The trials described above involved placement of wines a distance of 35 cm from two 40 watt fluorescent lamps. Illuminance decreases proportionally with the square of the distance from the light source, and as wine is likely to be stored considerably further from light sources in most winery storage and retail display situations, the amount of light incident on bottled wine will be significantly less than in the trials described by Dozon and Noble.
Bingo.
That’s also what Dozon said. If you want to read his study, it’s in the American Journal of Enology and Viticulture January 1989 volume 40
I find it interesting that Chuck hasn’t commented on the one point folks keep coming back to - is he drinking the wines at too cold a temperature? That’s the simplest and most likely answer, as posited by a number of folks. Would be helpful to get his thoughts.
Good question, but he said they taste of alcohol and VA, and alcohol generally does not stand out at cellar temperatures, and most aromas are muted, though I think strong VA would show through even at 55 (or possibly 45 in the case of this cooler).
Whenever I hear Bartles and Jaymes I think of this:
References at 1:10.
By the way, I think these three Lonely Island songs for SNL (Dick in a box, mother lover, three way) are the funniest things they’ve put out in two decades. Justin Timberlake is sensational.
My thought on this when I was reading it is that if you’re popping reds at 47 degrees, they’re going to taste like cheap box wine. Let them get to room temp, then try them the next day and see if you’re still getting bad flavors.
Not trying to be pedantic, but everything that is warmer than air will be affected by “wind chill”. In other words, the wine that’s in front of the blower will cool fairly quickly since there’s high air flow + lower temperature. So it could be conceivable that the liquid is actually fluctating in temperature. That being said, I agree with the general point of your post.
VA and alcohol burn will be more noticeable at room temperature than cold. Colder wines will be less aromatic and ‘easier to drink’ - which is why those folks that tend to be bitter averse tend to drink all their wines cold, whether they are white or red.
I used in quotes for that reason. It’s basically just a correction to account for the increased heat loss from convective forces (wind). Wind Chill as it’s used in weather reports simply gives you a temperature adjustment based on the wind speed, ambient temperature, and average human body temperature. Just replace human body temperature with wine temperature and you’ll get your “wind chill” for wine.
Unless of course, you’re a wind chill expert and would like to further educate me?
You are correct that the contents would heat and cool more quickly to the temp of the ambient air due to convective heating or cooling. However, wind chill is the perception that the air is cooler than it actually is, due to the convective air flow. My point was that if the air is blowing out of an evaporator at 48º, that is as cool as the bottle is going to get (it may get their more quickly), and 48º is not going to damage your wine. A human standing in front of the same evaporator might perceive the temperature to be maybe 40º depending on the speed of the air.
There are some wines (usually the backup sample of something I have already reviewed) that sit on the floor of my office for months that experience wide fluctuation in temps and when I open them, the corks look fine and I can’t see much difference in my impression. Over analysis usually creates more questions than it answers.
When I sold bottles, the French government made us use more and more cullet–broken recycled glass-- so the dead leaf tint got darker. We said this was done in order to protect the customer from light struck wines. Usually this is more of a problem for beer people. Think Miller’s in clear bottles. It can happen with wines, esp Sauvignon Blanc in clear bottles …of course in most fridges the light goes off when you close the door.
Did the humidity get checked?? A dry environment can lead to the cork drying out and that is no good.
I’m surprised that there is no mention of vibration on this thread. If the cooler has excessive vibration when the compressor is on, that might affect all of the bottles in the cooler. I don’t have any experience with this, but the topic of vibration does come up here on WB from time to time.
BTW, has the OP tried the test bottle of Alpha Omega yet?
I don’t really have personal experience with it, but it is a topic that is brought up from time to time on message boards and elsewhere.
Here is what Decanter magazine has to say about it:
“Vibration can disturb sediment present in the bottle, but it also causes complex chemical reactions which are less visible. Vibration (and the resulting increased kinetic energy in the bottle) leads to a decrease in tartaric and succinic acids, causing a reduction in esters, which dulls flavours.”
I agree Alan. I suspect they’re just passing along received wisdom without evidence to back it up. Hard to imagine that vibration from a cooling system would impart enough energy to drive chemical reactions. But I don’t have any evidence either.
