A Fall Horror Story: Carbonation in.....Zinfandel?!!!!

My wife and I enjoyed a recent trip to Paso Robles to celebrate our 12th wedding anniversary. We bought wine from nearly every winery, but after popping one of the bottles of Zinfandel we noticed bubbles as if there was carbonation in the wine. Is this possible from a red wine that isn’t Stella Rosa? I tasted this wine at the winery, and it was nothing like this bottle. A non-wine geek coworker of my wife’s recommended the winery, which made it suspect to begin with, but really?!!!

Secondary fermentation, perhaps from the sugar added to add rating points.

Name the wine.

It rhymes with Crusi and has a J. in front. It was bad you guys, like third bottle of the night but still pour it down the sink bad.

Pretty sure they quoted some sort of Gold Medal points at the “You’ve never heard of this insert varietal festival”. [winner.gif]

Never heard of (apparently) J Dusi Winery until this post.

Question: If asked to name the winery that provided a flawed wine, why not name the winery? Why be coy?

A few days ago I posted on the worst wine I’ve ever had. It was from Vinyes Singular.

Victor Hong’s explanation of secondary fermentation of a wine with residual sugar is a reasonable explanation, but far from the only one possible. And perhaps it wasn’t even added sugar, maybe just wine that was bottled without added sugar but without having fully fermented. In that case, kudos to J Dusi for not adding enough sulfur to kill both secondary fermentation and flavor. Stuff happens.

Dan Kravitz

What Dan said!

Light carbonation maybe unusual for a zin, but it’s not unheard of for reds. The usual solution is to put your thumb over the neck and give it a bit of a shake.

Maybe, it was pre-mixed with cola, for Chinese consumers.

I did this a few years ago with a 2008 Pegau with great success.

I have had a couple of J Thomas pinot noirs with some light carbonation. It usually blows off after a few days or a few shakes.

And hope you didn’t underestimate the carbonation like I did once with a California Viognier from a producer I generally like that had some secondary fermentation issues. Fortunately I opened it at a white tablecloth restaurant and the heavy tablecloth soaked up most of the wine that erupted in a geyser of fizz.

Add ice cream, for an ice cream float.

If it was legitimately bad, likely some microbial issue. Let the winery know.

Possibly secondary fermentation but also possibly just shaken up? Or maybe a “natural” wine so you’re supposed to enjoy whatever flaws you get.

Give it a rest, Victor. Your anti-Cali-wine quips in multiple threads are getting tiresome.


I, too, had some carbonation in a Thomas PN. The wine was fine, so I don’t believe there’s a correlation (necessarily) between the carbonation and it being a bad wine.

Anti-California wines? They dominate what I have bought and drunk during the last few years.

Years ago (late ‘80s) I had a Lytton Springs Winery (purple grape label) zin that was slightly effervescent. Decanted it and let it sit until the bubbles were gone. The wine was fine.

The residual sugar is a nice nutrient for the buggies. Sometimes that will result in an in-bottle alcoholic fermentation, which produces CO2. A small amount of just that isn’t a big deal and is normal for some wines. You obviously had other stuff happen. Sounds like a few microbial issues were able to occur in a feeding frenzy of nastiness.

lambrusco for everyone! champagne.gif