SC - With a Curtsey to Their Majesties: An Introduction

[Stefan li Rous]

Hi everyone!

I am de-lurking once again to ask what may be a silly question.  I don't 
know a thing about wine especially the part about making it, but I was 
reading an article in the paper today about a wine tasting in the 
Netherlands.  To paraphrase from the article, a 300-year-old bottle of wine 
recovered from a 17th century Dutch warship was found by divers July 7th 
off the coast of the Wadden Sea.

When the wine tasters were given their samples, the noticed a strong, 
rotten egg odor, or as one connoisseur put it, "it smells like cow dung!"

Despite the horrible smell, they couldn't resist tasting it and apparently 
it was very good.  A comment was also made that the taste improved as the 
wine mixed with oxygen.

Now, I have had bottles of wine that turned to vinegar---not only did they 
taste bad but they smelled bad as well.  My question is--how could this 
wine taste wonderful--it was described as having a hint of fruit in it, of 
orange peel, marmalade and caramel--and smell of awful?  Quoting from the 
article, "members of the team guessed the recovered wine was an early 
variant of a dry Port that had been colored with a small amount of 
elderberry juice." also, "almost no oxidation had taken place, so then the 
bottle was uncorked the taste had been preserved reasonable well, 
considering the wine's age."

So, what exactly is causing the bad smell, or could it just have had a bad 
smell from the beginning?
As I stated earlier, I have no knowledge of wine making--so this is a 
puzzle to me.  AND, if presented with something that smelled so awful--I 
wouldn't be inclined to taste it!

Ok, back to my little corner of lurkdom,

Leslie:-)

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