What Makes a Bad Wine?

We've talked about wines that are corked, that have been left open too long, or that are simply spoiled. There are other reasons wines might be considered "bad." Sometimes the winemakers themselves make a mistake or don't have the right ingredients to work with, and the wine is flawed before it even goes into the bottle. Here are some terms that help describe these wines.

• Austere: Aggressively acidic, with no balance of flavor
• Flabby: Soft and weak, with absolutely no acidity
• Green: Under-ripe grapes, leading to under-ripe and under-developed flavors
• Tight: Elusive flavors, but unlike the others, this might just be temporary. This can sometimes be remedied by decanting a wine to let it "open up."
• Hot: Sometimes you can smell the alcohol wafting off the liquid. Not good. Hot is a term for "high in alcohol content".