Are "Off Wine Days" a Real Thing? If so, why?

[Victor_Hong]

why blame all the wines? Blame your palate for an off wine day. It happens.

Funny, truthful, iconoclastic, and brutal…all rolled into one.

[Michael_S_Monie]

why blame all the wines? Blame your palate for an off wine day. It happens.

Funny, truthful, iconoclastic, and brutal…all rolled into one.

Multiple people on the same day? It must be contagious!

[Stan_Y]

I’ve definitely experienced this - bottle after bottle, another trip to the cellar, still not right, with no obvious explanation. Thankfully it is relatively rare. Very frustrating especially when I’ve set my mind on something older and better.

[Philip_G]

There’s a wee bit of difference between the moon’s effect on the oceans on a planetary scale, and it’s impact on your taste buds.

Yes, I agree

[Mikael_OB]

why blame all the wines? Blame your palate for an off wine day. It happens.

A collective palate off day for OP and all guests?

[alan_weinberg]

why blame all the wines? Blame your palate for an off wine day. It happens.

A collective palate off day for OP and all guests?

if the food eaten whacked the palates? Just speculating since we now can’t blame the moon. I know Sarah has a great palate. Wasn’t being mean.

[Sarah_Kirschbaum]

why blame all the wines? Blame your palate for an off wine day. It happens.

A collective palate off day for OP and all guests?

if the food eaten whacked the palates? Just speculating since we now can’t blame the moon. I know Sarah has a great palate. Wasn’t being mean.

Not offended! But I did address your two suggestions that in my OP and subsequent posts by saying 1) all four of us experienced it, so it wasn’t just my palate being off, and 2) most of the bottles were tasted without food, so it wasn’t a pairing issue.

[Brady_Daniels]

Multiple people on the same day? It must be contagious!

Yeah, I’ve been to a few tastings where everybody agreed that none of the bottles shined. They weren’t off / flawed, they were just kinda muted and uninteresting. I can’t really explain it, but I suspect the founders of biodynamics experienced the same phenomenon and created their own explanation.

Happily, I’ve been to other tastings where even the most humble wine excelled. So I guess it all evens out.

I’d own a lot less wine if the first scenario was very frequent.

[Mikael_OB]

why blame all the wines? Blame your palate for an off wine day. It happens.

A collective palate off day for OP and all guests?

if the food eaten whacked the palates? Just speculating since we now can’t blame the moon. I know Sarah has a great palate. Wasn’t being mean.

The only thing mean would have been that ingredient, taking out champagne.
Was sure about no mean intentions, you always keep a good tone

[J.Vizuete]

I think David’s point is a good one. Sometimes that first bottle can throw one off causes one to be overly critical of subsequent bottles.

Another possible thought: there’s some research that suggests that cork taint can inhibit one’s olfactory signal transduction, effectively reducing one’s ability to smell. I’m not sure how much that can carry over into other wines, but that may be one possibility as to why the subsequent wines tasted were ‘off’.

Given Sarah’s thoughtful addressing of the potential factors at play (all tasters with experience shared the sensation, bottles tried without food, no one sick or too much the night before), I like Rodrigo’s suggestion best from a strictly logical viewpoint. Maybe it’s because I’ve been binging Lupin this weekend, but some endogenous issue with wine #1 could offer an explanation for the subsequent depressed performance. It would affect all tasters and could stunt the wines that followed. TCA even occurred to Sarah on wine #2. But it needn’t be that, although I can’t say I’ve experienced an issue like that with wine (miracle berries do come to mind though).

For what it’s worth, I opened 3 bottles last night under slightly different circumstances:

1. 2019 Bonnezeau La Montagne
2. 2019 Domaine Valette Macon Villages
3. 2019 Guffens Heynan Macon-Pierreclos premier jus de chavigne

The first showed a lot more natty than I had hoped and my wife just didn’t enjoy it. The second had some frizzante and actually came off quite similarly. The third was very good, but perhaps not as precise as my expectation. Point being, I expected to but didn’t love any of them and a big cold front subsequently blew in overnight. Today the Chenin is much nicer. I’ll circle back to the other two this evening.

I’m a non believer in the bio calendar at this point in time, but an experiment like Yaccov’s could be fun to try.

