WTN: Sparkling Boiled Onion Skins

[Jenise]

NV Dhondt-Grellet Champagne Premier Cru Les Terres Fines Blanc de Blancs Chardonnay
Found this hard to understand and like due to an overwelming nose and flavor of brown onion skin. I mean, if you took the root end and all skin off an onion and simmered it in a bit of water--THAT. It lessened somewhat with time (or I just got used to it) as more fruit emerged, but I'm afraid I'll have to hold my nose to drink my other two bottles.

Anyone ever encounter this or have an opinion about where that comes from?

[David M. Bueker]

Heat damage?

Never had boiled onion skins, but I once had a Champagne (1986 Pol Roger Sir Winston Churchill) that smelled exactly like a baked potato.

Hi Jenise,
A few question- What was this wine stopped with? What was its appearence like?
In a "heat danaged" wine (especially one enclosed under cork) I would think of possible "Oxidation faults"
A wine stoppered with natural cork might have some "tell-tale" signs of possible "heat damage" (A "pushed-
up" cork exanining "condition" of the cork itself, the "color" of the wine etc.)
"Onion" flavors in my wine I would think of possible "reduction faults" Temperature the wine was stored at,
chemistry of the wine itself, and how the stopper perforns all has a role in this.

Salute

[Jenise]

Victor, it was a standard champagne cork.

I had a California sparkling wine once that stank of overcooked boiled asparagus. That was due to the grapes being harvested too early in order to keep the acidity high. As pointed out, onion aromas (sulfhydyrl compounds) would point to the wine being too reductive. You might try the "penny trick"--exposing the wine to copper metal. Only don't use a US penny. Since 1982 they are 97% zinc, which is toxic. Instead use some copper wire.

-Paul W.