Faulty bottle - what´s wrong?

Are you certain that something was the matter? Perhaps the wine was designed to be that way. I always bottle my Late Harvest Gewurztraminer with a slight bit of dissolved CO2 to give a refreshing petillant character to the wine, and I would think that at least some other producers would do the same. Typically, not as much spritz as real soda pop, but enough to perhaps give a slight impression of soda pop. You say that everything else seems proper, in the nose and flavor, and I would expect the same of the clarity. Now, if there were yeasts or bacteria growing in the wine, producing gas, one would expect a certain amount of turbidity, especially as the bottle got shaken up with pouring.

Craig Winchell GAN EDEN Wines

The fizz is CERTAINLY not intentional. This is typical CO2 from bottle refermentation, Dirler is either a low-sulphur or a no-sulphur winemaker, so these bottles do not travel well unless you can maintain the cold chain operating throughout the voyage from Alsace to Scania (something YOU can probably do with your Volvo Nils). And cellaring must be below 11 degrees.

This problem can usually be fixed or reduced by rough aeration in a decanter, shake it up and let it all go. This happens to me all the time with some of Arena's delicious vermentino...

Mike

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He didn't say anything about turbidity or a layer of yeast at the bottom of the bottle, which gave me the idea that it might be similar to my LH Gewurz. Bottled cold under CO2, it definitely has enough dissolved CO2 to make one believe that there might have been a refermentation in the bottle, but it's there by design. A refermenting bottle would typically also have a definite yeasty aroma, but there was also no mention of that. Another reason for gas in bottles, other than refermentation is if the corker vacuum failed during corking, thereby pressurizing the headspace and forcing gases to dissolve in the wine. If you have knowledge of the producer and their wines, and what they're attempting to accomplish, I'll defer to your judgement. I just want you to understand that there are potentially other reasons for dissolved gases in a wine. And I'll say it again-- turbidity.

Craig Winchell GAN EDEN Wines

Seems likely. It would appear that this secondary fermentation destroys some of the complexity of the one, apart from adding unwanted bubbles.

Cheers!

Nils Gustaf

Nothing at all was the matter, assuming that would mean that something was bad. What you had was a bottle of wine that had restarted fermenting "in vitro". This can only happen if the wine is bottled non-sterile filtered with either residual sugar (not dry, IOW) or with unresolved malic acid. It's an uncommon occurrence in commercial wines, but it can happen.

Didn't it _taste_ interesting? Maybe it wasn't what you were expecting, but it might have been pretty nice wine anyway.

Tom S

Heh, heh! I've noticed that some winemakers regard their techniques as proprietary, so you might not get too far with a more probitive line of enquiry anyway.

I'll second that. Craig raised a couple of issues I hadn't considered - particularly the possibly _intentional_ slight carbonation of the wine.

The defective vacuum corker was the other, but I tend to discount that. Although I've corked thousands of bottles over the years, I've _never_ bottled with a vacuum corker and I can't recall a gassy bottle that wasn't attributed to in vitro refermentation.

Which brings me to turbidity. Refermenters _always_ have turbidity; after all, the yeast is multiplying during the fermentation. The yeast settles out when the wine finally stops fermenting.

Tom S

][] ] Anybody has any idea what was the matter? ]

Interesting discussion. Nobody has mentioned carbonic (I think that's what it is) gas? I recall tasting some Font de Michelle Blanc from the barrell that had a real rotten egg smell. M Gonnet said it was some sort of carbonic (carbolic?) gas that would blow off before the wine was bottled.

-E

What you are speaking of is hydrogen sulfide gas, which can also be dissolved in wine, and which can react with various components in wine, creating mercaptans and the like. However, that obviously has nothing to do with the original post, since the wine smelled and tasted just fine to the poster, except that the mouth feel was different than his expectation due to the spritz.

Craig Winchell GAN EDEN Wines

] > ][] ] > ] Anybody has any idea what was the matter? ] > ] ] >

] > Interesting discussion. Nobody has mentioned carbonic (I think that's ] what it is) ] > gas? I recall tasting some Font de Michelle Blanc from the barrell that ] had a real ] > rotten egg smell. M Gonnet said it was some sort of carbonic (carbolic?) ] gas that ] > would blow off before the wine was bottled. ] ] What you are speaking of is hydrogen sulfide gas, which can also be ] dissolved in wine, and which can react with various components in wine, ] creating mercaptans and the like. However, that obviously has nothing to do ] with the original post, since the wine smelled and tasted just fine to the ] poster, except that the mouth feel was different than his expectation due to ] the spritz. ] ] Thanks Craig. Apparently I responded to the wrong thread! A combination of trying to catch up and a new news reader, my only excuse. There was another thread hereabouts where the wine smelled like rotten eggs...

-E

Hi Mark,

Bearing in mind I was attempting to reply to a different thread:

What was pointed out to me, was definitely a gas of some sort. "Carbonic" fits the bill, and it certainly smelled like rotten eggs.

Now all this said, this was in the midst of a huge tasting where I had gone through literally several hundred wines. (The wine in question was brought direct from the barrel in an unmarked bottle). Buccal absorption being what it is, even with spitting my memories are, uh, questionable I suppose. Also my french sometimes fades in these circumstances.

Maybe what he said was sulphate d'hydrogen (or whatever it is in french) and I just got it wrong... or perhaps the wine had both faults, and he only saw fit to mention the one.

-E