How to salvage bad wine

I like some funkiness in my wine, but today I opened a bottle with too much "manure" than I could handle. Sometimes, I would use a slightly off wine for cooking. This one may be beyond redemption. I might just dump it on the houseplants. Are there other options?

Do a home blend with a dull but sound wine. At least it will be fun, playing with blends In this instance I'd start with the dull wine and slowly blend in the bretty wine till (hopefully) you reach something you like.
regards
Ian

Make vinegar... http://italianfood.about.com/library/weekly/aa05100a.htm

Make vinegar... http://italianfood.about.com/library/weekly/aa05100a.htm

I'd thought of suggesting that, too, but I have my doubts about whether a Bretty wine becomes any less Bretty as vinegar. Perhaps Dale Williams knows the answer that one, but I'd probably operate on the same assumption that I do when cooking with wine: don't use it if you wouldn't drink it.

Mark Lipton

the same assumption that I do when cooking with wine: don't use it if you wouldn't drink it.

Mark Lipton

Maybe it depends on your standards for drinking, but there are plenty of wines that I don't want to drink that are fine for cooking, especially for adding to stews as a background element.

For example, we have a 1997 Newton cabernet opened in the house that is too syrupy for my tastes, but it works well for cooking. We also have several bottles of Charles Shaw wine open that are a waste of energy to drink, but, they're fine for cooking.

As to vinegar, I can't remember adding a wine I found really bretty to my crock, but don't think I would be afraid to. Generally my crock is a combination of dozens of wines, and so any overt brett would be diluted. I would guess the low pH of the vinegar would retard any further growth. But that is just speculation, and certainly Dr. Lipton would have a more informed opinion (I last had chemistry or biology in high school, my college science electives were Rocks for Jocks and a cool physics for non-majors session). I do avoid adding wines that I think are TCA- contaminated, but often add things that I didn't choose to drink.

Like Rahsaan, I often cook with wines that I probably wouldn't choose to drink. Not a beef in barolo or bouef bourguignon, where flavor of the wine is to the front, but if a red sauce needs a half-cup of wine, to deglaze some skin and veggies, etc I'm generally fine using the wine I opened and found lacking a day or two before. I think the "don't cook if you wouldn't drink" is a remnant of the days when a fair number of wines were really faulty.