Cooked wine redux...for Robin

Robin,

This thread, and John Woodward's explanations, say scientifically what I was trying to say about the delineation between heat damaged and cooked wine.

Note that damage occurs at a lower temperature and shorter duration than the caramel, etc. qualities, which arrive after long duration and high temperature.

http://dat.erobertparker.com/bboard/sho ... p?t=166819

Thomas,
I read through that thread and found Mr. Woodward's comments most interesting. A couple of criticisms, though:

1. His contention that low MW fruit esters are stable at 60°F but "exquisitely sensitive" at 80°F. In fact, a prototypical low MW ester, ethyl acetate, is stable enough (even at 80°F!) to be used as a common laboratory solvent. I've used it numerous times with acidic water and it doesn't hydrolyze very easily at all. More to the point, like any chemical reaction, we should expect roughly a quadrupling of the reaction rate with a 20°F increase, so I can't understand his contention that there is some major qualitative difference between those two temperatures. Far more likely to me is that, at the higher temperature, the increase in internal pressure forces the most volatile component of the wine, those fruit esters, out of the bottle by evaporation.

2. His mention of an "alcohol-aldehyde equilibrium" puzzles me: there is no such thing. I think what he means is that the rate of oxidation from alcohol to aldehyde is greatly accelerated.

3. There is no simple route from fusel alcohols to hexenal, so I'm not sure what he means.

Overall, though, he has some very enlightening comments about the phenomenon.

Mark Lipton

Hey Mark, one criticism: a couple is two; you posted three

Seriously, I don't understand everything JW posted, but from what I've learned, "heat damage" and "cooked" are separate (but related) conditions. Wherever I can, I shoot for accuracy in terminology. I probably fail more than I succeed, but I can dream, can't I?

[David M. Bueker]

Isn't it really just a matter of degree(s).

[Robin Garr]

This thread, and John Woodward's explanations, say scientifically what I was trying to say about the delineation between heat damaged and cooked wine.

Note that damage occurs at a lower temperature and shorter duration than the caramel, etc. qualities, which arrive after long duration and high temperature.

Thanks, Thomas. It's an interesting thread, although in my opinion it does not really address the "blind men and the elephant" issue that made the related discussions in our forum profoundly frustrating, and I'm not really too interested in jumping back into it again.

Isn't it really just a matter of degree(s).

If you mean temperature, yes. But there's more to the story.

Under certain heat and at a certain duration certain things happen. Various aromas indicate the various stages.

This thread, and John Woodward's explanations, say scientifically what I was trying to say about the delineation between heat damaged and cooked wine.

Note that damage occurs at a lower temperature and shorter duration than the caramel, etc. qualities, which arrive after long duration and high temperature.

Thanks, Thomas. It's an interesting thread, although in my opinion it does not really address the "blind men and the elephant" issue that made the related discussions in our forum profoundly frustrating, and I'm not really too interested in jumping back into it again.

I have no idea what you mean by the blind men elephant thing, Robin, but I'll take your word for it Simply thought more enlightenment would be, well, more enlightenment!

[David M. Bueker]

Isn't it really just a matter of degree(s).

If you mean temperature, yes. But there's more to the story.

Under certain heat and at a certain duration certain things happen. Various aromas indicate the various stages.

First I was just having fun...

But the various stages still mean nothing to me. If the wine is compromised enough to have lost an appreciable amount of its essential being then it's heat damaged/cooked enough that I don't want it.

Somehow this whole discussion reminds me of the scene in Young Frankenstein with all the heads lined up on a shelf: 3 years dead, 1 year dead, 6 months dead, freshly dead

Isn't it really just a matter of degree(s).

If you mean temperature, yes. But there's more to the story.

Under certain heat and at a certain duration certain things happen. Various aromas indicate the various stages.

First I was just having fun...

But the various stages still mean nothing to me. If the wine is compromised enough to have lost an appreciable amount of its essential being then it's heat damaged/cooked enough that I don't want it.

Somehow this whole discussion reminds me of the scene in Young Frankenstein with all the heads lined up on a shelf: 3 years dead, 1 year dead, 6 months dead, freshly dead

David, while I don't understand the mind of a geek--you obviously don't understand the mind of a techie

Sure, to the consumer, when the wine is dead it's dead. But to the producer, when a wine dies prematurely, it's a good idea to find out what happened. I have the misfortune to see the problem from both ends. Plus, I object to influential people issuing mistaken proclamations concerning the cause of death!

[David M. Bueker]

Thomas - first of all I am an engineer and a physicist. So I'm about as techie as they come.

And as for the issue at hand, slow cooing ruins wine as surely as fast cooking. As a consumer it doesn't make one bit of difference to me. That's why I don't care. It has nothing to do with being a geek & everything to do with my wallet.

>> slow cooing <<

I know what you meant, but I couldn't stop chuckling over the idea of the doves mourning over the death of overheated wine!