While there is empirical evidence all over the place that brett may reproduce more slowly at lower temperatures and that better stored bottles may show less brett, there is also ample empirical evidence that you can have plenty of brett in bottles that have never been out of a cold cellar.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an alternative browser.
You should upgrade or use an alternative browser.
Question for Eric Texier
- Thread starter Oswaldo Costa
- Start date
While there is empirical evidence all over the place that brett may reproduce more slowly at lower temperatures and that better stored bottles may show less brett, there is also ample empirical evidence that you can have plenty of brett in bottles that have never been out of a cold cellar.
Kevin Roberts
Kevin Roberts
originally posted by Josh Beck:
The same bottle in the cellar at the domaine will not show anywhere near the same brett character.
While there is empirical evidence all over the place that brett may reproduce more slowly at lower temperatures and that better stored bottles may show less brett, there is also ample empirical evidence that you can have plenty of brett in bottles that have never been out of a cold cellar.
Totally believable to me.
I was trying to account for fermentation/change in the bottle that didn't happen during the elevage.
I'm not denying the possibility of some brett character being imparted either in the primary fermentation (quite warm) or continuing during long term cellar bulk storage. I'm sure plenty sloppy winemakers have shown that it's certainly easy to make wine that's bretty ex-cellar.
Though I make no authoritative claims about any of this...
originally posted by Josh Beck:
The same bottle in the cellar at the domaine will not show anywhere near the same brett character.
While there is empirical evidence all over the place that brett may reproduce more slowly at lower temperatures and that better stored bottles may show less brett, there is also ample empirical evidence that you can have plenty of brett in bottles that have never been out of a cold cellar.
When you say Empirical you really mean Anecdotal, right?
Brett is like wine herpes.
Did I use mg? I try to stick with ppm but you know, my last scientific publication is probably 30 years old
Anyway, sorry for the lack of consistency in my use of units.
mg is mg/l (eq ppm) in my poor vigneron mind... as SFJoe pointed out.
And the rest of his explanations are exactly what I wanted to write.
Oswaldo, the fact that you have seen some bubbly wines in bib is a matter of kinectics : if the fermentation going on in the bib produces more CO2 than the bag is loosing then you get a soccer ball.
But if you don't have any production of CO2 inside, then 1000 ppm are lost in a few weeks.
So I have to use about 50% more SO2 for the bibs than for the bottles, partly for oxydation protection partly for stability mostly because the wines are bottled generally very young.
Thanks again to SFJoe for translating bad french winemaker scientific slang in inteligible english.
BTW, in may 2004, I did make some bibs of 2002 Chateauneuf blanc and Condrieu, without filtration and very low SO2. About 1/3 of them did explode. Quite funny.
The remaining are still very drinkable, and are drank mostly by my kids during parties...
So the stability seems to be really about elevage duration.
Anyway, sorry for the lack of consistency in my use of units.
mg is mg/l (eq ppm) in my poor vigneron mind... as SFJoe pointed out.
And the rest of his explanations are exactly what I wanted to write.
Oswaldo, the fact that you have seen some bubbly wines in bib is a matter of kinectics : if the fermentation going on in the bib produces more CO2 than the bag is loosing then you get a soccer ball.
But if you don't have any production of CO2 inside, then 1000 ppm are lost in a few weeks.
So I have to use about 50% more SO2 for the bibs than for the bottles, partly for oxydation protection partly for stability mostly because the wines are bottled generally very young.
Thanks again to SFJoe for translating bad french winemaker scientific slang in inteligible english.
BTW, in may 2004, I did make some bibs of 2002 Chateauneuf blanc and Condrieu, without filtration and very low SO2. About 1/3 of them did explode. Quite funny.
The remaining are still very drinkable, and are drank mostly by my kids during parties...
So the stability seems to be really about elevage duration.
So the BIB is quite an interesting device, it is CO2 permeable to counteract any lingering C02 production but at the same time oxygen impermeable to maintain freshness and retard oxidation/spoilage during the lifetime from initial opening to emptying. Is it really impermeable to oxygen or is the additional SO2 providing all the necessary preservative requirements? Why not a gas impermeable material (tetra pac with the same pliability of the current bag) that has a one-way vent, not unlike coffee bean bags, to deal with any CO2 out gassing?
originally posted by VLM:
originally posted by Josh Beck:
The same bottle in the cellar at the domaine will not show anywhere near the same brett character.
