(LG1111) wrote in message ...
Should we try yeast energizer or aerate and wait to
see if that works?

Some suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

PS Reds (Merlot and Zin) smell fantastic. Pressed last night, and
started secondary. Zin - Dark Dark red with a very fruity aroma. Ohh boy.




I'm not sure if my suggestions arre valid or not, and I'll be interested in
what others say. Last year I had the same experience with batches of petite
sirah, syrah, and zinfandel. I attributed it to poor nutients in the original
grapes because otherwise I did exactly what I had been doing with dozens of
batches of wine.

The first thing I did was I agitated the must to try to drive off the SO2. I
then added extra nutients (the Wine Lab has a product called superfood, which I
now add in small amounts to all of my grapes that I'm able to buy here on the
east coast.

In each of the batches the smell persisted but to a lesser degree. Finally,
when the secondary was completed, I treated with minute (really minute) amounts
of CuSO4. This worked beautifully with the petite sirah and the syrah, but the
zin was still smelly. At that point, I figured that the zin was a lost cause
and into the crapper it went.

What do others think? Do you routinely pre-treat with nutients?

Lee

Lee, I know that zinfandel and syrah are two varieties that are
notoriously short on nitrogen and so many winemakers do routinely add
nutrient. I wouldn't be surprised if petite sirah is in the same
category but I don't know. It's also a good idea to make sure you get
plenty of air into the wine when you're punching down the cap.

- Mark W.