When vintage wine goes bad

Pianist Arthur Rubinstein was fond of telling the story of the wine connoisseur who once invited the composer Johannes Brahms to dinner: “This is the Brahms of my cellar,” said the collector to his guests, filling the master’s glass from a dusty bottle. Brahms looked at the colour of the wine, smelled it and finally took a taste. “Hmmm,” he said after putting down the glass. “Better bring your Beethoven.” That’s the trouble with old wines. Even if kept in temperature- and humidity-controlled conditions in a million-dollar cellar: they can go bad, oxidise or simply not taste very good after years of ageing, reports the Canberra Times.