In both of my Chardonnays from last year. Is it related to the sulfur
used on the vineyard itself? Is there something I can do to get it out
of the wine? My buddy had the same problem with his chard from the same
vineyard. We picked on the same day and followed the same practices, etc.

Ideas?

Thanks!

Joe

"Joe Giller" > wrote in message
...
> In both of my Chardonnays from last year. Is it related to the sulfur
> used on the vineyard itself? Is there something I can do to get it out
> of the wine? My buddy had the same problem with his chard from the same
> vineyard. We picked on the same day and followed the same practices, etc.
>
> Ideas?
>
Hmmm. Sulfur on the vines usually translates to H2S, i.e. rotten egg, not
burnt match. Burnt match to me is excess SO2 added to the wine. What are
your total and free SO2 levels?

Regards,

John

Joe Giller > wrote in message >...
> In both of my Chardonnays from last year. Is it related to the sulfur
> used on the vineyard itself? Is there something I can do to get it out
> of the wine? My buddy had the same problem with his chard from the same
> vineyard. We picked on the same day and followed the same practices, etc.
>
> Ideas?
>
> Thanks!
>
> Joe

Burnt matches means excessive sulfur dioxide. It could possibly be
related to sulfur use in the vineyard if it was done too late in the
growing season but a better guess would probably be too much SO2 added
during winemaking.

- Mark W.

Joe,

I've added a lot of SO2 to batches of high-pH wine, and also added
high amounts to test samples to see at what levels I found the SO2
noticeable in the wine. I've never noticed anything that I would call
a burnt match smell.

However, your description doesn't sound far off of what I described as
"burnt rubber" in one of my red wines this year. This seems to have
been caused by disulfides, which started as a huge H2S (rotten egg
smell) problem that I didn't treat early enough. I got rid of the H2S
with copper sulfate, but not before some of it reacted to form
disulfides. I'm pretty sure my problem is indeed disulfides because I
treated it last night with ascorbic acid and by this morning the burnt
rubber taste and aroma were already greatly diminished.

It could also be that the problem is H2S and not disulfide. If you
search the newsgroup archives for H2S and copper, you'll see lots of
posts about that topic. If you search for disulfide and Margalit,
you'll find a post with an excerpt from a book that describes how to
test a few samples with CuSO4 solution and ascorbic acide to determine
whether the problem is H2S, mercaptans, disulfides, a combination, or
none of the above.

Good Luck!

Richard

Joe Giller > wrote in message >...
> In both of my Chardonnays from last year. Is it related to the sulfur
> used on the vineyard itself? Is there something I can do to get it out
> of the wine? My buddy had the same problem with his chard from the same
> vineyard. We picked on the same day and followed the same practices, etc.
>
> Ideas?
>
> Thanks!
>
> Joe

Thanks for all your great input. The flavor is more like this...you
strike a match and you happen to have your nose close to the match and
that first whiff of smoke is the smell/taste. You can kinda taste it in
the back of your upper palate. Reason I ask is because I got grapes
from the same vineyard this year but obviously don't want the same result.

Thanks!

Joe

If you want to know, ask the vineyard for a record of their dustings.

Pambianchi has the little gem: "late application of S in a vineyard in
a bad year" as a possible contribution. The sulfur is not completely
washed off the grapes, and adds all kinds of odours depending on the
other chemistry (sugar, TA, possible presence of mould, pressing
procedure, etc).

Joe Giller > wrote in message >...
> Thanks for all your great input. The flavor is more like this...you
> strike a match and you happen to have your nose close to the match and
> that first whiff of smoke is the smell/taste. You can kinda taste it in
> the back of your upper palate. Reason I ask is because I got grapes
> from the same vineyard this year but obviously don't want the same result.
>
> Thanks!
>
> Joe

Joe,
The best thing to do is look at adding nitrogen (DAP, amino acids etc) or
finding a yeast that has a low N requirement to stop this happening again...


Simon

Joe Giller wrote in message >...
>Thanks for all your great input. The flavor is more like this...you
>strike a match and you happen to have your nose close to the match and
>that first whiff of smoke is the smell/taste. You can kinda taste it in
>the back of your upper palate. Reason I ask is because I got grapes
>from the same vineyard this year but obviously don't want the same result.
>
>Thanks!
>
>Joe
>