Can my wine be saved?

In August I made some Apfelwein, some concord grape wine, and some cherry wine. I drank some of the Apfelwein early, and it tasted pretty good, but I was told to wait about six months on it to let the apple flavor come out.

Well, at a little over six months I decided to taste it again, and it tastes terrible. It tastes exactly like the rubber stopper part of my airlock.

I bought my airlocks from a reputable home brew supplier, and filled them halfway with vodka, as many recommended.

I didn't panic, and just put a regular cap on the one gallon glass carboy and put it in the refrigerator. Three months later it tastes exactly the same. It is undrinkable.

What did I do wrong? I have five gallons of cherry, three gallons of grape, and two more gallons of Apfelwein -- I hope they aren't all ruined.

what do you use to sanitize?

This is what Palmer has to say about rubbery type (band-aid) off flavors:

"Medicinal
These flavors are often described as mediciney, Band-Aid™ like, or can be spicy like cloves. The cause are various phenols which are initially produced by the yeast. Chlorophenols result from the reaction of chlorine-based sanitizers (bleach) with phenol compounds and have very low taste thresholds. Rinsing with boiled water after sanitizing is the best way to prevent these flavors."

If it tasted ok early then bad later it could be microbial spoilage. this can be due to wild yeasts or bacteria becoming active. Did it warm up at all? There may have been some residual sugar or it may have been a wild malo-lactic fermentation. The best way to avoid this is to have camden tablets added and a suitable pH (3.5 or lower) and of course keep the temperature stable. Unfortunately camden tablets lose their effect over time so ageing can be slightly risky if it goes too long, usually its fine.
Sorry, there is no saving this batch but the others should be fine.

Thanks for the information. I didn't use any camden tablets, because the whole idea was to make something my wife could drink, and she has a reaction to added sulfites.

I'll take that batch as an expected loss, and free up the gallon jug for something else.

One more thing, has the wine been in the same container since the very beginning of the process, or did you rack to a secondary container? If the wine has been sitting on the lees this entire time, that's probably where the bad taste is coming from. You may want to rack one more time and let it sit for a while to see if those off-tastes leave. This wine will be good for at least 1-2 years, so you only have time on your side now. I would just rack it and then give it a taste in another month or so to see if that helps any...