How to tell if a wine is pricked?

Have you ever asked yourself: How can you tell if a wine has been picado? From the Consum wine cellar we give you the keys to detect if a wine has been crushed, take note!

EVA PIZARRO / sumiller en restaurante Fierro y formadora en Tandem Gastronómico.

One of the worst nightmares of bottle collectors is to open the wine they have kept for so long and find out that it is pricked. Not surprisingly, many of those special bottles that we save for the ideal moment suffer this dreaded fate.

But, why do wines become pricked?

We have already given you one of the clues: excessive storage time can be very harmful. Not all wines are destined to survive for many years. As a general rule, young and crianza wines should be consumed within 2 years after harvesting.

If you want to know more, see our article “Do all wines improve with age?”.

Even though they have not been kept for a long time, wines can also be affected by poor storage conditions, i. e., if the wine has been exposed to sudden changes in temperature, careless transport, or excessive exposure to sunlight

Another key factor is bad wine service . How many times have we left a bottle open and a few days later the wine tastes really unpleasant? Well, this is the key, the wine has gone off.

If you want to know more about how to preserve wine at home and the optimum times once the bottle has been opened, in the article “How long can a wine be left open for?” in our False Myths section, we give you the keys to this.

What happens in all these situations to make the wine go off?

Contact with oxygen: oxygen is responsible for activating the bacteria that produce acetic acid, which causes the wine to prick.To make it easier to understand, the wine becomes vinegary, that is to say, the process in which the wine begins to turn into vinegar and therefore goes off, starts. This is easily recognisable if when tasting the wine, we notice vinegary and excessively acidic flavours; and smells of glue, nail polish, fermented apple or the aroma of vinegar itself.

Before opening the bottle, we can already have an idea as to whether the wine is going to be pricked:

If the colour of the wine does not correspond to its age, if it is excessively oxidised, with russet or brownish shades, and if, in addition, it has lost its shine and has some cloudiness.
If there is a lack of wine in the bottle, if there has been a loss and, therefore, oxygen has entered the bottle, initiating the process of becoming pricked.

If the cork is not in good condition and, therefore, has favoured the entry of oxygen. This can be seen if the cork itself is bulging, or completely stained with wine (not only the lower part which is in contact with the liquid), or if it is excessively dry, etc.

A pricked wine is, in short, a spoiled wine; nothing would happen if we were to taste or drink it, although the latter would be frankly unpleasant. If we have let it go off at home, don't worry, it's not the end for that bottle, here are some ideas:

Make vinegar out of it.
Use it for cooking.
If it is white, use it clean a red wine stain.
Make a face mask, wines are rich in polyphenols, very beneficial for your care and well-being.