My sister-in-law was taken out to dinner on Wednesday night and the wine was
an '03 Savoy Vineyard Pinot from a winery by the name of Adrian Fog. The
winery is based in Sebastopol, California (Southern end of the Sonoma
Valley), but this vineyard is in the Anderson Valley (up closer to
Mendocino).

Anyway, she and her date only drank about a third of the bottle ($150 on the
wine list), so she took it home. She kept it corked, but out on a counter,
where temps may have reached 75 degrees Farenheit, then brought it to our
house last night (Sunday- 4 days later). She says it tasted fine again on
Friday (day 2), but it was like fermented raisins tonight.

I know she could have refrigerated it, and maybe it would have been better
longer, but I didn't expect it to be that bad that quickly. I've
refrigerated red wines for a week or longer (albeit using a VacuVin) and
found them still drinkable, if usually rather flat and fruit-less. Most of
what I read says that refrigeration will only add a day or so, but I haven't
found that myself.

How predictable was this?

"Midlife" > wrote in message
...
> My sister-in-law was taken out to dinner on Wednesday night and the wine
> was
> an '03 Savoy Vineyard Pinot from a winery by the name of Adrian Fog. The
> winery is based in Sebastopol, California (Southern end of the Sonoma
> Valley), but this vineyard is in the Anderson Valley (up closer to
> Mendocino).
>
> Anyway, she and her date only drank about a third of the bottle ($150 on
> the
> wine list), so she took it home. She kept it corked, but out on a
> counter,
> where temps may have reached 75 degrees Farenheit, then brought it to our
> house last night (Sunday- 4 days later). She says it tasted fine again on
> Friday (day 2), but it was like fermented raisins tonight.
>
> I know she could have refrigerated it, and maybe it would have been
> better
> longer, but I didn't expect it to be that bad that quickly. I've
> refrigerated red wines for a week or longer (albeit using a VacuVin) and
> found them still drinkable, if usually rather flat and fruit-less. Most of
> what I read says that refrigeration will only add a day or so, but I
> haven't
> found that myself.
>
> How predictable was this?

Four days open is a pretty long time - especially in this age of unfined,
unfiltered low sulfite wines. Maybe that was just too long for a delicate
varietal like Pinot Noir.

Tom S

Tom S wrote:
> Four days open is a pretty long time - especially in this age of unfined,
> unfiltered low sulfite wines. Maybe that was just too long for a delicate
> varietal like Pinot Noir.
>

Tom,

Low sulfite I get, but it sounds like you feel unfined, unfiltered
wines have a shorter shelf life. That's very interesting. Care to
elaborate?

We can take this off-line if others aren't interested.


Andy

On 26 Sep 2005 06:56:53 -0700, "JEP62" > wrote:

>We can take this off-line if others aren't interested.

Please keep it online.

--
Steve Slatcher
http://pobox.com/~steve.slatcher

"JEP62" > wrote in message
oups.com...
>
> Tom S wrote:
>> Four days open is a pretty long time - especially in this age of unfined,
>> unfiltered low sulfite wines. Maybe that was just too long for a
>> delicate
>> varietal like Pinot Noir.
>>
>
> Tom,
>
> Low sulfite I get, but it sounds like you feel unfined, unfiltered
> wines have a shorter shelf life. That's very interesting. Care to
> elaborate?

Sure, but I wasn't implying that they have a shorter _shelf_ life.

It seems obvious to me that if you leave all the floating organisms in a
wine at bottling, they'll have a jump start on spoiling the wine once it's
opened and exposed to air - especially if it's bottled with low free SO2.

OTOH, a sterile filtered wine that has sufficient free SO2 at bottling
should be much less sensitive to air exposure, and has no intrinsic spoilage
inoculum present.

Tom S

What about screw caps as opposed to corks?
I had half a bottle of Conundrum left after a week. I opened it and it
was obviously degraded, but still drinkable. Could the screw cap have
helped save it?

