Throw away more wine – life’s too short to drink a glass gone bad
It was pretty surprising to read that the average British household throws away two glasses of wine a week. Wine professionals aside (we throw away even more wine than we drink, which is a lot), most people I know would rather auction their children than discard so much as a millilitre of booze. Britons keep wine in their fridges and cupboards long beyond the point at which it has gone vinegary, vainly willing every drop to survive until they have a chance to finish it, then ploughing through the glass regardless of how bad it tastes. I have seen people unable to stop themselves visibly wincing as they watch me merrily chuck another few glasses and bottles of substandard plonk down the sink so that I can open something better.
Yet according to Laithwaite’s, the wine merchant, our free-and-easy habit with the plughole means we waste 624 million bottles of wine a year, because we throw it out too early. They want us to stop, but I have to step into the breach and declare that it is not enough to throw away two glasses of wine a week. Indeed, I would like to start a counter-campaign for all of us to throw away more.
My thinking goes like this: it’s bad for our health and general levels of mental fogginess to drink too much. Therefore what mustn’t be wasted is not our wine but our weekly allocation of alcoholic units. It is imperative that every single glass we consume is as good as it possibly can be.
Laithwaite’s says the main reason most people throw away wine is that they are unsure how long it can be kept after opening. They say we’re far too worried about wine going bad: that white and rosé will last three to seven days, and that red and sparkling wines are good for three to five days once the cork is pulled.
How can I put this? No, no and, seriously, no. I can only hope these guidelines are not a reflection of the palates of those who pick the wines Laithwaite’s sells – though, if they are, that might explain a lot.
I have a fair bit of experience tasting wine that has been hanging around, because I often open 20 or more bottles at once and go back to them later. It’s true that some wines – white as well as red – are better the day after opening. But the majority lose their freshness and “oh, hello” factor within 24 hours. It’s almost impossible to predict which will last better, though tannic young reds and heavier young whites (such as oak-matured burgundy) usually do well.
The one type of wine whose longevity does tend to be underestimated is champagne, which most assume will rapidly go flat. In fact I find it retains its fizz surprisingly well, even without a stopper, and I frequently go back to an open bottle as much as three days later to find I can still pour a very tasty glass. The other big exception is natural wine that has been fermented in amphora. I have no idea why, but some of these taste just as good, sometimes better, two or three weeks after opening.
A friend of mine selects wine in bars by the simple device of asking: “Which of these bottles did you open most recently?” In his honour, I call it the Hardman rule, and it’s a good one. Generally, I would rather throw away gallons (or freeze it, for later use in casseroles) than pour from bottles that have been open for a day. There isn’t enough time in this short life, nor enough cells in my liver, to waste on bad wine. My advice to the uncertain is simple: taste the wine. If you still like it, drink it. If not, pour it away and get cracking with the corkscrew on another bottle.