Debunking Common Wine Myths
An effort to separate fact from fiction in some of the most common misconceptions about wine.
Wine, with its rich history and allure, has been a subject of fascination, even religious fervour, ever since its accidental invention some 8,000 years ago. The ways in which we handle wine, its presentation, and consumption have, as with so many things deeply ingrained in culture, been the source of countless misconceptions. These myths, some mere rites aimed at enjoying the wine with a certain air of sophistication, range from simply incorrect to detrimental to the quality of the drink itself.
If you have spent any time on “wine-Tok” or the wine-obsessed corner of Instagram, you are bound to have come across some of them. One notable example is the efforts of some content creators to convince viewers that blitzing their wine in a blender will somehow transform your Two Buck Chuck or Yellowtail into… well, good wine? Who knows. It is just one of many examples of the sort of misinformation that is so abundant when it comes to wine. Part of the reason for this is, of course, the often quite intentional snobbery that exists, particularly in the higher price brackets. The often theatrical rituals of serving wine, the strict rules of how wine is to be best enjoyed, how stemware is to be held, and in general how to behave around the drink are usually very poorly explained to people who do not go out of their way to learn about wine. It is also a matter of access, financial as well as educational, particularly for those who have not necessarily inherited any preconceptions about wine through their family or environment. This can lead to sound practices being dismissed as fanciful affectations, while pointless ones are adopted in an effort to make sense of one of the most gate-kept beverages in the world.
That blending your wine is quite futile should be obvious, but given the prevalence of similar “hacks” on the internet, perhaps it is not. In this article, I will take a closer look at some of the more common misconceptions out there. I expect that for any of you who have read and enjoyed earlier posts of mine, much of what follows will not come as a huge surprise. That said, many of these erroneous notions about wine are quite well ingrained even in avid wine enthusiasts, so hopefully this will be of interest regardless.
All Wines Improve With Age
There are myriad variables that need to be in place for a wine to age gracefully. Aside from ideal storage conditions, a wine intended to age for 10, 20, 30 years or more needs to be in perfect balance from the very outset in order to develop harmoniously. With age, its chemical constituents—such as tannins, acids, sugars, and alcohol—undergo complex interactions that affect its flavour, texture, and aroma. Tannins polymerise, forming larger, less bitter compounds, leading to a softer, smoother mouthfeel. Acidity typically decreases as some acids break down, but it remains critical for balance and freshness. Aromatic compounds evolve as volatile esters (responsible for fresh fruit aromas) degrade, giving way to more complex, earthy, spicy, and tertiary aromas like leather and tobacco. Oxygen plays a slow role in these transformations, as tiny amounts interact with the wine, oxidising certain phenols and contributing to its development. This delicate balance of oxidation, polymerisation, and ester degradation is what allows a well-structured wine to gain complexity and nuance over time.
Meeting these criteria is a serious challenge, and quite frankly, not all wine is made with this sort of horizon in mind. Most wine, in fact, is—partly due to cash flow constraints from producers—made to be consumed shortly after purchase, often within the year following the harvest.
As an example of how this is misunderstood, I came across an overview of wine myths, compiled by Forbes, when searching for inspiration for this post. The screenshot below captured my attention with just how misleading it was.
While I do agree that store shelves are far from the best place for a wine to age, wine certainly does not only improve in the barrel. While many producers let the wine sit in barrel for extended periods of time, carefully managing them and topping them up with wine to counteract the evaporation that occurs through the pores in the wood, this is done with a view towards curating a desired style of wine prior to bottling. For instance, a standard 225L wine barrel will allow approximately 14-15mg per litre per year to seep through its pores. In comparison, a bottle corked with a traditional natural cork will allow around 1mg per litre per year to enter the bottle.