While there is empirical evidence all over the place that brett may reproduce more slowly at lower temperatures and that better stored bottles may show less brett, there is also ample empirical evidence that you can have plenty of brett in bottles that have never been out of a cold cellar.
When you say Empirical you really mean Anecdotal, right?
Brett is like wine herpes.
Only if my anecdotal you mean empirical.
I don't mean that I have conducted statistically significant studies on this. But I've seen the empirical evidence of storage effecting brett bloom in bottle many times.
I've also seen very well stored bottles be bretty as shit, plenty of times.
The real takeaway is that there's no such thing as a "safe" amount of brett or a "good" amount of brett in bottle. You can and we all certainly do have bottles that show some brett but it's a good amount or a tolerable amount or you might say it adds to the wine. But you can't have a bottling that contains brett and then predict how the bottles will show down the line, no matter what the storage conditions are.
originally posted by Josh Beck:
originally posted by VLM:
originally posted by Josh Beck:
The same bottle in the cellar at the domaine will not show anywhere near the same brett character.
While there is empirical evidence all over the place that brett may reproduce more slowly at lower temperatures and that better stored bottles may show less brett, there is also ample empirical evidence that you can have plenty of brett in bottles that have never been out of a cold cellar.
When you say Empirical you really mean Anecdotal, right?
Brett is like wine herpes.
Only if my anecdotal you mean empirical.
I don't mean that I have conducted statistically significant studies on this. But I've seen the empirical evidence of storage effecting brett bloom in bottle many times.
I've also seen very well stored bottles be bretty as shit, plenty of times.
The real takeaway is that there's no such thing as a "safe" amount of brett or a "good" amount of brett in bottle. You can and we all certainly do have bottles that show some brett but it's a good amount or a tolerable amount or you might say it adds to the wine. But you can't have a bottling that contains brett and then predict how the bottles will show down the line, no matter what the storage conditions are.
AFAIK, no one is able to successfully predict herpes blooms either.
So we are in agreement, except that Anecdotal and Empirical mean different things to me.
originally posted by VLM:
AFAIK, no one is able to successfully predict herpes blooms either.
So we are in agreement, except that Anecdotal and Empirical mean different things to me.
Unless you are suggesting I am drawing invalid conclusions from my personal observations, I take that to mean that you are either doubting my veracity or you don't know what anecdotal means. Doesn't bother me either way.
To me, though, my observations are empirical.
Cheers!
originally posted by Josh Beck:
originally posted by VLM:
AFAIK, no one is able to successfully predict herpes blooms either.
So we are in agreement, except that Anecdotal and Empirical mean different things to me.
Unless you are suggesting I am drawing invalid conclusions from my personal observations, I take that to mean that you are either doubting my veracity or you don't know what anecdotal means. Doesn't bother me either way.
To me, though, my observations are empirical.
Cheers!
No, I for sure agree with your thoughts on brett and it jibes with my experience.
It's still anecdotal though.
I guess I think of empirical data as being the result of some sort of experiment or study. That is probably a strong condition though.
originally posted by JasonA:
BIB propertiesSo the BIB is quite an interesting device, it is CO2 permeable to counteract any lingering C02 production but at the same time oxygen impermeable to maintain freshness and retard oxidation/spoilage during the lifetime from initial opening to emptying. Is it really impermeable to oxygen or is the additional SO2 providing all the necessary preservative requirements? Why not a gas impermeable material (tetra pac with the same pliability of the current bag) that has a one-way vent, not unlike coffee bean bags, to deal with any CO2 out gassing?
The plastic of a BIB is permeable to CO2, oxygen, nitrogen and many other small gases. The exchange rate isn't fast, though. If you look at Eric's figures, the exchange process is a rather slow one for CO2 and is probably slightly faster for oxygen, which is a smaller molecule. That's one of the reasons that he needs to add more SO2, an antioxidant, and why BIBs don't have a very long shelf life. If I bought a BIB wine, I'd try to drink it all within a month or two at most.
Mark Lipton
originally posted by MLipton:
If I bought a BIB wine, I'd try to drink it all within a month or two at most.
Mark Lipton
A couple of years back I bought a 10 liter box of DOMAINE ROGER PERRIN ET FILS Rose and stuck it under the Christmas Tree. We didn't start drinking it until June of the next year. There was nothing remarkable or unremarkable I remember about this wine, maybe a touch too much alc but otherwise it was quite gulpable and having ten liters in the fridge leads to much gulping. From what I remember the wine pretty much stayed good to the last drop. I think it took us the month of June to drink it but this wine had been sitting in its box for probably a year before I opened it. I think the bib may be more stable than you think.
