Bad Char - What went wrong? What can I do?

Last fall I made a 19 gal batch of Char from very good grapes. I fermented/aged in a 100L Var Stainless tank. It got hot during fermentation. The wineroom goes up to

80 degrees on hot days.

9/16/02 Picked, crushed and pressed. Brix 24.7, Ph 3.2, Ta 7.0. Added 18 grams Pot Meta Sulfate to must.

9/18/02 SG 1.100 9/20/02 SG 1.095 9/24/02 SG 0.995 9/25/02 Racked 9/30/02 added ML Oenos Viniflora 12/22/02 Racked 35 ppm SO2 titrate measure 6/24/03 25 ppm SO2 titrate measure

The wine has a burning sensation when you taste it, otherwise it tastes ok. The wine has an objectionable smell which I can't describe.

I was careful to sanitize everything, did a bug get in there? Did I add too little Pot Meta Sulfate? Was heat a problem? Would filtering help? Would fining help and what kind? Anything else?

My red wines worked OK and this was my first year. If I can't get this resolved, perhaps I'll skip whites this year.

Thanks for you consideration, John Henderson snipped-for-privacy@pacbell.net

Without smelling the wine myself its hard to say.

However...

- The burning sensation is likely just high alcohol due to your rather high (for a dry white wine) 24.7 starting sugar content. - No bug worries and you did not add too little SO2. In fact, your SO2 doses are too high for a wine in which you are trying to induce ML fermentation. Your initial dose of 18g Meta is roughly 140ppm and is too high for a wine destined for ML, 50ppm is more appropriate. With this high a SO2 dose, you're unlikely to be able to initiate ML and there's a chance you could get very slow ML in the bottle which leads to off odors. If you try a white again, keep the initial dose of SO2 to 50ppm and only add SO2 after ML is complete (before bottling) to get 30-40ppm free SO2 at bottling time. - The heat is not a problem, just not ideal for maintaining the delicate fruitiness in most white wines.

I would suggest racking under inert gass and adding 250 ppm Lysozyme to kill off any remaining stubborn ML bacteria and bulk age for a while longer. Taste the wine in another month or so to see if the aroma profile is improved.

Good luck!

CHEERS to ALL!

Aaron