Aroma and Homemade Wine

Reading Paul B.'s note on his '06 Cayuga http://www.wineloverspage.com/forum/village/viewtopic.php?t=6989&highlight=cayuga, I was struck by his comment that it has little aroma. That's a major problem in my wines too. They generally taste all right, have decent mouth feel, are fairly well balanced, etc., but usually there's not much nose.

Do other homewinemakers notice the same thing?

If so, what do you think it's do to?

Reading Paul B.'s note on his '06 Cayuga http://www.wineloverspage.com/forum/village/viewtopic.php?t=6989&highlight=cayuga, I was struck by his comment that it has little aroma. That's a major problem in my wines too. They generally taste all right, have decent mouth feel, are fairly well balanced, etc., but usually there's not much nose.

Do other homewinemakers notice the same thing?

If so, what do you think it's do to?

Probaly too much handling or too much oxygen in handling. Small lots--5 gallon, etc.--eat up lots of oxygen during racking and other handling.

Dan, an interesting question. One disadvantage of the home winemaker is the scale at which we are conducting our endeavor. Along with Thomas's point, the volume to surface area ratio of our small batches can allow for aromatics to evaporate more readily. To minimize this I always try to keep my carboys as full as possible. Also, when racking, I put the end of the tubing all the way to the bottom of the container to minimize splashing. Another factor is SO2. Levels too high can stunt the nose or even dominate it it with the match stick aroma. I will treat 5 gallons of fresh-pressed juice or crushed must with 1/4 tsp of meta-bisulfite (about 40 ppm) 12-24 hours before adding the yeast. Then I give it the same dose after the first and second rackings. The timing of the first racking should be as soon as the wine stops fermenting and a distinct band of sediment appears on the bottom. If I want ML to take place, I delay the second racking until Spring. I'll only add more SO2 after this if the wine is being finished off-dry and use potassium sorbate. I filter most of my wines before bottling and find that the nose can be almost non-existent for up to two months afterwards. However, after this time I find that the wines recover and generally have as much aroma as most commercial wines. Along these lines, as an example, I mistakenly gave my '05 Riesling way too much SO2 and the burnt match was very objectionable. However, now, after 9 months in the bottle it has finally recovered and is (IMHO) a decent typical Riesling, comparable to many commercial ones I've had. It's my experience that with proper handling and time to allow for bottle shock, the wines should be fine.

Dan, I can tell you why I think it's the case in my own wine ... but to be perfectly honest, I sure don't think it's the case with many of yours - especially not your wonderful dry labrusca whites, which are beautifully aromatic. The Diamond last year was truly exemplary and I would be very, very proud to serve it to anyone - and I mean it!

Now, in my case, we have to recall that the 2006 ripening period was absolutely abysmal and plagued right from August with cold nights which, come September, were met by very little sunshine and frequent rain. Also, I have to say that the vineyard where I picked the Cayugas simply wasn't properly managed: the vines were carrying the maximum crop load and looked unkempt with rampant growth all over the place. They need better vineyard management. I have yet to make a wine from vines that have been professionally tended to produce maximum quality, low-yield grapes ... not having space for a private vineyard, I have to work with whatever I can get - unfortunately. I do have extremely high standards for the grapes I work with - i.e. I will sit over a bushel and de-stem every single grape (berry) by hand to make sure that only clean, fit berries make it into the fermenting bucket. However, if the grower from whom I must buy doesn't know what to do in order to produce such fruit, then I'm stuck and I have to make the best out of what I can get. Truth be told, I have been happy most times in terms of the quality of my wines. I haven't experienced any flaws or spoiled wines, and thankfully the only thing I've had to do intervention-wise is chaptalization - a minor tweak and certainly one not to be frowned on if great Burgundian winemakers and others are employing it.

My labrusca wines are always plenty aromatic; Cayuga on the other hand would likely be more aromatic if it were cropped more lightly and - crucially - had the weather been warm, dry and sunny last September. The crucial element was missing, but the wine still came through. I also thank Cayuga's thick skins for part of the success: where the adjacent red hybrids and labruscas were cracked, split and full of mold, the Cayugas I picked were tight and disease-free. It's a fantastic grape that has really earned my respect.

"My labrusca wines are always plenty aromatic..."

I'll say...Labrusca defies all attempts at subduing its "aromatics."

True, Thomas! But because those candied floral perfumey noses are so glorious to me, I do everything I can to amplify and fine-tune them in the wines I make.

