The Easiest Way To Tell If Your Sparkling Wine Has Gone Bad

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There are a number of factors that go into properly drinking wine, and timing is one of the most important. Fermented alcohol can go bad quickly, and expired wine makes for a wholly unpleasant tasting experience. Bubbly is one of the trickiest types of bottles to keep fresh after opening since you have to worry about loss of carbonation in addition to oxidation. To know if your bubbly has gone bad, all you need is your nose.

You can tell if sparkling wine has gone off "the same way you can tell if a still wine has gone off: "You will smell it," says Erin Henderson, founder of The Wine Sisters, Toronto's leading sommelier services and wine events company. According to her, expired sparkling wine "could smell like a musty basement or wet dog if it's corked; if it's cooked [sic] or oxidized it will smell unpleasantly stew-y or sherried or like vinegar." This smell starts to set in within three to four days of opening. The good news, Henderson says, is that "loss of bubbles is not an indication of a bad sparkling wine: As good-quality bubbly ages, the fizz naturally softens with time."

What happens if you pop a bottle of sparkling wine that doesn't get finished at a cocktail party? Though bubbly is best within 24 hours of opening, there may still be some life in it the next day — with proper storage techniques. Unfortunately, you're unlikely to preserve real freshness any longer than a couple of days, even with lots of life hacks. "There are lots of corners of the internet where enthusiasts will promise a best practice to everlasting bubbles," Erin Henderson says, including "spoons, raisins, [and] pennies... Alas, I've never found one that really, truly works," she admits.

If you are insistent on saving your bottle for at least one more day, Henderson advises, "Champagne stoppers, which are butterfly clamps that snap on to the top of the bottle to create an airtight seal, are probably the best way." You can easily find these online, such as the Cuisinart stainless steel Champagne stopper. The other thing to do is chill the bottle immediately since cold Champagne retains its fizz a bit longer. 

Even with these solutions, however, your window of freshness is limited, and "you will still lose some fizz," Henderson warns. On the other hand, she says, "sparkling wine is still good even when it's gone flat. I once had lunch with a Champagne maker who said he preferred it that way." If flat sparkling wine doesn't do it for you, you can try giving your leftover bubbles new life by turning them into a sweet simple syrup.