A friend of mine who has a small winery way south of here has a problem and asked me if I had a solution. He has an 09 Pinot Gris that he left in a poly tank for too long, and it became oxidized. He has added PVPP a couple of times, but the problem keeps coming back. I made a couple of suggestions, but I thought I would pose the question to the group. What steps would you take in a situation like this?
First I’d sparge the hell out of it with nitrogen and get the dissolved o2 as low as possible. Then sulfur it within reason. Blend it?
Tell people it was made in “the French style.”
You’re so smart, Peter. That’s what I suggested! ![[snort.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/b/bdc3944606213c4dca6c1169cf0a166c8bc4f8c9.gif "snort.gif"){kind=small}
What kind of oxidation is it? Sherry/maderized? Or acetaldehydes? If it’s acetaldehydes, you could toss it into a white primary fermentation during the upcoming crush and the acetaldehydes will go away (in theory anyways, use a robust yeast). If its Sherry/maderized, I’ve heard of some success with casein and/or carbon fining removing oxidation (and most everything else). Otherwise making vinegar (or selling to a vinegar producer) seems like an appealing option compared to paying bottling/storage costs for a wine that’s going to be a tough sell.
Sell it as 1996 white Burgundy… (sobs…)
What about acidifying it (with tartaric and citric), sweetening it with some of this years must (clarified, partly fermented?), sterile filter and carbonating it somehow and selling it as a sparkler? Depending on the character, a bit of oxidative style works with sparklers.
Drink cabernet sauvignon, instead of pinot noir.
It is just sherried according to him.
I actually also thought of adding concentrate, but hadn’t thought of sparkling.
We had a similar issue with some Chardonnay we were going to turn into sparkling wine. PVPP helped, but the issue that stopped us from doing the Method Champenoise was that we had too much total SO2 - since we’d been adding it all along. The yeast just wouldn’t get going strongly enough to make the secondary work. Our eventual answer was to pour it all down the drain ![[cry.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/8/853b6e76c6e8406be77a6727c2a27ad1672678b3.gif "cry"){kind=small}
I’ve read that MLF can scrub out aldehydes. Maybe send it through and acidify later. Since he’s already tried PVPP, I would also give casein a trial.
Since it is nearly a year old and has probably been SO2’d to the hilt, I think that would preclude even the most badass Oenococcus from surviving.
not to be the naysayer, but I think it’s a fix it as best you can and bulk it out situation.
Once a wine is oxidized you can certainly respond (Nitro sparge and SO2 is kinda standard) but unless its a small lot that can be blended away in a large lot, I cant imagine it will end up being something he’d want to use as a representation of what he does. Painful, but long term bottom line counts as much as short term, and that sounds like one of those expensive lessons we all undergo.
Lesson being: beware of poly-tanks.
Sounds like a lot bound for the distillery.
Ian - I’ve never used a Poly tank outside of bottling at Big Basin. What’s the bad rap?
Not Ian, obviously, but plastics are oxygen semi-permeable. I don’t know how long he had the wine in one of these, but I would imagine it was quite a while. We try not to keep wine in them for more than 2-3 days. We usually just rack into them and then go back down almost immediately.