Tom S wrote:
> "JEP62" > wrote in message
> oups.com...
> >
> > Tom S wrote:
> >> Four days open is a pretty long time - especially in this age of unfined,
> >> unfiltered low sulfite wines. Maybe that was just too long for a
> >> delicate
> >> varietal like Pinot Noir.
> >>
> >
> > Tom,
> >
> > Low sulfite I get, but it sounds like you feel unfined, unfiltered
> > wines have a shorter shelf life. That's very interesting. Care to
> > elaborate?
>
> Sure, but I wasn't implying that they have a shorter _shelf_ life.
>
> It seems obvious to me that if you leave all the floating organisms in a
> wine at bottling, they'll have a jump start on spoiling the wine once it's
> opened and exposed to air - especially if it's bottled with low free SO2.
>
> OTOH, a sterile filtered wine that has sufficient free SO2 at bottling
> should be much less sensitive to air exposure, and has no intrinsic spoilage
> inoculum present.
>
> Tom S

In article .com>,
says...
>
>What about screw caps as opposed to corks?
>I had half a bottle of Conundrum left after a week. I opened it and it
>was obviously degraded, but still drinkable. Could the screw cap have
>helped save it?
>
>Tom S wrote:
>> "JEP62" > wrote in message
>> oups.com...
>> >
>> > Tom S wrote:
>> >> Four days open is a pretty long time - especially in this age of
unfined,
>> >> unfiltered low sulfite wines. Maybe that was just too long for a
>> >> delicate
>> >> varietal like Pinot Noir.
>> >>
>> >
>> > Tom,
>> >
>> > Low sulfite I get, but it sounds like you feel unfined, unfiltered
>> > wines have a shorter shelf life. That's very interesting. Care to
>> > elaborate?
>>
>> Sure, but I wasn't implying that they have a shorter _shelf_ life.
>>
>> It seems obvious to me that if you leave all the floating organisms in a
>> wine at bottling, they'll have a jump start on spoiling the wine once it's
>> opened and exposed to air - especially if it's bottled with low free SO2.
>>
>> OTOH, a sterile filtered wine that has sufficient free SO2 at bottling
>> should be much less sensitive to air exposure, and has no intrinsic
spoilage
>> inoculum present.
>>
>> Tom S

For the last 2 vintages, all of the Conundrum in AZ has been under stelvin.
Since ours never hangs around more than a few days, and it's always stored in
the refrigerator, I've not had any go bad. Also, I have yet to return a bottle
in the last 2 years, while I averaged about 1/cs under cork. I know this
doesn't specifically address your question, but offers a bit of data, around
the cork v stelvin issue and Conundrum.

Hunt

Tom S wrote:
>
> Sure, but I wasn't implying that they have a shorter _shelf_ life.
>
> It seems obvious to me that if you leave all the floating organisms in a
> wine at bottling, they'll have a jump start on spoiling the wine once it's
> opened and exposed to air - especially if it's bottled with low free SO2.
>
> OTOH, a sterile filtered wine that has sufficient free SO2 at bottling
> should be much less sensitive to air exposure, and has no intrinsic spoilage
> inoculum present.
>

I guess I've always assumed that the wine going down hill after being
opened for too long was due more to oxygen exposure than spoilage
organisms. This would definitely be hastened by low SO2 levels, but I'm
not sure that sterile filtration would really impact this one way or
the other.

Andy

"JEP62" > wrote in message
oups.com...
> I guess I've always assumed that the wine going down hill after being
> opened for too long was due more to oxygen exposure than spoilage
> organisms. This would definitely be hastened by low SO2 levels, but I'm
> not sure that sterile filtration would really impact this one way or
> the other.

That's probably true, at least for relatively short air exposure - say
several days.

The main problem with the wine in question was probably insufficient free
sulfite at bottling, which rendered it vulnerable to spoilage from oxygen
exposure over the course of several days. High pH may have also played a
part in the proceedings.

Tom S

I'd say pretty predictable. 4 days is a long time in half-empty bottle
with no refrigeration (I think chilling AND reducing oxygen - either
smaller bottle or maybe vac-u-vin- would make it last), for a wine
that's probably rather fruit-forward low-acid to start with.