It would make sense, those compounds occur in the skins of fruit and specifically protect against excessive exposure of the fruit to the elenents including light.
It also would make sense that lightstrike could occur in white wines, even though that fruit is protected from the sun through the growing season, simply because in white wines the juice is separated from the skins almost immediately in order to minimize tannins (and other compounds found in the skin).
Rosé also falls into the trap wherein it might age better on the grocery shelf if it was bottled in colored glass, but rosé in brown/green-brown glass looks like swamp water, and would sit on the shelf for months & years on end!
Hey, I haven’t said it doesn’t exist, only that I don’t know that I’ve ever experience it, or even what to look for. I have my doubts that exposure to indoor light is a big problem, sunlight is a different story. I mean, we live in light, everything around us doesn’t just fall apart because it’s constantly exposed to light. It’s possible there is something about wine that makes it more susceptible, I just don’t know what that would be. And the chemical mechanism isn’t there in the case of visible light, except for unusual reactions. I leave bottles sitting out all the time, sometimes for weeks or even months, waiting to be drunk. They don’t get exposed to direct sun, but certainly indirect, and artificial light. I don’t seem to have a problem with bottles going bad, so it’s not something I worry about.
As noted in the article, it is mostly recognized to be an issue with fluorescent lighting, and specifically the intense nature of fluorescent lighting in domestic grocery stores. It is largely not something that most consumers need to worry about, but this is largely due to the fact that it was an issue that popped up at points, it was studied, and so the industry, to varying degrees, have worked to make sure that it is not something that consumers worry about on a regular basis. Wine glass colors mostly all have quite a bit of brown in them, Heineken comes in brown bottles now, and since I am not 100% on Mark’s question of LED vs. fluorescent, we still keep bottles covered up in storage.
I would still think it would be useful information for people here, both in considering how wine is displayed for long periods of time, and where you might store your wine. Considering how much folks discuss heat and closure, a thread on light is not the worst thing.
I’m confused. Upstream we’re told that light strike is mostly the result of UV light upon the wine and inducing chemical reactions. But fluorescent lighting supposedly doesn’t have much emission in the UV part of the spectrum.
Somebody help me out here.
Tom
FWIW fluorescent lighting has extremely cool/high color temperatures. UV is even higher. I’ve always heard wine cellar lighting should be 3000K or less color temperature – I assumed for this reason.
Not sure. I have always heard more about fluorescents. The article does suggest multiple pathways though(they found degradation of specific compounds, but referenced previous studies that found production of more the sulfur based compounds in some wines, which they did not find in their specific experiment), so maybe there are different effects according to types of light, and/or the compounds naturally present or not present in specific wines.
It was Jamie Goode. Le Goût de la Lumière – Light Strike in Wine - Tim Gaiser MS
From the article linked in my post above:
Introduction
…French experts observed that the quality of champagne was distinctly inferior when the bottles were sold in supermarkets as opposed to traditional liquor stores. Eventually, it was discovered that the intense fluorescent lighting traditionally present in large retail stores produced that the struck favour (Goût de Lumière), triggered by photochemical transformations involving sulphur components, such as methionine and cisteine, which produce H2S, CH3SH, and (CH3)2S [4].The “sunlight flavour” is reported to be produced easily in clear bottles of chardonnay and pinot gris wine with a riboflavin content of over 200 μg l−1, when exposed to reflected light for 2–3 weeks, while a concentration below 100 mg l−1 is considered safe for such wines [5].
In this paper we want to report our results obtained through UV irradiation of champagne and subsequent analysis of the flavour. We found that irradiation modifies the flavour of champagne though degradation of some esters present in the wine…
Yeah I remember back in the day the first time I had Heineken from a can and how much different and better it tasted than I was used to from the bottle.
Beer is best from a keg. Not all in one sitting, of course.
Many years ago I helped in a winery where one of the interns was a brewmaster in between gigs, and he brought in small kegs. He was never more than about five feet from a glass of beer.
-Al
But this is how wine fables perpetuate. No one is claiming ‘light strike’ doesn’t exist for wine. What people are saying is that it is not a problem anyone should be concerned with.
Yes, a wine bottle sitting out on a window facing west in California for 6 months will certainly feel the effects of light strike. But would anyone on this forum buy that bottle?
Likewise thinking that wines need to be somehow shielded from any amount of light for greater than 4 minutes is also flies in the face of common sense. How soon until someone thinks they need to operate their winery, including shipping, delivery and storage all in complete darkness?
Giving credence to the idea that somehow the average wine geek needs to be concerned with ‘light strike’ is how people pass irresponsible information about enjoying wine and worse, will find another excuse to call any random bottle “flawed” when they should acknowledge they just don’t like it.
“Hmph. This doesn’t live up to the ‘hype’. Must have sat on the shelf all day.”
Are you sure you’re not turning this into a big deal?
Several posters are talking about this as if it is something folks should be concerned about. Perhaps they should clarify.
Samples of speculation being presented as facts. I didn’t quote the outright speculative discussions.
It exists but the presentation is of concern rather than the curiosity it is.
I keep Cristal in the dark, but I generally hold it much longer than five minutes before popping more than one bottle.
-Al
I do like that its now OK to drink in the dark.
There were a couple of weeks in recent years where PG&E encouraged me to drink in the dark.
-Al
Agreed - Standard internet brevity / simplicity can lose all context / recognition of nuance. I’m absolutely in agreement with you, that yes it’s a genuine problem, but it’s one that will not be encountered frequently by those posting on this group, nor indeed by the wider public.
The only area I see worth being especially wary of is the tendency of stores to put their most prestige wines ‘in the spotlight’, with champagne a common victim of this practice. Bin-ends of wine that might have sat in a shop window also a rare (but genuine) concern.
Also worth noting the greater vulnerability of wines that don’t have skin contact in the winemaking process (mostly whites, rosés and fizz), and that type of glass does make a difference.
Have people ever encountered light strike in a eurocave with vinoview, or a glass walled wine cellar?
Paging @Rich_Brown and his beautiful glass cellar…