Presumably the contribution was made to your wife's traditional IRA, not yours.
If your wife's balance in traditional IRAs is attributable entirely to these contributions, it would likely make sense to do a Roth conversion (not a recharacterization) of the balance.
Even though the traditional IRA contribution is not an excess contribution and is not subject to penalty, your wife still has the option to remove the contribution (although that generally would not make sense if converting to Roth makes sense).