[Tom_G_l_a_s_g_o_w]

I think David’s point is a good one. Sometimes that first bottle can throw one off causes one to be overly critical of subsequent bottles.

Another possible thought: there’s some research that suggests that cork taint can inhibit one’s olfactory signal transduction, effectively reducing one’s ability to smell. I’m not sure how much that can carry over into other wines, but that may be one possibility as to why the subsequent wines tasted were ‘off’.

Given Sarah’s thoughtful addressing of the potential factors at play (all tasters with experience shared the sensation, bottles tried without food, no one sick or too much the night before), I like Rodrigo’s suggestion best from a strictly logical viewpoint. Maybe it’s because I’ve been binging Lupin this weekend, but some endogenous issue with wine #1 could offer an explanation for the subsequent depressed performance. It would affect all tasters and could stunt the wines that followed. TCA even occurred to Sarah on wine #2. But it needn’t be that, although I can’t say I’ve experienced an issue like that with wine (miracle berries do come to mind though).

For what it’s worth, I opened 3 bottles last night under slightly different circumstances:

1. 2019 Bonnezeau La Montagne
2. 2019 Domaine Valette Macon Villages
3. 2019 Guffens Heynan Macon-Pierreclos premier jus de chavigne

The first showed a lot more natty than I had hoped and my wife just didn’t enjoy it. The second had some frizzante and actually came off quite similarly. The third was very good, but perhaps not as precise as my expectation. Point being, I expected to but didn’t love any of them and a big cold front subsequently blew in overnight. Today the Chenin is much nicer. I’ll circle back to the other two this evening.

I’m a non believer in the bio calendar at this point in time, but an experiment like Yaccov’s could be fun to try.

All well and good, but my iPhone calendar says it wasn’t any of 4 types of days, Yaccov’s source says leaf day, but in Toronto it was a fruit day.

[C_Mc_Cart]

31st & 1st were fruit days, moving into root around 6pm on the 1st, so for those that do believe in how wines react with the biodynamic calendar - it ain’t that, unless the bagels were for dinner.
Have certainly had bad tastings where wines did not show well overall on root or leaf days.

I use an app on 1/1 it showed a fruit day from midnight to 6AM EST. is your source the book?

Canadian site. Realise that Sarah is in the greater Philly area, but that’s like a Southern Canadian burb.

Biodynamic sowing and planting calendar 2024 - Canada

Just an aside - many buy wines made under a biodynamic method & calendar - Is it a bridge too far to also presume it may follow suit for when best to consume? Not that I’m a die hard, just a moderate believer.

[Michael_S_Monie]

Perhaps some Feng Shui adjustments in the home. Damn, I’m feeling more like Victor all the time.

[Markus_S]

And we know that wine and food can taste bad in planes, where the air pressure is quite low.

You think hurtling through space at 40,000 feet at 600mph has nothing to do with it?

[Alan_Rath]

it is possible the cyclic pull of the moon could affect our bodies in some way that could affect our taste.

No, it can’t. I’d have to run the numbers, but I think it’s safe to say that a car pulling up and parking in your driveway has a greater gravitational influence than the moon (and, btw, the moon’s gravitational influence has the same 24 hour cycle every day of the year, regardless if it’s full, new, or anywhere in between).

Probably should have said “might be possible”. The moon’s gravity causes the shifting tides, its gravity has a noticeable affect on planet earth and it is possible it could affect other things on earth like our bodies. But I think other factors are much more likely to cause changes in our taste.

Not picking on you, Philip, but the “moon causes tides, why can’t it impact a barrel of wine, or a person” logic is trotted out all the time to justify “lunar calendar” thinking, and misses a critically important point: the force that drives ocean tides exists because there is enough of a differential in gravitational pull from the moon across the earth’s diameter (12,000km). That tidal force is proportional to the distance across which it works. So a barrel of wine, which has dimensions around 1m, has a lunar tidal force across that dimension which is 0.000008% of the tidal force that generates planetary tides of a few feet. And even that ignores the fact that a barrel of wine, or your brain, or your tongue, or whatever proponents of this notion think is being affected, is not a thin layer of fluid ocean surrounding a solid earth. Between there being no analog to ocean tides in your brain or taste buds or wine barrel, and the tidal force being many orders of magnitude less, this idea of “phases of the moon” needs to be laid to rest once and for all.

