Rare and premium wines are often at their best years after bottling and exclusive wines come from all the best winemaking regions of the world. Red wines, partly due to their ability to form more complex subtleties are typically of this range.

Exclusive wines come from all the best winemaking regions of the world and the most known of these wines are the Bordeaux, Burgundy, California cult wines etc.

At the lower end of the quality spectrum are the cheap wines mostly sold in bulk and whose label does not mention the producer or the region of harvest.

Bad wine would smell or taste foul or moldy and would have turned bad due to faulty or poor manufacturing, poor bottling or imperfect storage conditions.

Corked wine is caused by fungus-affected cork which comes into contact with the wine and the fungus causes the wine to take up a musty smell, giving the wine a ‘cork’ taint.

Discolored wine looks brown and would have lost its aroma and tastes flat or cooked. This is mostly due to excessive exposure to oxygen and happens if wine is stored incorrectly or if its been opened and left for a few days.

Vinegar flavored wine tastes sour and is mostly due to damage by bacterial infection.

Mould on cork happens mostly to old wines that have been stored for a long while and now has mould growing on the outside of the cork, but this is not a bad sign as it can mean that the wine has been stored in humid conditions and its unlikely that the wine inside the bottle would be affected.

Small white crystals at the bottom of the wine bottle are tartaric crystals and result from precipitation of tartaric acid contained in the wine and are harmless, and decanting the wine can help be rid of them.