With the higher levels of oxygenation for wines in barrel, the chemical reactions associated with ageing, as described above, occur at an increased rate, allowing an overly tannic wine to soften more quickly, making it more readily approachable on release. The classic example is, of course, Barolo, which traditionally was stored in large botti, giant oak vats holding anything from 1,500 to 10,000L. Such a large volume reduces the relative oxygen exposure of the wine, something which meant that traditional Barolo, marked by an intense tannic profile, would often need 10 years in the bottle before becoming approachable to most consumers. Elio Altare famously broke with tradition by introducing French 225L barriques, and to the dismay of his traditionalist father, cleared space for the new barrels by taking a chainsaw to the old botti in their cellar. While it got him written out of his father’s will, it revolutionised Barolo, making the wines something that, while still more than capable of standing up to extended bottle ageing, was also drinkable shortly after release.
The idea, therefore, that wine can only age in barrel is plain wrong. In fact, it is the low and slow release oxygen environment in a bottle that makes it such an excellent vessel for ageing wine.
While not all wine is able to age as gracefully as, say, a Château Palmer or Château Haut-Brion, that’s not to say there aren’t many well-made wines out there that could age far longer than they are normally given the opportunity to. Few, however, have the patience (or space) to squirrel away cases of wine that have not been proven to age gracefully for 10 years or more, but that’s not to say it can’t work. I’ve had some rather lovely examples of very reasonably priced Rieslings, for instance, that were wonderfully alive after 20 years. More recently, a 1997 Barbera springs to mind, a varietal not normally associated with great longevity, which while displaying wonderful maturity, was by no means over the top of the curve.
To summarise, no, not all wines improve with age. That said, perhaps we should give more wines the chance?
Screw Caps are a Sign of Lower Quality
Speaking of rituals associated with wine, few are as fondly cherished by wine enthusiasts as that of opening a bottle with a waiter's friend. From cutting the foil to the gentle pop of a cleanly pulled cork, every step is intrinsically associated with wine service and, by extension, an air of sophistication and luxury.
Now imagine you’re sitting down at a Michelin-starred restaurant, and the waiter brings you the bottle you’ve carefully selected from the wine list. After showing you the label, the sommelier proceeds to twist the cap off with a moderately loud crack! and pours you your taster. Does that match your expectations? Probably not.
The part of the above scenario that is likely entirely superfluous, however, is the idea that a screw-capped wine would need to be tasted prior to being served. Though not a form of closure normally associated with fine wine, its adoption has shown that not only can wines age well with this closure, they are also entirely free from the various flaws that may be present in a natural cork. Winemakers who have adopted this closure can rejoice in no longer having to have conversations regarding off-flavours and cork taint, and can be assured that the wine will show (assuming no other deleterious influence) as it was when it left their cellar.
So quality is clearly not an issue with screw caps, though as Penfolds' chief winemaker Peter Gago has stated, they do not give any information as to how the wine was stored in the same way a natural cork does. As Gago explained to The Sydney Morning Herald:
“Cork is a barometer of care. It’s a better indicator of bad handling, heat damage or poor storage conditions, because the cork will leak or, if affected by heat, slightly push up into the seal.”
Not being able to tell if a wine has been exposed to excessive heat without opening it is certainly a valid concern, and is the reason why their flagship Grange continues to be bottled with natural cork.
More importantly, however, I believe it is market perception that is skewing views of screw caps as they relate to quality. Because it simply does not fit expectations associated with fine wine, higher-end wines continue to be bottled with conventional corks. This means that when you do see a screw cap on a bottle, it’s likely to be in the lower end of the market, where the wine quality is not going to be the highest from the outset. I say that, but of course there are exceptions, particularly in the slight counterculture movement found in the often high-quality natural wine segment, where the closure should not be interpreted in any particular way at all.
So while screw caps are great, secure, unproblematic, and easy to use, they are likely not going to replace cork in the fine wine segment any time soon, if ever.
Sulphites Cause Headaches
No, you just drink too much. I kind of wanted to leave it at that, but this is one of those topics that not only shapes the way people make their purchasing decisions, but has also driven the whole “no added sulphite” craze to another level. As such, it deserves closer attention.
