A few months ago I read in this group about the taste of "cooked" or
heat-damaged wines. Curious about how it felt, I bought two bottles
of $4 Spanish table wine (I think the name of the wine was Pamplona)
to cook up experimentally.

I took one of the bottles and put it in the trunk of my car for about
one week. The Miami weather then, I think it was early September, was
not particularly hot, yet my car spent the days outdoors, so the trunk
must have gotten fairly hot.

I took the bottle, marked "damaged" in small letters on the back
label, and put it away with the good one in a plain old used wood wine
box, where I store my wines.

The sample size for this experiment is too small to draw any
meaningful conclusions, but I figured it may yield at least some
valuable anecdotal information.

Last night, the significant other and I cracked open both bottles.
Poured the wines side by side and tasted blindly (will identify the
wines as Nos. 1 and 2 (just like the optometrist does with his
lenses). We did not rush to judgment, especially I who sampled both
wines several times.

We reached a consensus: Wine 2 was the damaged one. It tasted like
an unpleasantly acidic young wine. I had the sense there was another
off-flavor component besides the high acid.

Turned the wines around, looked for the "damaged" mark, and to our
surprise, number 1 was the damaged bottle. Looks like the heat
improved the wine!

To be fair, we also agreed that wine number 1 was not worth drinking
and, against her conservationist wishes, poured them both down the
drain.

So, I am trying to draw a lesson from this exercise. It looks to me
like some run of the mill overexposure to heat may not necessarily
produce horrendously offensive results. Also, I have read that
heat-damaged wine may "recover" with time, so maybe that's what went
on here.

Your thoughts on heat-damaged please.

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"Leo Bueno" > wrote in message
...
>
> A few months ago I read in this group about the taste of "cooked" or
> heat-damaged wines. Curious about how it felt, I bought two bottles
> of $4 Spanish table wine (I think the name of the wine was Pamplona)
> to cook up experimentally.
>
> I took one of the bottles and put it in the trunk of my car for about
> one week. The Miami weather then, I think it was early September, was
> not particularly hot, yet my car spent the days outdoors, so the trunk
> must have gotten fairly hot.

One of the best wines I ever tasted was one that had been abused in similar
fashion. My friend opened it because he was worried that it was damaged.

The point is, although the wine may not exhibit any immediate damage, it
wouldn't be a good idea to hold it for extended aging because of possible
latent defects.

Tom S

In article >, Leo Bueno
> writes:

>It looks to me
>like some run of the mill overexposure to heat may not necessarily
>produce horrendously offensive results. Also, I have read that
>heat-damaged wine may "recover" with time, so maybe that's what went
>on here.

Actually, I think heat-damaged wine is more likely to fall apart than recover.
Don't know the chemistry, but I think there's a consensus that heat-damage can
sometimes lead over the shortterm to a more fruit-forward wine (I think Robin
Garr had an article at wineloverspage.com re this, you could search there). But
that wine is likely to fall apart over the course of a year or two.

Don't know the wine you experimented with,so unsure if non-heated bottle was
somehow off. Of course, with $4 wines, there's a pretty good likelihood it saw
some rough treatment already - do you know who imports the Pamplona?

As I said a few months ago:
"Most reputable shippers use reefers (self-contained cooled containers) on
ships. With less expensive wines (where $1 a case reefer cost might make a big
difference to mark up), if better companies ship they try to time for moderate
temps. A heavily fined/filtered wine (as most mass market cheaper wines are)
are less sensitive to flucuations. "



Dale

Dale Williams
Drop "damnspam" to reply

Leo Bueno asks....

>So, I am trying to draw a lesson from this exercise.<

The simple observation might be that the "good" bottle was a "bad" bottle from
the git-go and that the bottle in the trunk, suffered no damage from the
exposure. But being that that is "too" logical for some.....

As a few have murmured here below the roar of some, exposure to less than ideal
conditions may not have any impact on the wine at all. Some have said that just
low end wines don't suffer because they're too stupid, not enough complexity to
matter. Or if the heat is less than 76.42 F for less than a month, it's OK. Or
they may be damaged, but the damage won't show for x
months-years-centuries.....

Jeez, some will tell you the agitation and jostling of the wine in your trunk
did more damage than the heat, while others will tell you it aerated the wine
into new levels of appreciation! Some will probably even try to make a case
that the wood box you keep your wine in, has magical properties.

Bottom line? Heat is no good for wine. Period. No matter where you live and no
matter what budget you can afford to develop for the grape, keep your wines
cool (low to the floor at minimum), dark and dry.

Forget the hair splitting, mind numbing specifications regarding temps,
humidity, light sources, until such time that you "can" (read-afford to) put
back small volumes of "strong" wines that will keep and improve with age.

Most lower end wines (sub $10-$15 USD) only have so long to drink and most
people will manage to drink them up, long before any real damage could occur
anyways.

As oversimplified as that all sounds, it needn't get much more complicated,
though it always somehow does. If you think I'm kidding, next time you speak
with anyone regarding "why" they don't drink wine at all or don't drink it more
often, they'll inevitably start churning about how they can't afford to keep it
"properly." They've heard all the over the top bull about chillers, humidity,
blah, blah, blah, that they're just intimidated by the entire process and find
solace in the next micro brew lager instead. Which, BTW, is just fine too, but
they're missing out on the wonder of a good wine.

Call a friend and see.

Always here for my fellow syngraphist or oenophile.
--=*=----=*=----=*=----=*=----=*=----=*=----=*=----=*=----=*=----=*=--

Leo Bueno > wrote in
:

>
> Turned the wines around, looked for the "damaged" mark, and to our
> surprise, number 1 was the damaged bottle. Looks like the heat
> improved the wine!
>
> To be fair, we also agreed that wine number 1 was not worth drinking
> and, against her conservationist wishes, poured them both down the
> drain.
>
> So, I am trying to draw a lesson from this exercise. It looks to me
> like some run of the mill overexposure to heat may not necessarily
> produce horrendously offensive results. Also, I have read that
> heat-damaged wine may "recover" with time, so maybe that's what went
> on here.
>
> Your thoughts on heat-damaged please.
>
> --
> =================================================
> Do you like wine? Do you live in South Florida?
> Visit the MIAMI WINE TASTERS group at
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/miamiWINE
> =================================================

I have read of this phenomena as a way of aging young wines. The better
test would have been with a wien that was of better quality and aged to a
certain degree (ready to drink as a fine wine). Never the less I want to
say that we here at AFW value scientific research and are often available
as test subjects. I live only a few (300) miles to the north and stand
ready to volunteer on any sample of 1st growth Bordeaux that you wish to
test.