A wine (barrel sample) I tasted at the weekend had an oddly chemical nose. It blew off, but I was curious as to what it was.
It smelled a bit like nail polish remover, which makes me think it was acetone, but a brief google didn’t show any common reactions that would convert ethanol to acetone. I don’t think it was ethyl acetate, which is also a common nail polish remover. To me that has a ‘pear drop’ smell.
Was it likely to be acetone? Are there other esters with a similar smell? If it was acetone, how did it get there, and what’s likely to happen to it once the wine is bottled?
Apart from the odd aroma, the wine seemed fine.
By “volatile acidity” I typically think of acetic acid and compounds directly related to it, such as acetaldehyde and ethyl acetate.
It certainly wasn’t acetic acid (vinegar) or ethyl acetate (pear drops) and I don’t think it was acetaldehyde, though it’s been a while since I smelled that so it could have been.
+1
Sometimes it comes across as basalmic sometimes acetone.
+100
I get the sweet “acetone” smell more often than the sharp “vinegar” smell for VA.
I can’t tell you the reactions involved but grape juice is teeming with short chain acids.
If you have 3-hydroxybutyrate it can oxidize to beta-ketobutyrate and that will spontaneously decarboxylate yielding acetone.
The same thing happens in our bodies especially during Ketosis. If you smell the breath of someone in a diabetic coma (or someone in the throes of the Atkins Diet) they will smell like acetone.