Dauvissat and "premox"...a lesson learned..yet again

WINE TALK
41

I’ve mentioned the following before but…

~10 years ago, at a wine event, a 1979 Kistler Chardonnay (Winery Lake Vineyard I believe) was opened. It was completely dead & unpleasant on opening. Various folks tried and declared it DOA. ~45 to an hour later, I tried it again and it had transformed itself into a terrific wine. So, yet another data point that wine can be a mystery.

In the case when a reductive wine cleans up with air, the reductive compounds are still present in the wine…but the ‘perception threshold’ of the compounds change (due to the air contact) such that we can’t smell/taste the compounds anymore. Seems reasonable that other/similar things reported here are due to similar effects. Possibly including color changes…this seems surprising, but I’ve been surprised before.

John: I agree with your madeirized/bruised apple/faux oxidation comments…whatever the cause, seems like ‘reductive’ explanations can’t encompass it all.

42

Call it: Cheninosity

43

I’m not certain about this, but I think that struck match aroma that Leflaive and Coche Dury are known for is simply the smell of SO2, so not really what we call reduction as that would be from the creation of some other sulfur compound like H2S. That would explain why it isn’t referenced in any literature about reduction.

44

The struck match aroma is a reductive compound…and the smell of SO2 is quite different. It’s too bad, I like the struck match thing, in very very limited amounts. It’d be nice if it were an easy thing to add, but you need to get the wine in the right precarious reductive state for it to happen, and it can be tricky to control unless you have decades+ of experience with it as Leflaive/Coche/etc do. Even then, it’s questionable how much it’s an expression of the terroir.

45

FWIW: I make no claim to label the phenomenon I wrote about at the top.

Even “prem ox” is , I think, inapt to describe what’s going on. It suggests the wine is bad. Only random bottles are…and , IMO, there is nothing wrong with the wine when bottled or sold. I think it’s really about irregualarly coated silicone corks. They don’t always make a good seal at the neck…and the way they coat them…ensures a random coating on random corks. (essentially a clothes dryer with liquid silicone flying around with the corks, acc. to an industry spokesperson.)

And…I don’t think “green” is apt for the 2004 plague either…

So…I don’t use many labels others do. In this case, I don’t have one…other than that it isn’t what people describe as “premox”. Wines don’t “come back” from that.

46

I think this strikes fairly true to what I’ve learned, and I’ll be interested to see if research pursues this. I haven’t seen any literature on ORP in aged French whites from birth to opening, but I agree with the point that it’s not strictly Oxidation that’s causing what we’re seeing here. As for ‘reversing’ oxidation with sulphur, at that point you’re putting liquid skin over a wound that’s already been opened. Vigilance in the cellar is essential.

As for OP’s point… You may have just had an overly reductive wine that needed time to open… Quite the contrary to a PreMox problem.

47

The Dauvissat was was certainly not “premoxed”. The darkish color was the only common trait. Unfortunately, I did not have enough left after the first day to follow the color’s evolution.

48

Eric, I would appreciate hearing more about this, as I love Coche-esque matchstick reduction, and this is the sort of knowledge that is very hard to come by. I assumed it was a particular winemaking approach to integrating sulphur, as it does dissipate with air and bottle age. If not sulphur, what is it?

These days I actually associate the matchstick aromas with PYCM more than anyone, although Coche remains the king of it. You rarely see it outside of Burgundy.

49

Are you sure that the “struck match” aroma isn’t just a low concentration of SO2? That’s what I’ve always assumed it was, probably with some phosphorus compounds added in for good measure, but I wouldn’t expect to find that in wine.

50

My instinct would be (and has been) to stop buying Dauvissat. Too risky and too many Chablis and other white Burgundies that are much easier to deal with.

51

Interesting. I’d say a few winemakers in Australia have figured it out quite well. I recently had a Chardonnay from Tasmania that had it in a very nice way, quite reminiscent of some Burgundies in that sense (not overall). I’ve definitely had a few others like that, including some very inexpensive Chardonnays. I guess what you’re saying makes sense because actual SO2, like what I find in some young German Rieslings, gives me a burning sensation in my sinuses that some flinty Chardonnays do not give me. Do you think sulfur-related flint will blow off with enough aeration?

52

Actually, Dauvissat is the second least affected Chablis or white burg producer in terms of aging problems that I’m aware of, with Raveneau being the best performer. My rate of premox, corked wines, or wines that just didn’t age well is higher amongst other Chablis producers, and don’t get me started with white burg producers that you want to age for ten years or more.

