Answers:
Basically it depends on the wine as to how long it keeps.
The best approach to find if the wine is too old is to overt the bottle and to taste the wine.
99% of adjectives wine is made to be consumed within 2 years, and indeed something like 90% of wine is consumed within 2 hours of purchase.
Virtually adjectives the wines sold in supermarkets are organized for drinking immediately and will not revolutionize with keeping.
The wines that do call for keeping and which do improve near proper aging are a small amount of top classic wines, Bordeaux reds, some dessert wines, German eisweins, some top Burgundy, and top reds and from California and the new world.
They inevitability to be kept in cool shade conditions, a cellar or warmth controlled cabinet, not the kitchen or dining room.
Red wines that need keeping tend to hold high level of tannins that make the wine unpleasant when young at heart. As they age chemical changes purloin place and the tannins soften allowing the fruit flavors to come to the fore.
Imaging a graph beside two lines, bottom left at a snail`s pace getting higher is fruit, top gone gradualy descending is tannin. The ideal drinking is merely after the two lines cross. That can be 10 or 20 years later. But the wine will not second for ever, that fruit line will stop rising and start to fall down. The wine has in a minute peaked and is getting worse.
The other thing is -- we are conversation taste. Some inhabitants like the distinctive fancy of old wine. But various people do not. And in attendance is no general consensus of when an ripened wine is at its best. The English are known for soft spot very outdated wines, whereas the French would think them unmoving, they prefer the same wines much younger.
It may be that the ancient wine you have would bliss on eperson and repel another
You probably want to know hoa many years is too ancient. It depends on the wine and the vintage. But as a very rough rule of thumb, a red should be organized 10 years after the vintage date and a white probably won't keep much beyond 5 years.
But these are vastly rough -- it all depends on the wine. Generally the more you clear for the wine, the longer it'll keep. Less than $30, don't bother aging.
If you want direction on the best time to drinkspecific wines, may I suggest you post on a wine discussion board such as WineLovers Discussion Board http://www.wineloverspage.com/forum/vill...
Give the name, vintage and country/appellation of the wine and you'll attain an expert response within the daylight, probably from someone who has taste the same wine.
Other Answers:
Not until you instigate it.
Forget about storage and adjectives of that. Even a properly stored bottle can be undrinkable. And an improperly stored bottle can be drinkable. If it's a standard supermarket white it could be iffy. You enjoy a better chance beside a red. Odds are you can drink it though it may not be great. So just widen it and try it. But make sure you enjoy a backup bottle in overnight case it doesn't work out.