I've never experienced it. I've had an experience close to Phil's, but even that bottle (an 1873 Schofeld) was more of a spoiled/yuck type of experience than a true vinegar experience.

I wonder if something from the 80s/90s that has a very high incidence of VA might be more likely to turn into vinegar? I don't remember enough of my chemistry to remember whether or not those are (or might be) related.