20 Fine Wine Myths You Probably Still Believe
Fine wine has a way of collecting stories. Some are charming, some are useful, and some cling on long after they have stopped being true. The trouble is that the most persistent myths often come wrapped in something that feels convincing. A stern rule learned from a parent, a throwaway line from a waiter, a confident claim heard in a tasting, the sort of “everyone knows” advice that spreads because it sounds tidy.
That is why wine myths are so sticky. Wine is chemistry, agriculture, craft, logistics, and tradition, all occurring simultaneously. It can be challenging to discern which part of a belief is grounded in reality and which part is merely habit, marketing, or a half-remembered explanation that has grown in the retelling.
This piece is built as a set of twenty statements you will almost certainly have heard, even if you have never fully agreed with them. Some are wildly wrong, some are nearly right but for the most important detail, and a few contain a sliver of truth that has been stretched into something misleading. Each one is followed by a simple verdict, TRUTH or MYTH, then the real explanation in plain language. Not vague reassurance, not technical fog, just what is actually going on and why it matters.
1. All Fine Wine Improves With Age
2. Sediment Means The Bottle Is Faulty
3. Crystals In White Wine Are Shards Of Glass
4. Big ‘Legs’ On The Glass Prove A Wine Is High Quality
5. Red Wine Can’t Pair With Fish
6. Screwcaps Are For Cheap Wine, And Nothing Under Screwcap Can Age
7. Natural Cork Is Always The Best Closure For Fine Wine
8. If A Wine Is ‘Corked’, It’s Because Bits Of Cork Fell Into It
10. The Older The Vintage, The Better The Wine
11. Expensive Wines Taste Better, Full Stop
12. White Wine Can’t Age, Only Red Wine Can
13. Rosé Is Just A Mix Of Red And White Wine
14. Sulphites Are The Main Reason People Get Wine Headaches
15. No Added Sulphites Means The Wine Contains Zero Sulphites
16. Sweet Wines Are Simple, And They Don’t Age
17. Champagne Should Be Ice-Cold, And A Flute Is Always The Best Glass
18. Every Cork-Finished Bottle Must Be Stored On Its Side
19. You Can ‘Fix’ A Corked Bottle By Letting It Breathe
20. Second Wines Are Only From Young Vines, So They’re Always Inferior
You will see a few themes crop up again and again.
First, sensory “proof” is often unreliable. Legs on a glass, a particular scent, the presence of sediment, even the colour in the bottle, can all feel like hard evidence. In practice, many of these cues are side effects of alcohol, temperature, filtration choices, ageing chemistry, or the way light hits the wine. They can tell you something, just not always the thing people claim.
Second, serving rituals exist for a reason, but the reason is not always what we think. Decanting, glass shape, serving temperature, and food matching can genuinely change a wine in the moment. The myth creeps in when a useful principle becomes a rigid rule. A great bottle does not need ceremony for its own sake, but it does benefit from the right conditions.
Third, storage and closures are full of confident statements that are only partly true. Cork, screwcap, bottle position, humidity, and oxygen exposure all matter, but they interact in ways that are less romantic and more practical than the folklore suggests. The best advice is usually the least dramatic: keep things stable, avoid heat, handle older bottles gently, and understand what a closure can and cannot do.
Finally, a few myths persist because they flatter us. It is comforting to believe that older is always better, or that cost is a reliable shortcut to quality, or that a single “bad” ingredient is to blame for every headache. The truth is more nuanced, and often more interesting. Wine is full of trade-offs, and knowing where they are gives you more control, not less pleasure.
If you enjoy the occasional shock of being proved wrong, you are in the right place. If you simply want to make better decisions with the bottles you buy, cellar, open and share, that will happen too.
1: “All fine wine improves with age.”
Verdict: MYTH
Ageing is not a magic upgrade, it is a transformation, and not every wine is built to survive it. Most wines are made to taste good on release, with fruit at the centre and structure kept deliberately gentle. If you cellar those wines for years, they do not “turn into” something grander. They simply lose the very qualities they were designed to show.
