"Plonk" is a common informal term, primarily used in Commonwealth English, for generally cheap, low-quality, or bad wine.
aka cork taint. How you can tell: Cork-tainted wines have a dank odor that smells almost exactly like wet newspaper, moldy cardboard, or wet dog. These off-flavors dominate the corked wine, and there's minimal fruit flavor.
Corked. 'Corked' is a negative term, which refers to a wine that has traces of TCA – a compound which creates an unpleasant smell and taste. When a wine is corked, it will taste and smell musty or mouldy and is considered spoiled.
An ever-puzzling challenge is what to do with that half a bottle left over at evening's end. If not sealed up properly, you will probably have an unpleasant experience when re-opening. If the wine smells overly musty or tastes like vinegar or cider, it's likely gone bad.
Plonk is a term used primarily in Commonwealth English for generally cheap, low-quality wine.
A few key terms for cheap wine slang are space bag (the bag within boxed wine), cardboardeaux (another term for boxed wine), and plonk (a favorite for cheap wine, coming from Australian roots).
A wine that has gone bad from being left open will have a sharp sour flavor similar to vinegar that will often burn your nasal passages in a similar way to horseradish. It will also commonly have caramelized applesauce-like flavors (aka “Sherried” flavors) from the oxidation.
These include excessive sulfur dioxide, volatile acidity, Brettanomyces or "Brett aromas" and diacetyl or buttery aromas. The amount to which these aromas or attributes become excessive is dependent on the particular tastes and recognition threshold of the wine taster.
Châteauneuf-du-Pape red wines are often described as earthy with gamey flavors that have hints of tar and leather.
It describes the aroma and mouthfeel of a wine. Basically, "funky" means: away from conventional wine tastes. And "wild" much more. They can have strong vegetal or lactic aromas, can be cloudy or even have a different colour, such as orange wines, also called mash-fermented wines.
awful grim miserable unfavorable unfortunate unpleasant.
A taint in wine can be defined as a foreign volatile compound or group of compounds affecting the experience of the wine, including its smell, taste and/or texture.
The 7 main types of wine, based on style and production, are Red, White, Rosé, Sparkling, Fortified, Dessert, and Orange wines, each offering distinct flavors from different grapes and methods like fermentation, aging, and adding spirits. While there are many grape varieties (like Cabernet Sauvignon or Chardonnay), these categories cover the core styles you'll encounter.
Similarly, a spoilage organism in wine can be defined by the undesired characteristics it causes. Uncontrolled acetic acid bacteria lead to unpleasant vinegar aroma, Brettanomyces yeast contamination leads to smoky/leather/manure/medicinal aromas, and so on.
They Call It 'Noble Rot' Wine (Botrytis) | Wine Folly.
Vinegar (from Old French vyn egre 'sour wine') is an odorous aqueous solution of diluted acetic acid and trace compounds that may include flavorings or naturally occurring organic compounds.
Wines of lower quality frequently have fewer flavors and aromas and are more one-dimensional. The taste of a wine can reflect the grape variety, climate, soil, and winemaking methods used in its production, making it a key indicator of its quality.
Meghan Markle's favorite wine is Tignanello, a prestigious Italian "Super Tuscan" red blend from Antinori, which inspired the name of her former lifestyle blog, The Tig. She described it as her "aha moment" for understanding wine, noting its balance of body, structure, and finish, with notes of cherry, spice, and herbs.
As wines age we observe the structural characteristics of acidity and tannin begin to fade. Beyond this, most experienced tasters describe older wines as having more dried or stewed fruit and spice characteristics from slow oxidation.
If your wine smells like wet cardboard that means it's corked, chemicals or rotten egg smells also signify spoilage. Faded or discolored wines probably means that they're oxidized and excessively sweet or bubbly wines, when your wine isn't meant to be sweet or sparkling, also means that something is wrong.
The kit includes 12 fault aromas: Vegetal, Rotten Apple, Vinegar, Glue, Soap, Sulfur, Rotten Egg, Onion, Cauliflower, Horse, Moldy-Earth, and Cork. These reference molecules are directly linked to the composition of affected wines. How does the Wine Faults Kit help wine professionals?
Less Common Grape Types
Like volatile acidity, light damage, and oxidation, cork taint is one of several flaws that can crop up in wine. It occurs when wine comes into contact with a chemical compound called 2,4,6-trichloroanisole, or TCA. TCA isn't dangerous to consume; it's just unpleasant.
Corked wines are a defective product. The wine was ruined almost the moment the bad cork was inserted into the bottle. Cooked wines are bottles that were exposed to high heat either during shipping to the retailer or restaurant, or at the merchant or restaurant.
Cork tainted wines have a dank odor that smells almost exactly like an old basement, wet newspaper, moldy cardboard, or even a wet dog. As far as taste goes, corked wines have very little fruit and overall will have very little flavor and not taste good.