Hi Dan,
I guess you never heard of a powder called glucolytic enzyme or AR2000.
AR 2000 (Glycolytic Enzyme):
This material supplements natural enzyme activities to release aromatic terpenols and convert odorless glycosylated precursors into free aromatic terpenols characteristic of the grape variety. Normal usage is 0.07 to 0.11 gram per gallon of wine (2 to 3 grams per hectoliter) added at any time after fermentation. It is active from 10 degrees to 50 degrees Celsius (50 degrees to 122 degrees Farenheit) and from pH 2.8 to pH 5.0. It is inactivated by treatment with Bentonite at the rate of 0.4 grams or more per gallon. It is also very effective at settling white musts when added at pressing.
This was taken from Jack Keller’s Winemaking Home Page.

Salute

I've never heard of it either.

Thanks for all the comments guys. They made me think more about this.

The Labruscas rarely are a problem. If anything, the nose can knock you over. So, I really was talking about hybrids and viniferas. I had just bottled the '06 Traminette and once again found the aroma to be underwhelming. It's a ridiculous comparison, but the wonderful nose of Arbor Hill Traminette kept going through my mind.

The day before the aroma story was much the same bottling Steuben and some Riesling dessert wine from 2 years ago. Three strikes in a row was too much to take I guess, so I turned to WLDG (rather than the bottle) for a sympathetic and knowledgeable ear.

Thomas - You must be right about small batches. That's what Nancy said. She's not a winemaker but she's always right ':lol:'

Victor - That's wild! But Keller is pretty good. I'll give it a try on a small batch.

OK, it's back to the wine cellar and the Gewurzt. Pray.

Dan, your post raises two questions in my mind:

1) What level of crop control do the growers use from whom you buy the hybrids that later produce aromatically nondescript wines?

2) Could it be that some wineries have access to aroma-enhancing enzymes or use special yeasts that bring out certain aromas? I'm sure there's all sorts of soft "trickery" out there, if you will, that can appreciably affect a wine during its production.

AR 2000 is a product that is very easily obtained by amateur winemakers. Almost all of the big catalog home winemaking supply stores stock it. Basically it is like harnessing a natural catalyst to enhance the varietal aroma profile of a given variety. The stuff does seem to work.

Salute

Paul - Both good questions and I have no idea what the answers are. I find the weak aroma in both my hybrids and viniferas. Just guessing, I'd say it's a lot of the things that have been mentioned here including the fact that I've regularly ameliorated the hybrids, a practice I've promised myself to do no more. Also, having greater exposure to good wines no doubt has raised the bar in judging my own wines.

The question of what goes on in commercial operations raises the related question of what homewinemakers do. As a group, we need to talk more. I'll be going to a homewinemaking competition next week that's being held in a town an hour or so east of here. The reason I entered is that it's a good chance to meet and talk with homewinemakers I haven't met before.

Victor - I'm sure you're right, I just had never heard before of AR 2000. What better example could there be of the value of talking more among ourselves? If I hadn't raised the question of aroma here I probably never would have heard of this.

Dan

AR 2000

It is inactivated by treatment with Bentonite

Victor -
I'm intriqued by AR 2000. Have you tried it? I went to the Presque Isle website and found it - at $33.80 for a 50 gm packet. After recovering a bit from the sticker shock I realized that this only comes to about 70 cents per gallon of wine.

The descriptions from Keller and Preque Isle differ in an interesting way. The quote above is the one you gave from Keller. But instead of saying is inactivated, Preque Isle says:

It should be inactivated by bentonite within a couple of months following treatment

.

Any idea what this is about?

Dan

Dan,
How do you figure?
50 grams of AR2000 at $33.80
3 grams (max dose) of AR2000 treats 1 HL
1 HL = 100 L
1 L = .264 gals
1 HL = 26.4 gals
1- 50 gram pkg of AR2000 should be enough to treat approx 422.4 gals of wine
That comes to about .08 cents a gal
(About the other part of your question I’ll get back to you).

Salute

1- 50 gram pkg of AR2000 should be enough to treat approx 422.4 gals of wine

Only if you follow the directions!

Instead of the recommended .07 to .11 gms per gallon, I was figuring .7 to 1.1 gms per gallon. That's only off by a factor of 10. Stuff happens, especially reading directions at 3 o'clock in the morning.

By the way, how do you measure, say, 0.1 gms? The precision of my scale is 1 gm. I suppose you could measure out 1 gm, divide that in half by eyeballing, and add the half to a 5 gal. carboy. But if the tolerance is so close (.07 - .11 gms per gal) you better have a pretty good eyeball.

Dan

Hi Dan,
I do have an analytic scale and am capable of measuring such quantities, but basically I deal in batches of 1 HL (26.4 to 30 gals) in volume. As far as using Bentonite to inactivate the enzyme, I don’t believe it is absolutely necessary. The package I have does not even mention it. Remember that the product is actually made from a “natural” enzyme extracted from wine yeast. The Amateur Winemakers of Ontario (AWO) had a nice article about using AR2000 written by Terry Rayner back in 2001.


http://www.kawartha.com/littlefatwino.c ... ews22.html

Just click on the site and scroll down.

Salute