For a wine to improve with time, it needs enough flavour intensity to stay interesting as primary fruit softens, plus natural preservative strength. In practice that usually means high acidity, firm tannin for reds, and for some styles, sugar and alcohol playing a supportive role. Without that framework, ageing is just a slow fade.
Even when a wine is genuinely age worthy, “better” is a moving target. Youth tends to offer brightness and clarity. Maturity brings a different register: savoury, earthy, nutty, leathery, dried-fruit and spice notes, with colour shifting and texture changing as the wine evolves. That is not automatically superior, it is simply different.
What to do with this: if you only have one bottle, drink it at a moment that suits you, not an imaginary peak. If you have multiples, open one earlier than you think, then decide whether the wine has the stuffing to justify the wait.
2: “Sediment means the bottle is faulty.”
Verdict: MYTH
Sediment looks alarming because it feels like evidence of something gone wrong. In many cases it is the opposite. It is a normal by-product of time, especially in red wines with plenty of pigment and tannin, and in wines that were not heavily fined or filtered.
During ageing, some colour compounds and tannins link up into larger chains. Once they become large enough, they can drop out of solution and settle in the bottle. That deposit is part of why older reds often lose their youthful purple edge and move towards garnet and brick tones.
Sediment can taste bitter and gritty, so you do not want it in the glass, but its presence is not proof of spoilage. Faults tend to announce themselves through aroma and flavour, not through a tidy layer at the punt.
What to do with this: stand older bottles upright for a day or two before opening, then pour slowly and stop as soon as the sediment approaches the neck.
3: “Crystals in white wine are shards of glass.”
Verdict: MYTH
Those little crystals are almost always tartrates, sometimes nicknamed “wine diamonds”. They form when natural tartaric acid in the wine combines with potassium and then precipitates, often after the bottle has been exposed to cold temperatures. They are harmless, and they do not mean the wine is unsafe.
Many large-scale producers cold-stabilise wines to prevent tartrate formation because consumers can panic when they see crystals. Some producers choose not to, particularly if they feel the treatment can slightly strip texture or flavour, or if they simply prefer minimal processing. Either way, the crystals themselves do not ruin the wine.
What to do with this: if you spot crystals, chill the bottle upright and pour gently, or decant through a fine filter. If you forget, nothing terrible happens, it is just an unpleasant crunch.
4: “Big ‘legs’ on the glass prove a wine is high quality.”
Verdict: MYTH
Legs are a party trick of physics. They are mainly driven by evaporation and surface tension effects, strongly influenced by alcohol level, and sometimes by residual sugar, temperature and humidity. They are not a reliable indicator of quality, artisanry, terroir, or age worthiness.
A powerful, warm-climate wine can show dramatic legs and still be clumsy. A brilliant, nervy wine can leave only faint streaks. Legs can tell you something useful, such as “this wine may be higher in alcohol”, but they cannot tell you whether it is good.
What to do with this: treat legs as a hint about weight and richness, then judge quality from balance, length, clarity of flavour, and how the wine develops in the glass.
5: “Red wine can’t pair with fish.”
Verdict: MYTH
This myth has survived because it is not completely baseless, it is just overstated. Some red wines can clash with some seafood, especially delicate fish, because the combination can create an unpleasant metallic or “fishy” note. Research has linked that effect to iron in wine, promoting oxidation of fats found in fish and shellfish, which can produce off aromas in retro-nasal perception.
But “can clash” is not “always clashes”. The trick is to choose reds with low tannin and fresh acidity, and to think about the dish, not just the ingredient. Tuna, salmon, monkfish, octopus, prawns on the grill, tomato-based seafood stews, and anything smoky or meaty in character can take a light, supple red. Pinot Noir, mature Nebbiolo with softened grip, cool-climate Syrah with restraint, and even some chilled reds can work when the sauce and cooking method have weight.
What to do with this: if the dish is delicate and lemony, keep the wine white. If the fish is richer, grilled, smoked, tomato-based, or served with mushrooms, red becomes a genuine option, just keep tannins in check.
6: “Screwcaps are for cheap wine, and nothing under screwcap can age.”
