Bottle by Bottle variation in wine

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Bottle by Bottle variation in wine

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jema
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Joined: 28 Oct 2004
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Posted: Wed Feb 09, 05 8:30 am Post subject: Bottle by Bottle variation in wine
We had an Elderberry last night, and unlike the other bottles in the batch it lacked "depth", I feeling a little hungover, as we just had to open another, which was much better. Quite surprised at this variation from the same fermenter. jema

sean
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Location: North Devon

Posted: Wed Feb 09, 05 8:32 am Post subject:
Are you using real corks?

jema
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Posted: Wed Feb 09, 05 8:33 am Post subject:
They are some waxed no soak needed type. jema

sean
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Posted: Wed Feb 09, 05 8:37 am Post subject:
Interesting, your description is a text-book one of cork taint. A small amount of TCA in/on the cork is not enough to make it 'corked' in the full-blown stinky sense, but will strip out the fruit flavours, leaving the wine thin and lifeless tasting.

sean
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Location: North Devon

Posted: Wed Feb 09, 05 8:37 am Post subject:
Interesting, your description is a text-book one of cork taint. A small amount of TCA in/on the cork is not enough to make it 'corked' in the full-blown stinky sense, but will strip out the fruit flavours, leaving the wine thin and lifeless tasting.

jema
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Posted: Wed Feb 09, 05 8:40 am Post subject:
Guess I need to be stricter about steralising the corks. jema

jema
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Posted: Wed Feb 09, 05 8:50 am Post subject:
Reading a bit more, does not sound like this would help. jema

cab

Joined: 01 Nov 2004
Posts: 32429

Posted: Wed Feb 09, 05 8:59 am Post subject:

Yeah, that kind of does sound corky, but that isn't the only way a wine can flatten out in such a way.

However hard you try to clean and sterilise a wine, sometimes you'll just get some contamination in there that'll ruin it. And it isn't just that, sometimes a cork will just be a bit too 'leaky', and the wine will get over-matured, kind of mildly oxidised like a wine that's been opened for four days.

The way to mimimise this kind of thing happening is just to be very, very careful (one of the reasons I like gallon batches rather than big batchers, I feel I can be more attentive to each bottle if I'm bottling them two batches at a time). Make sure the corks are sound with no obvious deep cracks, be damned sure about cleanliness, and only bottle when the wine is 'good and done', with all the sediment out of it that seems likely to come. Bulk maturation really
helps flatten out bottle variation.

jema
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Posted: Wed Feb 09, 05 9:21 am Post subject:
we have a bit of production line, bottles being soaked in the steralising solution, about 6 in a bucket at a time, and being passed to the rinser for a double rinse out. It does make me try to think of better ways of doing it. jema

cab

Joined: 01 Nov 2004
Posts: 32429

Posted: Wed Feb 09, 05 9:55 am Post subject:

jema wrote:

we have a bit of production line, bottles being soaked in the steralising solution, about 6 in a bucket at a time, and being passed to the rinser for a double rinse out.

It does make me try to think of better ways of doing it.

jema

Personally, I rinde my bottles in sulfite solution and then bottle; I don't rinse out the residue. I think that doing so increases the chance of spoilage.

jema
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Posted: Wed Feb 09, 05 10:11 am Post subject:

Cab wrote:

jema wrote:

Personally, I rinde my bottles in sulfite solution and then bottle; I don't rinse out the residue. I think that doing so increases the chance of spoilage.

I worry about a chemical taste occurring?

jema

cab

Joined: 01 Nov 2004
Posts: 32429

Posted: Wed Feb 09, 05 11:00 am Post subject:

jema wrote:

I worry about a chemical taste occurring?

jema

I don't. The sulfite solution I'm using (campden tablets in water) will leave a residue on the surface of the bottles, but it's not going to leave a greater concentration than obtained by adding a campden tablet to a gallon of wine.

1 campden tablet in a gallon = 1/6 tablet in a bottle.

5 campden tablets in half a pint of water, rinsed through a bottle, will leave a residue around the outside. Said residue is, say, 1ml. So that's, say, 1/250th of 5 campden tablets, or 1/50th of a tablet.

I don't worry about it.

jema
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Joined: 28 Oct 2004
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Posted: Wed Feb 09, 05 11:01 am Post subject:

Cab wrote:

jema wrote:

I worry about a chemical taste occurring?

jema

well that will save me some work then!

jema

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