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nafex - [NAFEX] Re: nafex Digest, Vol 14, Issue 17

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  • From: tblists <tblists@pshift.com>
  • To: nafex@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [NAFEX] Re: nafex Digest, Vol 14, Issue 17
  • Date: Fri, 05 Mar 2004 21:43:27 -0500


From: Tom Olenio <tolenio@sentex.net>

As I learned, commercial winemakers need to preserve color, prevent oxidation, extend bottle shelf life, enhance
flavors and aroma's, and additives are the easiest way to achieve this. Don't get me wrong, not all producers
behave this way, but some do. Other producers will claim never to use additives, but they will. It ends up
being a crap shoot if you are plagued by commercial red wine headaches.....

By additives, I would assume you mean sulfites. ALL wines contain some amount of sulfites, even if they were not added: they are a natural product of yeast fermentation. Sulfites are not added willy-nilly by good winemakers...they are there for the reasons you mention above. Bacterial spoilage of wine can make it just as unpalatable as over sulfiting. That said, bad wines (think jug, or the old screw-cappers before screw caps became trendy suddenly) can be oversulfited. The legal max of sulfite in the US is 350 ppm free sulfite...the vast majority of wines have less than 80. Oversulfiting a good wine will ruin it as bad none at all. Bad wine made from rotting grapes is what requires the big blast of sulfites to tame it.

White wine has less of these additives, and many times it is only red wine that bothers people with headaches.

Actually whites tend to be more heavily sulfited, as they are more 'tender' and suffer greater from oxidation.

Some of those additives may be your problem. You can make wine with NO additives if you choose, or the bare
minimums to achieve what is necessary, and keeps headaches at bay.

I agree making your own allows you to control the sulfite level best, but won't guarantee headache relief. There are many other components in alcoholic beverages including fusel oils, ketones, and tannins which provide flavors, complexity, and, some feel, health benefits. These other components have been implicated in the famous headaches, and red wines tend to have higher levels of them than most other alcoholic beverages.

From: Thomas Olenio <tolenio@sentex.net>
Campden are not used by the big guys, I think it has been replaced with
Potassium Metabiasulphite or newer compounds.
They both use sulphites but the campden is not as potent as the other.

This is true, wineries do not use campden tabs. There are two types of sulfite powders used by winemakers; sodium and potassium metabisulfite. Campden tabs are just conveniently measured doses (10 grains) of either one. Wineries will use bulk powder every time due to its cost-effectiveness, serious home winemakers too.Sodium meta has been phased out by commercial wineries due to regulations limiting sodium content in the wines, potassium has therefore taken over. Both materials work just as effectively, ounce for ounce. A lot of the campden available to home vintners is sodium.

From: Bob Sorenson <natvwine@cut.net>

Almost any wine in the US has from
between 100 and 300 ppm sulfite in the finished product, even organic wines.
There are about 30 other less common additives approved for use by the BATF
in the US.
One potental source of headaches is from pesticide residue from the grapes
themselves as these are usually sprayed quite a bit.

Organic wines CAN be made with added sulfites, but it is my understanding that they cannot use KMS or NaMS, but rather must use pressurized SO2 gas which is EXTREMELY dangerous stuff. I'd rather use the powder, which is easily and harmlessly cleaned up when spilled. Also, wine grapes tend to be sprayed less than table grapes, and studies have been done that find that whatever residues may remain (negligible as they are) are generally removed in processing, especially filtering and fining.

What I am getting at is that one has to be careful in perpetuating myths (like the pine needle thing) such as organic wines have no sulfites or spray residues, winemakers overdose wines with sulfite out of laziness or some sort of commercial market stability mentality, and even that wine headaches are a product of sulfites to begin with. If you want to assure fewer headaches from wine, try:
1. Drinking less.
2. Drinking better. Better wines generally are made from better grapes which require less sulfiting.
3. Drinking whites. Although they have higher sulfite levels they have fewer cogeners that may cause headache/hangover.
4. Making your own in order to know what you have. The trick here is that it can take some real knowledge to make a good (i.e. low cogener) wine at home, especially without using ANY sulfites.
5. When you do make your own, use the least sulfite to get the job done. For ciders I generally dose with 50 ppm after squeezing, and add no more.

All respect,
Terry


Terence Bradshaw
1189 Wheeler Road
Calais, VT 05648
bradshaw@pshift.com
(802)229-2004

The views represented by me are mine and mine only................






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