Verdict: MYTH
A screwcap is not a price signal; it is an engineering choice. What matters is how much oxygen is allowed to enter the bottle over time, and how consistently that happens from bottle to bottle. Oxygen transmission rate, often shortened to OTR, is one of the key measures used for closures, and screwcaps can deliver exceptionally low oxygen ingress with high consistency.
There is also a detail that gets missed in pub chat. Not all screwcaps behave the same. The liner inside the cap is the real gatekeeper. Common liner materials such as tin-saran and saranex have different oxygen transmission ranges.
Low oxygen can be a gift for wines that you want to keep fresh and aromatic for longer. It can also shift the way a wine develops. In some cases, particularly where there is a lot of protective winemaking and very low oxygen in the package, a wine can head towards reductive characters, those struck flint, rubber, cabbage, or sulphury notes that are about chemistry rather than terroir. Too much oxygen pushes the other way, towards premature oxidation and browning. That balance is why modern closure discussions focus on managing oxygen, not on whether the closure is “serious”.
What to do with this: treat screwcap as neutral. If a producer has a track record of wines ageing well under screwcap, believe the evidence in the glass rather than the romance of a cork.
7: “Natural cork is always the best closure for fine wine.”
Verdict: MYTH
Natural cork has history, theatre, and a place at the table, but “best” depends on what you value and what you are trying to avoid.
Cork can allow small amounts of oxygen ingress over time, which can suit certain styles and ageing goals. The complication is variability. Natural corks can differ materially from one another, and that bottle-to-bottle spread is part of why two bottles of the same wine can show differently at the same age. Closure guidance highlights that natural cork shows higher variability, while screwcaps are typically more consistent, and technical corks often reduce variability compared with natural cork.
Then there is taint. Cork taint is not common at the levels it once was, but it is still the classic closure-linked risk, and it is one that can flatten an expensive bottle without warning.
That is why many producers and buyers now see closures as a set of trade-offs: consistency, risk management, ageing trajectory, ritual, and even reseal convenience. The “best” closure is the one that fits the wine’s style and the producer’s intent, while keeping faults and variability to a minimum.
What to do with this: don’t buy with your heart alone. If you care about long-term consistency across bottles, pay attention to producer track record and closure choice, not the romance of the pop.
8: “If a wine is ‘corked’, it’s because bits of cork fell into it.”
Verdict: MYTH
Cork crumbs are untidy, but they do not create cork taint. A wine is described as “corked” when it is contaminated by compounds that smell musty, like damp cardboard or a mouldy cellar. The headline culprit is 2,4,6-trichloroanisole, usually shortened to TCA.
The science is unglamorous and very small-scale. Research has shown that certain fungi can convert precursor compounds such as 2,4,6-trichlorophenol into TCA through a methylation process. That can happen in cork, or in winery environments where chlorine-derived compounds have been used and then interact with natural phenols and microbes.
A key reason cork taint is so frustrating is its low sensory threshold. Tiny concentrations can mute aroma and strip a wine of fruit and lift. It is not a health risk; it is a quality-killer.
What to do with this: if a wine smells dull, mouldy, or like wet newspaper, trust your nose. There is no reliable “fix”, and any decent merchant or restaurant expects to replace a genuinely corked bottle.
9: “Decanting is just theatre.”
Verdict: MYTH
Decanting looks ceremonial, but it has two practical jobs.
The first is simple: separating sediment. Older red wines, and some unfiltered wines, can throw a deposit of tannin and colour compounds. It is harmless, but bitter and gritty in the glass, so gentle decanting keeps it out of your pour.
The second is oxygen management. A young, tightly wound wine can soften and open with controlled air contact, which is why decanting can make a newly released red feel more expressive.
Where people get caught out is assuming more air is always better. Mature wines can be fragile. Experts explicitly warn that delicate old reds can deteriorate quickly once decanted, and suggest a cautious approach for mature bottles. Decanting older wines can shock them with oxygen and strip aromas fast. Even if you do not agree in every case, it is a useful reminder that decanting is a tool, not a rule.
What to do with this: decant young wines when they taste tight, and taste as you go. For older wines, prioritise sediment removal and keep oxygen exposure gentle and short, sometimes the best “decanter” is simply a careful slow pour.
