Reductive vs Sulfur

[Otto_Forsberg]

A tangentially related question (on sulfites, not on reduction).

I was wondering that does the level of total sulfites change over time in wine? The level of free sulfites certainly drops with age as the free sulfur compounds get bound. However, do the bound sulfites remain in the wine unchanged or do they dissipate? Break up? Do anything over the years? All I know that they might release their bound compounds, becoming free and then becoming bound sulfites once again, but that’s another story.

If amount of total sulfites remains unchanged, does this mean a wine aged for a prolonged time in barrels increase in concentration of total sulfites (as the wine evaporates over time, but the total amount of total sulfites remains stable)?

I’d really appreciate some actual facts and research results on this matter, not just educated guesses!

[Alan_Rath]

Approaching this from the non-science perspective, I see reduction and sulfur two separate things in white burgundy. I associate reduction with a flinty, slightly struck match aroma. I associate sulfur with an overt sulfur aroma (with is a known entity to me as I grew up and still live near an active sulfur spring. Closest smell I can think of is rotten eggs). If a white burgundy is reduced but not overtly tainted with excess sulfur, I do not get the sulfur or rotten egg aroma. In my view a wine can have one or the other or both, but I see them often confused in tasting notes. Especially amateur tasting notes.

In wines like PYCM I often get reduction, but rarely get sulfur.

This for me as well. ^

Why do I bother?

[john_stimson]

Chris Camarda from Andrew Will used to have copper stir sticks for reduction. If you think a wine is reduced stir it with copper, not a penny, but copper. If its sulfur the wine won’t change.

Great lesson from a good friend with a wine shop on Queen Anne in Seattle years ago.

A penny works just fine. It’s just the surface area of copper that matters, it doesn’t have to be solid copper. Many of us have copper sticks now. I just use a penny with fishing line tied to it for easy retrieval. Dan now has copper sticks with McCarthy and Schiering imprinted on them (via Chris). (of course, if it’s serious irreversible reduction, with disulfide bonds, the wine won’t change either, so this is not an absolute rule).

[Robert_Love]

So for someone that loves the matchstick nose on a Chardonnay…anyone got any producers less expensive than Coche that routinely hits that mark??

I love well-integrated matchstick reduction, too. In Burgundy, PYCM, Roulot, and, to a lesser extent, Lamy. Older (90s) but not newer Leflaive.

In the US, Sandhi.

[Kirk.Grant]

So for someone that loves the matchstick nose on a Chardonnay…anyone got any producers less expensive than Coche that routinely hits that mark??

I love well-integrated matchstick reduction, too. In Burgundy, PYCM, Roulot, and, to a lesser extent, Lamy. Older (90s) but not newer Leflaive.

In the US, Sandhi.

Thanks, I haven’t had that experience w/ PYCM yet…Roulot is a good call, but equally $$$. I will give Sandhi a shot…I haven’t tried those yet.

[Chris_V]

Thanks, I haven’t had that experience w/ PYCM yet…

Whaaa…???

Thats kinda PYCMs thing.

[Kirk.Grant]

Thanks, I haven’t had that experience w/ PYCM yet…

Whaaa…???

Thats kinda PYCMs thing.

Actually, I should say it was only in the 2014 Pierre-Yves Colin-Morey Saint-Aubin 1er Cru En Créot. Now that I look back it was there in spades…funny how easy it is to forget. It wasn’t there in the Chassagne-Montrachet 1er Cru Abbaye de Morgeot Cuvée Clement Emma or in the Saint-Aubin 1er Cru En Remilly though. Now that I look back, it’s easy to see why I was so jazzed about the En Créot.

[Joshua_Kates]

The H2S produced during fermentation will readily combine with any number of carbon-containing compounds which is why there is confusion in characterizing exactly what that reductive smell is like – there are a range of different compounds in different quantities in different wines. We used to use “R” to stand in for any of these mostly carbon based substrates, describing H2S as becoming HSR. I think a good rule of thumb is that the shorter/smaller compounds are “sharper,” (think rotten eggs) and the longer chain – yeast autolysis products for example – are more subtle, like toasted brioche. And certainly without the yeast there really is no likelihood of SO2 e.g. added before bottling becoming HSR.

Thanks, Nick,

All of this was very helpful; especially the above. On another note, fwis I just served a bunch of your 2012 Scallop Shelf (and a little 2012 Pomarium) at my son’s bar-mitzvah reception. Opened them about an hour before serving and they were showing beautifully; lots of oohs and aahs from the crowd. Keep up the good work!

[john_stimson]

So for someone that loves the matchstick nose on a Chardonnay…anyone got any producers less expensive than Coche that routinely hits that mark??

I love well-integrated matchstick reduction, too. In Burgundy, PYCM, Roulot, and, to a lesser extent, Lamy. Older (90s) but not newer Leflaive.

In the US, Sandhi.

Thanks, I haven’t had that experience w/ PYCM yet…Roulot is a good call, but equally $$$. I will give Sandhi a shot…I haven’t tried those yet.

Boisson-Vadot and related family wines.