53

I’m fairly certain that the ‘struck match’ aroma isn’t low/med/whatever levels of SO2. I’ve smelled a lot of SO2 in wine, and it’s different…also, you can smell SO2 after a recent addition or at high level, but not at med-low levels (compared to non-SO2ed wines). Doug’s right about SO2 having a burning sensation…but again, that’s with recent additions or high sulfur levels (approaching or higher than 40ppm free, which is pretty high). I’ve had this complaint about some wburg producers that started using very high SO2 levels…in some cases the wines would go from undrinkable due to SO2 to undrinkable due to premox (something Kevin Harvey first pointed out).

There are a fair number of Thiol compounds that smell sulfurous, so I’m betting the stuck match is one of those. Semi-random note: the perception of Thiols can change dramatically at different concentration levels. The other contributing factor to this argument is the leading struck match wburg producers use a very reductive program.

Alan: What makes you think of phosphorus in this context?

Doug: the struck match/flint thing will receed/disappear with air, generally. I’ve had bottles that never did (esp Boisson Vadot prior to 08/09 vintage esp). Assuming my claim that these are thiols, then they aren’t going away/disappearing, but their sensory perception is changing so we can’t smell/taste them anymore.

Another H2S comment: H2S (from unhappy fermentations) can lead to generally nasty reductive compounds (used to be mercaptans but were moved into the much much larger group of Thiols). But H2S isn’t the only possible path to Thiols (reductive compounds) in wine. But the H2S generated ones are certainly nasty and worthy of attention…fortunately they show themselves in barrel (except for short barrel programs) and can be resolved before bottling. And, from my experience, the non H2S generated ones aren’t nasty and go away with time (in the same sense that new oak ‘goes away’…aka it doesn’t really, but it becomes so integrated into the wine you don’t/might not realize it’s there).

An interesting (to me) side comment about SO2 (sulfur): The bound form of sulfur (sulfur that’s bound to another molecule) is widely viewed as uninteresting, since the bonding an generally strong enough to be considered unbreakable in ‘normal’ conditions. But getting wine through ML (malolactic fermentation, done by a sulfur sensitive bacteria) is a situation where you need to check the total sulfur levels (i.e. bound sulfur + the others). Turns out that, in some circumstances, ml bacteria can cause bound sulfur to become unbound (hence become active), which generally turns around and kills the ML bacteria. Sort of an ML bacteria form of Seppuku :slight_smile:.

Note: I’m not claiming certainty on these issues, tho given the complexity of wine chemistry and our understanding no one can sadly. Anyways, feel free to disagree & offer different theories.

54

It is interesting that the producers known for that “struck match” element are/were those known for the most part to have the lowest incidence of premox…Coche and “earlier” Leflaive, and I would put Boisson-Vadot in with them as I have had many bottles of B-V and not yet had a premoxed one. And when I say “earlier” Leflaive, I am referring to back when they were relatively spared from the pox before becoming poster children for premature oxidation. And it is my impression that I am not perceiving the “struck match” element in later Leflaives as I used to in earlier Leflaives. What does this all mean?

55

I think it means that lower sulfur levels were (or are) one of the puzzle pieces re premox.

56

I’m just trying to understand the source of that “struck match” aroma. Because I can’t really think of a way to get thiols out of the oxidation process in striking/burning a match. The phosporus comment was just because it’s part of the match striking process, and I don’t know exactly what it is we’re smelling from a match. But then it could all be moot, because what we describe as “struck match” could have no relationship chemically to actually striking a match. And last, I still think low level SO2 is the responsible compound for wine aroma we are describing as struck match. It’s not concentrated enough to stimulate the caustic sensation of strong SO2, but since oxidized sulfur is the result of a match strike, that’s what makes the most sense to me. You could test that theory by adding a bit of SO2 to a wine, let it sit out for a while, and see if it shows anything like matchstick.

57

On the subject, I remember this Jancis Robinson article being referenced on these boards some time ago.
Not that it explains much, though.

58

Alan,
SO2 smells more like Ammonia than anything else I can think of. It is not burnt/match-like. That is usually H2S or related compounds.

The struck match of Coche or Leflaive is actually caused by a reductive (opposite of oxidative) state. In a sense it provides protection, or a buffer, from oxidation. If too strong, it can become a Mercaptan or DiSulfide but this is not that common in matchstick Chardonnay as most will just age/oxidize away with bottle time.

59

Do you know what techniques Coche and “earlier” Leflaive used to make their wines in that reductive state without going “over the line”? Their wines were among my favorite WB’s, back when I could afford Coche and before Leflaive changed their winemaking and they were not so prone to the pox. I think that the 2004 Leflaive Clavoillon was an example of a “terminally” reduced wine that went over that line.

60

Robert,
My understanding is that Coche kept the wine in barrel and on the lees until bottling. Lees breakdown (and essentially dissolve) in a process called autolysis. Autolysis uses oxygen so the wine can often become slightly reductive. This reductive state is usually fine (even a positive) but can cross the line occasionally as you point out. Understanding when it has crossed that line is more art than science.