10: “The older the vintage, the better the wine.”
Verdict: MYTH
Age can add complexity, but age does not automatically add quality.
First, not all wines are designed to age. Many are built around primary fruit and early charm, and time simply drains that appeal. Second, ageing is not only about the wine, but also about conditions. Heat, light, and temperature swings can wreck a wine that would otherwise have developed well. Third, “older” can mean vastly different things depending on style. A ten-year-old Champagne can be gloriously nutty and layered. A ten-year-old light, aromatic white might be tired. Also not all vintages of a region, producer or wine are created equal.
There is also the fact that older bottles often ask more of the drinker. They can be more subtle, more savoury, sometimes more delicate, and if you are expecting the bold fruit of youth, maturity can feel like a disappointment rather than an upgrade. Evolution is complex, and improvement is conditional.
Even professionals frame it as preference as much as hierarchy. Younger wines can be vivid and food-friendly, while older wines can be more complex and contemplative, and neither is inherently “better” without context.
What to do with this: buy and open wines for the style you actually enjoy. If you love freshness and fruit, do not apologise for drinking “too young”. If you love secondary character, chase maturity, but do it with wines and storage you trust.
11: “Expensive wines taste better, full stop.”
Verdict: MYTH
Price can reflect scarcity, reputation, labour, land costs, vintage conditions, élevage choices, glass weight, margins, and a dozen other things that have nothing to do with whether you will actually enjoy the wine. Even when price is linked to quality potential, it is not a guarantee of pleasure.
Blind tasting evidence is a useful reality check here. In a large dataset of blind tastings analysed in the Journal of Wine Economics, the overall relationship between price and enjoyment was small and slightly negative for non-experts, while tasters with wine training showed a more positive relationship. In other words, price is not a reliable shortcut for most people, and training changes what people notice and reward.
Then there is the psychological side. When people believe a wine costs more, they often report it as tasting better, even when the liquid is the same. A well-known neuroscience study in PNAS found that higher stated prices increased reported pleasantness and affected brain activity linked to experienced pleasantness.
So the myth is not that expensive wine can be brilliant. It often is. The myth is the idea that expense makes greatness inevitable, or that price can stand in for taste.
What to do with this: taste as often as you can without price cues, even occasionally at home. Use producers, regions, and vintages as your map, not the number on the tag.
12: “White wine can’t age, only red wine can.”
Verdict: MYTH
Some white wines are among the greatest long-distance runners in the wine world. The misunderstanding comes from how many whites are made for early drinking, and how quietly the age worthy ones change. Older white wine does not always shout. It often deepens, softens, and turns savoury.
Ageing potential in whites tends to come from a few structural supports: high acidity, concentration, and, in certain styles, sweetness. Riesling is the obvious example, capable of ageing for decades despite low phenolic content, which shows that longevity is not just a tannin story.
Chardonnay sits in a more complicated place. Some examples age beautifully, but many are made in a way that encourages earlier drinking, and oxidation risk can be higher depending on production choices. That is why blanket rules about “white wine” fall apart so quickly.
What to do with this: if you like the idea of mature whites, start with bottles known for acidity and substance (classic Riesling is a friendly entry point), and try a small vertical where you can compare a young and older vintage side by side.
13: “Rosé is just a mix of red and white wine.”
Verdict: MYTH (with a famous exception)
For still rosé, colour is usually made by controlling skin contact. Dark-skinned grapes are pressed and the juice spends a short time with skins to pick up colour and a hint of tannin, then it is fermented like a white. Another common route is saignée, where juice is “bled off” early from a red wine ferment to make a rosé with more bite.
In the EU, rosé is not generally produced by blending finished red and white wines, although red and white grapes can be blended before or during fermentation in some appellations. The best clear summary of the rule, and its nuance, is laid out by GuildSomm, including the well-known sparkling exception.
That exception is Champagne. Rosé Champagne can be made either by maceration or by blending, adding a still red Champagne wine to the base white wines before the second fermentation.
