Salt?

The only salty wine I have had was returned to the seller, who declared it to be corked.

It didn't smell corky to me, but had no fruit AT ALL and smelled/tasted sort-of sea-weed salty. I can only presume the TCA had destroyed the wine so much that the nasty salty flavour was all that remained.

If I had to guess, I'd say the wine had probably been deacidified with sodium carbonate or bicarbonate. That would reduce the acidity, but it would leave a salty flavor in the wine that would be persistent.

The right way to deacidify wine is to use either potassium carbonate or bicarbonate, followed by chilling to precipitate the excess potassium as the bitartrate. That way, the wine ends up with no excess salt in solution.

Incidentally, if the chilling/precipitating step was omitted prior to bottling but after treatment with potassium (bi)carbonate, that could also account for the salty flavor. If you have another bottle, stick it in the back of the 'fridge for a month or two and see how it tastes after that. If that drops out the excess potassium as crystals ("wine diamonds") in the bottle, the wine should taste normal again.

Tom S

Salut/Hi Tom S,

le/on Tue, 26 Aug 2003 05:52:11 GMT, tu disais/you said:-

Salty Tom? Sodium chloride? Only if the original wine had hydrochloric acid present.

Sodium tartrate doesn't really taste salty in my opinion. Nor does sodium citrate.

Whatever, I'm not sure I'd want to buy a wine made in that way.

Salut/Hi Tom S,

le/on Wed, 27 Aug 2003 03:15:18 GMT, tu disais/you said:-

Sorry to have left the whole discussion, but no sensible trimming is possible.

I see what you mean, both as to rescuing an otherwise undrinkable wine and the taste that "salts" will have. Although I know that the word "salt" has a technical meaning (combination of metal ion and an acid ion - loosely) I am very wary of using it in a non technical discussion, where "salt" is synonymous with common table salt. I'm not sure I'd agree about tartrates and chlorides being similar enough - though when talking about taste it's very hard to be dogmatic - especially when one of the people discussing is a chili-head ;-)))

Coming back to rescuing an undrinkable wine.... While it's perfectly acceptable to do it in the privacy of your own home and for your private consumption, I'm less convinced about it being acceptable for a commercially sold wine. Even less convinced if the grapes are grown in an area where _over_ rather than _under_ -ripeness is risk. Because unless I'm greatly mistaken, a large excess of tartaric acid is a sign of a wine maked from grapes picked before proper maturity, (as in the Saar or the Ruwer in "difficult" years) isn't it?

Hey, I resemble that remark! Come to think of it, I recall you yourself chopping some fresh Habanero for a batch of excellent dungeness crab salad.

True, this was not a commercial wine I was referring to. Still I had a lot of it and had to fix it.

It turns out that the grower slipped a fair quantity of another varietal into the bins that year (1985) - probably to flesh out a shortfall of Chardonnay. Best guess is that it was Emerald Riesling, which apparently holds its acidity much longer than Chardonnay. Another grower tried that on me a few years ago, and I called him on it. He backed down, with apologies. Live and learn...

Tom S

Salut/Hi Tom S,

le/on Thu, 28 Aug 2003 05:53:32 GMT, tu disais/you said:-

Yes well.... It makes it even harder when BOTH of the protagonists are chili heads.

No criticism of you intended.

Tsk.

backed down, with apologies.

So he damn well should. It's not so much the inferior grape, but the preumption that you're too dumb to be able to tell the difference that gets up my nose. I remember once ordering 3 geese around Christmas time. Two were for clients one for me. When it cam down to mine, it was a thawed frozen bird. As I said to the butcher... "If I had wanted to buy a frozen bird, I'd have gone to the supermarket and paid the price. Here you've sold me frozen at fresh price. That's bad enough, but what gets me is that you didn't think I'd know the difference.

"Live and learn" as you say.