First of all, all wine contains sulphites. Typically in the form of sulphur dioxide (SO₂), sulphites are a naturally occurring by-product of alcoholic fermentation, and as a consequence, are always present in any wine. Sulphites are also commonly added during the winemaking process to preserve the wine, prevent oxidation, and inhibit unwanted microbial activity.
Most bottles of wine, including those where no sulphites have been added by the winemaker, will have between 20 and 200 parts per million (ppm) of sulphites. In the US, any wine with more than 10ppm is required to display “contains sulfites” on the label. It is, however, worth noting that other food items commonly consumed contain substantially higher quantities of sulphites than wine. Dried fruit, for instance, can contain more than 10 times as much as wine, while baked goods, canned vegetables, and fruit juices will also contain substantial quantities in comparison. Yet very few people abstain from vegetables because they give them headaches.
The exception, of course, is if you’re one of the very few people (estimated at less than 1% of the population) who suffers from severe sulphite sensitivity, in which case many foods would also result in headaches and associated respiratory issues.
Rather than blaming it all on sulphites, it is likely that your headache can be attributed to a simple hangover. Alcohol can dilate blood vessels and cause dehydration, which can trigger headaches. There are, however, other compounds in wine, again naturally occurring, that can cause headaches in some individuals. These include histamines and tyramine, which can dilate blood vessels and cause headaches in people who are sensitive to them or have difficulty breaking them down. These are also by-products of alcoholic fermentation and are usually found in higher concentrations in red wine.
Polyphenolic compounds such as tannins can stimulate the release of serotonin in the brain, which has also been linked to headaches in particularly sensitive individuals.
For the vast majority of people, sulphites in wine are simply not the problem. If they were, you would likely suffer from sensitivity to sulphites in many other commonly consumed food products as well. Returning to the initial statement of this segment, headaches are far more likely to be a consequence of overindulging and the dehydration that follows.
Bottles Must be Stored Horizontally
This is the myth I expect will prove the most controversial, as it’s so deeply ingrained as to be almost universally accepted. Wine bottles must be stored horizontally, in order to prevent the cork from drying out, thus compromising the seal, letting oxygen in and spoiling the wine.
As it turns out however this is not really the case. In a 2018 article published in “The Drinks Business”, Dr. Miguel Cabral, Director of R&D for Amorim, one of Portugal’s largest cork producers, points out that given the near 100% humidity in the headspace of a bottle, the cork will not dry out should you decide to store the bottle upright. He goes on to say that the shrinkage seen in older corks is more likely to be a consequence of the cork being constantly saturated with wine, accelerating the weakening of the corks cell structure over time.
This has been backed up by research going back a full decade earlier, conducted by the Australian Wine Research Institute. In the study called “The impact of closure type and storage conditions on the composition, colour and flavour properties of a Riesling and a wooded Chardonnay wine during five years' storage”, Skouroumounis et al. primarily investigate, as the title suggests, the efficacy of different closures. They did however also discover that bottle orientation during storage under the conditions of the study had little effect on the composition and sensory properties of the wines examined.
What is interesting about this, is just how unambiguous, and unquestioning so many of the most readily available resources are on this topic. The WineSpectator, one of the most renowned publications on the topic of wine and its consumption, has a Q&A section on their website where this question was answered on the 18th September 2023. Please check out the link, but here is the part of the response that’s of interest:
Storing wine bottles on their sides keeps the corks moist. This is important because if a cork dries out, it can shrink and let air into the bottle (and possibly let some wine leak out). That, in turn, can oxidize your wine, meaning it will prematurely age and its flavors will fade (it’s also a pain to open a bottle with a dry, crumbly cork). When a bottle is stored on its side, the part of the cork that’s on the inside of the bottle, in contact with the wine, will stay wet, which is usually enough to prevent the cork from drying out. For the part of the cork that isn’t in contact with the wine, having a cellar with around 70 percent relative humidity is a good idea.
If this doesn’t show just how persistent this myth is, I don’t know what will. A quick Google search will reveal many more examples (including that offered by Google’s own AI response).