To put it in perspective: someone sitting 6 feet away from you creates a tidal force across your brain about 8,000 times the tidal force caused by the moon across your brain.

[John_Morris]

No, it can’t. I’d have to run the numbers, but I think it’s safe to say that a car pulling up and parking in your driveway has a greater gravitational influence than the moon (and, btw, the moon’s gravitational influence has the same 24 hour cycle every day of the year, regardless if it’s full, new, or anywhere in between).

Probably should have said “might be possible”. The moon’s gravity causes the shifting tides, its gravity has a noticeable affect on planet earth and it is possible it could affect other things on earth like our bodies. But I think other factors are much more likely to cause changes in our taste.

Not picking on you, Philip, but the “moon causes tides, why can’t it impact a barrel of wine, or a person” logic is trotted out all the time to justify “lunar calendar” thinking, and misses a critically important point: the force that drives ocean tides exists because there is enough of a differential in gravitational pull from the moon across the earth’s diameter (12,000km). That tidal force is proportional to the distance across which it works. So a barrel of wine, which has dimensions around 1m, has a lunar tidal force across that dimension which is 0.000008% of the tidal force that generates planetary tides of a few feet. And even that ignores the fact that a barrel of wine, or your brain, or your tongue, or whatever proponents of this notion think is being affected, is not a thin layer of fluid ocean surrounding a solid earth. Between there being no analog to ocean tides in your brain or taste buds or wine barrel, and the tidal force being many orders of magnitude less, this idea of “phases of the moon” needs to be laid to rest once and for all.

To put it in perspective: someone sitting 6 feet away from you creates a tidal force across your brain about 8,000 times the tidal force caused by the moon across your brain.

Sorry, Alan but you’re dismissiveness is not well grounded. The American Association for the Advancement of Science reports research showing that lunar cycles can affect both sleeping patterns and menstrual cycles.

[John_Morris]

And we know that wine and food can taste bad in planes, where the air pressure is quite low.

You think hurtling through space at 40,000 feet at 600mph has nothing to do with it?

I suppose that’s possible, but the low air pressure and humidity and background noise (!) are the commonly accepted explanations.

[Marc_Hauser]

Probably should have said “might be possible”. The moon’s gravity causes the shifting tides, its gravity has a noticeable affect on planet earth and it is possible it could affect other things on earth like our bodies. But I think other factors are much more likely to cause changes in our taste.

Not picking on you, Philip, but the “moon causes tides, why can’t it impact a barrel of wine, or a person” logic is trotted out all the time to justify “lunar calendar” thinking, and misses a critically important point: the force that drives ocean tides exists because there is enough of a differential in gravitational pull from the moon across the earth’s diameter (12,000km). That tidal force is proportional to the distance across which it works. So a barrel of wine, which has dimensions around 1m, has a lunar tidal force across that dimension which is 0.000008% of the tidal force that generates planetary tides of a few feet. And even that ignores the fact that a barrel of wine, or your brain, or your tongue, or whatever proponents of this notion think is being affected, is not a thin layer of fluid ocean surrounding a solid earth. Between there being no analog to ocean tides in your brain or taste buds or wine barrel, and the tidal force being many orders of magnitude less, this idea of “phases of the moon” needs to be laid to rest once and for all.

To put it in perspective: someone sitting 6 feet away from you creates a tidal force across your brain about 8,000 times the tidal force caused by the moon across your brain.

Sorry, Alan but you’re dismissiveness is not well grounded. The American Association for the Advancement of Science reports research showing that lunar cycles can affect both sleeping patterns and menstrual cycles.

That’s a really fascinating article (really! not being sarcastic), but reading it, it seems to suggest a connection among cycles of moonlight, sleep, and menstruation, not attributing lunar gravitational forces to them.

[Philip_G]

"why can’t it impact a barrel of wine”

Alan, please don’t put words in my mouth or make assumptions about what I am implying. “why can’t it impact a barrel of wine” is not something I said.

My only reason for mentioning the moon’s gravity is because it is an actual scientific fact vs the made up astrology based seasonal tasting. I agree with you on the minimal impact of gravity on the body and have removed that from my original post.

[Dale_Bowers]

I will say that when encountering a badly corked bottle, it takes my senses awhile to recover. Same with heavy brett. Oxidation, for some reason, not so much.