Got a few wine retailer mailings in last couple days. Something
puzzled me in the K&L newsletter. An article entitled Growing Green
starts " When I started at K&L , organic wines were the kind of
product you only saw at Berkeley co-ops. Often loaded with sulfur,
these wines were sometimes unstable in bottle and overpriced." He then
goes on to talk about improvements in organic wines.

Does this make any sense? Aren't organic wnes often "sans soufre", and
isn't that what makes them unstable?

I was also pleased to note in the Garnet newsletter that they are
carrying at least one of the excellent Donabaum wines from
winemonger.com, and apparently are planning on more winemonger wines
("this excellent wine came courtesy of the good folks at Winemonger, w/
whom we've recently become acquainted and who will be the focus of a
future post, given their excellent site and focus on hard-to-find
Austrian wines." Nice to have a local outlet.

DaleW wrote:
Got a few wine retailer mailings in last couple days. Something
puzzled me in the K&L newsletter. An article entitled Growing Green
starts " When I started at K&L , organic wines were the kind of
product you only saw at Berkeley co-ops. Often loaded with sulfur,
these wines were sometimes unstable in bottle and overpriced." He then
goes on to talk about improvements in organic wines.

Does this make any sense? Aren't organic wnes often "sans soufre", and
isn't that what makes them unstable?

I was also pleased to note in the Garnet newsletter that they are
carrying at least one of the excellent Donabaum wines from
winemonger.com, and apparently are planning on more winemonger wines
("this excellent wine came courtesy of the good folks at Winemonger, w/
whom we've recently become acquainted and who will be the focus of a
future post, given their excellent site and focus on hard-to-find
Austrian wines." Nice to have a local outlet.

The writer might be thinking of hydrogen sulfide and/or other sulfur
compounds like mercaptans. They can easily come up when no nutrients
are added to must during fermentation. A teaspoon of diammonium phosphate
(DAP) per 10 gallons of nitrogen-deficient must fixes things right up, but
DAP is a scary artificial white powder, not acceptable to the older Birkenstock
crowd. More recent Birkenstock-wearing vintners tend not to have this concern.