Powdered tannin?

K

Kay Bixler

Kay Bixler
Can any winemakers or ITB elaborate on this product? Is it widely used? How does it affect the flavor of wine?

A few inexpensive pinot noir sampled at holiday parties all had a very similar profile that included the taste of tannin in the finish but no actual grip or dryness, just a sweet, comfy tannin flavor hinting towards chocolate. Is this what powdered tannin does or is it impossible to call?
 
Kay,
Used for many reasons, not the least of which is rot.
Laccase is a compound that often shows its face when the fruit has some botrytis. That may be workable with white grapes but not red.
Powdered tannins help precipitate laccase thereby keeping the wine from having character of a red wine made from botrytised fruit.
It is also used for wines that show a lack of structure and, occasionally, for those that lack the kind of "stuffing" the winemaker desires.
One must be quite careful however, too much is noticeable and can lead to unbalanced wines or those that have their fruit obscured.
It is widely used in CA, especially in the 2011 vintage, where rot was widespread.
Best, Jim
 
I keep thinking I have something to add to this conversation, but I don't really know about these things. I think tannin is used to fix color in wine. Perhaps that's in relation to what Jim writes about tannin helping to overcome color loss issues due to rot. I imagine other products are responsible for Kay's experiences at holiday parties. Stick with beer.
 
originally posted by Brézème:
originally posted by Kay Bixler:
Powdered tannin?Can any winemakers or ITB elaborate on this product?
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C'est de la merde.

I hope this is elaborated enough.
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Yeah, I believe it. But I'm still wondering about the warm, fuzzy, chocolate-like, flavor I'm finding in red jug wine recently. Kind of a morbid curiosity.
 
In the days when I worked at wineries and tasted a lot of very young wines, I often noticed a distinct mocha note in batches of Merlot or Pinot Noir which were pressed off before fermentation was complete and allowed to finish primary in the barrel. This also made the tannins plusher and seemed to plump up the wine a tad.

Perhaps the warm fuzzy chocolate thing in cheap reds is for similar reasons, resulting from fermentation on oak chips.
 
Tannin adds are commonplace in quite a few Australian wines...mainly for colour fixing though there are other benefits??...mouthfeel mods,providing an increased substrate for MOX, etc. VR-Supra is a common brand and if you want to know what it tastes like crack open any Penfolds wine :)

As Jim mentioned tannin can be used for laccase issues though with mixed results...more common is to pasteurise the wine to stabilise it....from memory it is 40 seconds at 60 degrees...both options sound pretty shit to me.
 
Tannin is used for all sorts of shit, fixing color mostly, and yes to add sweetness and structure to a wine. It sometimes is an uncomfortable astringent quality ( as with its use in the N. Rhone, many times awful results) But I have a feeling your warm and fuzzies might be the creeping of micro oxygenation into Burgundy. Which vintages were you drinking?
 
If it's that bad, Alice, maybe we should just start putting mountains that change color on the label so they think they need to drink it as close to absolute zero as possible.
 
originally posted by Ken Schramm:
If it's that bad, Alice, maybe we should just start putting mountains that change color on the label so they think they need to drink it as close to absolute zero as possible.
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I don't get this joke. Really, I don't. Chris, if you're reading, can you explain it to me?
 
There is a beer (Coors?) that does precisely what Ken said. The label actually changes color the colder the beer gets.
Best, Jim
 
Thanks, Jim. My name is Ken Schramm, and I am a beer drinker.

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Some people are multiply disordered.

No tannins were killed in the making of these beers.
 

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originally posted by Florida Jim:
There is a beer (Coors?) that does precisely what Ken said. The label actually changes color the colder the beer gets.
Best, Jim
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Well, this may be the explanation, but I didn't find it sufficiently funny. I still want Chris to explain the joke to me.
 
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
originally posted by Florida Jim:
There is a beer (Coors?) that does precisely what Ken said. The label actually changes color the colder the beer gets.
Best, Jim
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Well, this may be the explanation, but I didn't find it sufficiently funny. I still want Chris to explain the joke to me.
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Who is this "Chris" that you speak of, and where can he be found? URL?

Steve P*nicki
 
originally posted by Alice F.: the creeping of micro oxygenation into Burgundy
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Really? With whom? Seems to me everyone there is going in what I would think is the opposite direction - i.e., totally reductive winemaking.
 
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