What to do with this: judge rosé by structure and balance, not by colour. Pale can be serious, deep can be delicate, and neither tells you how it will behave at the table.
14: “Sulphites are the main reason people get wine headaches.”
Verdict: MYTH (for most people)
Sulphites are an easy villain because they are listed on labels, but the pattern does not neatly fit the blame. Many white wines can contain more sulphur dioxide than reds, yet “red wine headaches” are the common complaint, which points to other factors.
Sulphite sensitivity does exist, but it is usually discussed in terms of respiratory and allergy-type symptoms, particularly in people with asthma. A clinical review in the Canadian Medical Association Journal reports sulphite sensitivity prevalence estimates in asthmatics, and clinical sources describe typical reactions like wheezing, coughing, and hives.
Headaches after wine are likely to be a mix of variables: alcohol itself, hydration, sleep, meal context, individual migraine tendency, and possibly compounds such as histamine for some people. Harvard Health, for example, discusses histamine as one plausible mechanism for red wine headaches in susceptible drinkers.
What to do with this: if wine reliably triggers headaches, track patterns rather than blaming one ingredient. If you ever get wheezing, hives, or swelling after wine, treat it as a medical issue and speak to a clinician.
15: “No added sulphites, means the wine contains zero sulphites.”
Verdict: MYTH
Fermentation naturally produces some sulphites. So a wine can be made with no added sulphur dioxide and still contain measurable sulphites. “No added” is a production statement, not a promise of absolute absence.
Labelling rules underline this. In the US, the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau requires a sulphite declaration when total sulphur dioxide is at or above 10 ppm, and labels without that statement typically require analysis showing levels below that threshold.
You see a similar logic in organic standards. For example, organic certification rules in some contexts prohibit added sulphites, but still recognise that naturally occurring sulphites may be present at low levels.
What to do with this: read “no added sulphites” as “lower intervention with sulphur”, not “sulphite-free”. If you are genuinely sulphite-sensitive, rely on medical guidance rather than marketing shorthand.
16: “Sweet wines are simple, and they don’t age.”
Verdict: MYTH
Sweetness is not a shortcut to simplicity, and in the best examples it is not even the main event. What makes great sweet wine serious is structure, not sugar. When a sweet wine has high acidity, concentrated fruit, and careful winemaking, sugar becomes part of the preservation system, not a clumsy flavour note that falls apart with time.
Take botrytised wines such as Sauternes. They start life rich and golden, but they can develop for decades, with premium bottles sometimes lasting far longer when safely stored. Over time, the profile shifts away from overt fruit towards layers of dried apricot, saffron, toasted nuts, marmalade, caramelised notes and savoury complexity.
There is another twist that catches people out. Old sweet wines can taste less sweet than you expect. The sugar does not literally disappear, but perception changes as aromas evolve and as the wine’s balance of sweetness, acidity and oxidative character moves into a different register. That is why an older Sauternes can feel more poised and less obviously “dessert-like” than a young bottle.
What to do with this: if you think you dislike sweet wine, try a properly chilled, top-tier example with food rather than treating it as an afterthought. And if you do cellar sweet wines, do not wait for them to become “less sweet” before you enjoy them. The pleasure is in the evolution, not in sugar vanishing.
17: “Champagne should be ice-cold, and a flute is always the best glass.”
Verdict: MYTH
Champagne should be chilled, but not numbing. Serve it too cold and you blunt aroma and flavour, because cold suppresses volatility and dulls perception. The Comité Champagne’s own guidance puts ideal serving temperature at around 8–10°C, explicitly chilled but not ice-cold.
Glass choice has the same problem as many wine rules; it started as a useful principle and hardened into dogma. A flute does preserve bubbles well thanks to a smaller surface area, which is helpful for large pours and busy service. The trade-off is aroma. Narrow, straight-sided shapes let scent escape easily and give you less room to smell properly. WSET’s guidance explains why tulip-shaped flutes, or even white-wine-shaped glasses with a gentle inward curve, tend to present Champagne’s aromas more clearly.
In other words, the flute is not wrong, it is just not always the most revealing.