So, should you upend your cellar and store all your wines upright from now on? Well, I wouldn’t. I’ll continue to store my wine on its side. Firstly, any issues with 2,4,6-Trichloroanisole (TCA), better known as cork taint (that foul-smelling wet cardboard aroma you check for when served a taster in a restaurant), will not be solved by separating the liquid from the cork. The high humidity in the headspace is sufficient for this compound to travel and affect the wine regardless. Secondly, and more importantly, storing bottles horizontally is by far the most efficient, space-conserving way to store them. You do occasionally see cellars, in Champagne for instance, where bottles are stored upside down, with the cork of the top bottle in the punt of the bottom one, but for most cellars, this is woefully impractical.
It is also true that a dry cork does a terrible job at stoppering a bottle, but as has been shown, given the environment inside the bottle, this simply does not happen. In short, bottle orientation does not matter, and you are free to store your bottles as you please.
Various Quick-fire Myths
The deeper the punt, the better the wine. False. The punt is a consequence of bottle production and is there for stability, enabling a wobble-free experience when placed on a table. It has nothing to do with the quality of the wine inside.
Legs are a sign of quality. False. Legs, the wine clinging to the glass after you’ve swirled it, give an indication of the viscosity and alcohol content of the wine. A higher prominence of legs usually means higher alcohol, but that’s about all it tells you.
All “natural” wine is terrible. False. Go try some more.
Tasting notes are just made up. False-ish. Alcoholic fermentation by yeast creates a plethora of esters and aroma compounds as by-products, many of which are the same as those associated with various tasting notes, such as raspberries. These can be detected by our olfactory senses and, with training, can be described accurately. The challenge lies in translating what your nose tells you into words, something that requires practice and continuous association. You’ve surely walked past a freshly cut lawn and thought, "Ah, freshly cut grass," before even seeing it. Unless you know what freshly cut grass smells like, it would be devilishly hard to pinpoint that smell, even if it is abundantly clear.
When describing wine, therefore, it comes down to the experiences and associations the wine evokes in that particular taster at that moment. For example, the petrol or petrochemical notes often found in some Rieslings might, for some, resemble a freshly opened tin of tennis balls, a cheap beach ball, or simply petrol.
Final Thoughts
A lot of effort has gone into demystifying wine for the masses, making what is one of the most culturally significant drinks in the world more approachable. I think that needs to continue, but we wine nerds must also come to accept that it ultimately doesn’t matter what everyone else does, unless it reaches a point where it impacts the wine we want to consume ourselves. To some extent, maintaining a bit of the mystery surrounding wine may even be beneficial in preserving the air of sophistication that allows the somewhat self-aggrandising producers at the top of the food chain to maintain their relevance. As much as the wine should speak for itself, the near-limitless, brand-driven budgets of the finest winemakers enable them to remain at the forefront of quality without financial constraints.
Meanwhile, for those who want to learn more about wine without caring too much about fine dining etiquette, there should be clear, unbiased, and accurate resources available. Putting a stop to some of the more common wine myths is therefore worth pursuing. I was about to call it important, but perhaps that’s a step too far. Either way, I hope the above has shed some light on these oft-repeated misconceptions.
I definitely worried about which way up my bottles were being stored (Amsterdam apartments are not large so I have them every which way). Thanks for the reassurance!
Great article, hot take on the storage position -- I'd be interested to see a study that looks at cork shrinkage on upright v.s. sideways bottles over a much longer period of time because presumably it's possible that the level of humidity would decrease more rapidly over a period of many years with upright storage if a dry cork is a more permeable membrane than one that stays in contact with fluid. That could also allow more alcohol to evaporate over a longer period of storage and more oxygenation (for better or for worse). Perhaps all of that is just part of the myth, but the length of the study that showed "little to no difference" may not have allowed enough time to observe those changes. Anyway, thanks for sharing this, the WSET definitely asserts the horizontal bottle idea without presenting these contradictory studies which is a shame.