An oxidised wine will make your sink happy, while the great dry oxidative wines and other wines that have grown with air and time will make you climb the curtain. The common factor is oxygen, an invisible and elusive gas that can destroy or reveal aromas. Why this paradox? And where is the limit?
At the beginning, it is a word. Oxydative. What does it mean to you? The question is asked at random by friends, who answer “a defect which in some cases can be made a joy”, “the life of wine”, “old grenaches”, “a defect or a quality, it depends”, “deliberate oxidation or bad oxidation which damages the wine”. The “oxidised” wine will indeed head for the sink, into which the bottle that has gone wrong will be emptied. It is a dead wine, unservicable, undrinkable. Oxidative, oxidation, oxidised: these are terms with a common root that are mixed up in people’s minds. Some even go so far as to say that occire means to kill.
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