What to do with this: for non-vintage bottles at a party, flutes are fine. For anything with real complexity, particularly vintage or mature Champagne, reach for a tulip or a small white wine glass and serve it a touch warmer than you think. Aim for the 8–10°C range, then let it lift in the glass.
18: “Every cork-finished bottle must be stored on its side, or the cork will dry out.”
Verdict: MYTH (in the way it is usually stated)
The traditional story is that a cork needs constant contact with wine to stay swollen, otherwise it dries out, shrinks, and lets air in. The bit that is often missed is the environment inside a sealed bottle. The headspace in a bottle of wine is extremely humid, close to saturated, which means the cork is not sitting in a dry atmosphere even when the bottle is upright. A science explainer for BBC Science Focus makes this point directly, noting the extremely high humidity in the air gap and arguing the cork does not dry out simply because a bottle is upright.
So why do so many people still store bottles on their sides? Practicality, mostly. It saves space, keeps labels readable, and it is a long-established cellar habit. Side storage can also reduce the chance that an older cork becomes brittle at the wine line over long periods, but it is not the simple emergency people make it out to be. What ruins wine far more reliably than bottle orientation is heat, temperature swings, and long exposure to light.
What to do with this: prioritise stable temperature and darkness. If you are cellaring long term and have the space, sideways is still sensible and conventional. If you have to store upright for a while, do not panic, focus on keeping the wine cool and steady.
19: “You can ‘fix’ a corked bottle by letting it breathe.”
Verdict: MYTH
Cork taint is not a tight wine that needs air. It is contamination, most commonly by TCA, which suppresses fruit and leaves a musty, damp-cardboard character. WSET’s fault guide summarises the basics: corked wines are affected by TCA, and the result is dulling and unpleasant taint.
Letting a corked bottle breathe does not reliably remove that taint. At best, you might feel it seems marginally less obvious as your nose adapts, but the underlying problem remains. Coravin’s guidance is blunt on this, noting that aeration may help only slightly in borderline cases, and that severe cork taint is essentially irreversible.
You may have heard about the cling film trick. That is a different claim entirely: certain plastics can adsorb some haloanisoles, and controlled experiments have shown reductions in TCA under specific conditions. Even then, it is not a dependable rescue plan for a great bottle, and it is not what most people mean when they say, “just let it breathe”.
What to do with this: if you are confident a wine is corked, the sensible move is replacement, not hope. Most reputable merchants expect the occasional faulty bottle and will put it right.
20: “Second wines are only from young vines, so they’re always inferior.”
Verdict: MYTH
Young vines can be one source for a second wine, but it is not the whole story, and it is not a definition. A second wine is fundamentally a selection decision. It is made from fruit grown at the estate that does not go into the main wine, whether because the vines are young, a plot is earmarked for a different profile, or certain lots do not fit the shape and standard the château wants for the grand vin in that year.
What that means in practice is that second wines can be very thoughtfully made. They often receive serious attention in vineyard work and winemaking, but with a slightly different aim: earlier approachability, a clearer expression of a particular parcel, or a house style that is less severe in youth. Many châteaux treat second wines as wines in their own right, not as an afterthought.
Jane Anson’s history piece on Bordeaux second wines in Decanter also underlines that “second selection” has deep roots, and the modern role is closely tied to raising selection standards for the top wine, not simply offloading young vines.
What to do with this: treat second wines as a different expression of the estate, not a consolation prize. Judge them by balance and intent. Some are simply charming, some are genuinely profound, and the label “second” tells you more about selection than about quality.
A confident debunking
Fine wine is full of tradition, and that is half the fun, but tradition has a habit of turning into “rules” that get repeated long after the reasons have been forgotten. The good news is that you do not need to be a chemist or a cellar master to separate a useful principle from a catchy myth. A little clarity goes a long way.
Keep these in your back pocket for your next dinner or party. When someone announces, with total confidence, that legs mean quality, that whites cannot age, or that a corked bottle just needs time to breathe, you can smile, pour another glass, and gently steer the conversation back towards what is actually happening in the bottle. Not to win an argument, but to ensure the wine gets the fairest possible showing and everyone enjoys it more.