Or yours may have had a bigger dose of antioxidants.originally posted by JasonA:
I think the bib may be more stable than you think.
originally posted by SFJoe:
Or yours may have had a bigger dose of antioxidants.originally posted by JasonA:
I think the bib may be more stable than you think.
I have no doubt.
John DeFiore
John DeFiore
originally posted by Thor:
Right, I understand that, but my question is how a wee beastie that turns a wine bad in bottle does not do so if instead allowed to munch away in barrel. Is it that countermeasures can still be taken? Or is there something about the chemical state of wine in barrel vs. bottle that's important? Or are you merely saying that if that beastie hasn't acted in barrel, by the time the wine's in bottle there's nothing in the wine that's of interest to it...the assumption being that if something did happen in barrel, either counter-measures would be taken or the wine would be discarded before bottling?The point of the long elevage is to render the wine a "nutrient desert," as I saw it described somewhere--anything that could feed a bug has already been eaten, so the wine is difficult to infect. This is not the case for wines bottled soon after fermentation.
I think the culprit is usually malic acid, not unfermented sugars. Wood provides an excellent home for malolactic bacteria (Oenococcus oeni formerly called Leuconostoc oenos). It gets into the pores of the barrels either from indigenous population in the winery or by direct inoculation. Once a wine in barrel has undergone malolactic fermentation any future wine stored in that barrel will also undergo malolactic no matter how you clean the barrel. Once all the malic acid converts to lactic acid there's nothing for malolactic bacteria to feast on and it should be stable. It's harder (without direct inoculation and time) to get wine in stainless to undergo ML.
Fortunately ML bacteria are very sensitive to SO2.
If there's residual malic acid in the wine, and it's bottled with low S02, malolactic can occur in the bottle. If the malolactic bacteria strain is a good one it might just lead to carbonation, but can also lead to cloudiness, ropiness, and can raise the PH allowing other spoilage organisms to enhance the flavor profile.
If the malolactic strain is a naughty one you might be able to use the wine as a gift for those neighbors that you're trying to drive out of the neighborhood. Or to wash down the driveway.
John
Oliver McCrum
Oliver McCrum
John,
wouldn't any refermentation in the bottle leave a deposit, ie dead bacteria or yeast?
wouldn't any refermentation in the bottle leave a deposit, ie dead bacteria or yeast?
originally posted by Thor:
Right, I understand that, but my question is how a wee beastie that turns a wine bad in bottle does not do so if instead allowed to munch away in barrel. Is it that countermeasures can still be taken?
Counter-measures can be taken, the simplest one being a strict triage during pre-bottling assemblage... any iffy barrels are shunted elsewhere and the resulting blend is (hopefully) free of any after-effects of the wee beasties.
As to the difference in chemical states of wine in barrel vs bottle, for these beasties any wine is going to be at its most appetizing early on in the process. Due to the instabiilty of some nutritionally important compounds, the nutritive value of wine degrades over time, even without the action of competing bugs. And wine is a pretty harsh environment for microbes, even those commonly active in wine... the acidity and alcohol combine to ensure that microbial viability decreases steadily over time. Unless new bugs are introduced (intentionally, through an unintentional cross-contamination, or with a bloom of something like Brett) the population of spoilage organisms will be higher earlier on in a wine's life than after a year or 18 months in barrel.
Even long barrel ageing is no guarantee, though.
Wines that have gone quiet and have stayed quiet for months on end can suddenly begin ticking for a variety of reasons. Blending early and often, and backing up your intuitive feelings about a wine with basic lab analyses are recommended for people banking on the "nutritional desert" approach.
Cheers,
[ADDENDUM: Can't say that I'm fond of the term "nutritional desert".... makes wine seem like a bag of pork rinds. Wine is healthful and contains a serious dose of nutritionally beneficial compounds for us humans. Might I suggest the term "microbially stable" instead?]
John DeFiore
John DeFiore
originally posted by Oliver McCrum:
John,
wouldn't any refermentation in the bottle leave a deposit, ie dead bacteria or yeast?
Yes, which is why ML in bottle can lead to cloudiness or sediment. However, the ML bacteria are physically much smaller than yeast, and if there's not a lot of malic acid then the wine can remain pretty clear without a whole lot of deposit due to the dead ML bacteria.
John