1. Identifying Wine Faults or What I DON’T want to smell in my wine
By Lisa Jones

2. Overview Sensory detection of Wine Faults Most Common Wine Faults
Sulphurous Compounds
Lactic Acid Bacteria
Brettanomyces
Yeast Autolysis & Wild Yeasts
Oxidation
Environmental

3. salty, sweet, sour, bitter or umami
Sensory Evaluation
#1 Smell
80-90% of perceived taste is actually smell. The tongue only tells us:
salty, sweet, sour, bitter or umami
Try this out –close your eyes, take a candy, plug your nose and taste. Try and guess what it is.

4. Sensory Evaluation #2 Appearance
-Watch your wine – there are some very obvious problems, but what may seem like a wine that’s not clearing - turbidity or cloudiness could also be an indication of infection.

5. “Why does my wine smell like bacon?”
It cannot be stressed enough –
Good cleaning and sanitation will prevent most of the wine problems.
Basics – Cleaning (Saniton, Sanibrew, Microzyme, PBW)
Cleaning- To remove visible and/or invisible grime, soil, grease, fats,etc. from surfaces that come in contact with wine.
Basics – Sanitation (Potassium Metabisulfate, Iodofor, Sanibrew)
Required step that ensures product contact surfaces are free from microbial growth, eliminates potential spoilage organisms. Not a substitute for cleaning or poor cleaning – you can’t sanitize a dirty surface.

6. “Why does my wine smell like bacon?”
Inspect Fermenters, hoses, bottle fillers for cracks, chips, excessive staining, etc. Don’t be hesitant to retire equipment.
Be cautious of any used equipment.
Consider all contact points and times - filter plates, bottle filler nozzle, overflow tub, etc.
Insist on clean bottles – when a consumer has some good and some bad bottles – contamination occurred during bottling or is from the bottles.

7. Sulfur

8. Sulfurous Compounds Sulphur Dioxide - SO2 Hydrogen Sulfide - H2S
Symptoms: Matchsticks or burnt rubber
Cause: Over-sulphiting grapes, must or wine
Resolution: Keep good records – don’t over sulfite
Hydrogen Sulfide - H2S
Symptoms: Rotten eggs
Cause: Stressed yeast/struggling fermentation
Prevention: Ensure must has enough nutrients and is in acceptable temperature range (most yeast 65-80°F/18-25°C)
Resloution: Aerate wine when smell is first noticed – splash rack. H2S can be removed with Bocksin or Copper (Copper Sulfate or other)
Cruciferous vegetable (cabbage, brocolli, cauliflower, asparagus)
And vegetables from the Genus Allium (onion, garlic)

9. Sulfurous Compounds, cont.
Mercaptans
Symptoms: Onion, garlic or skunk
Cause: Hydrogen Sulfide left untreated
Treatment: Ascorbic acid, Deodorizing Carbon filtration, etc.
Dimethyl Sulfide
Symptoms: Cooked cabbage
Cause: Oxidized Mercaptans
JUST AVOID THIS!

10. Lactic Acid

11. Lactic Acid aka. Lactobacillus
MLF What is it?
Used in commerical wines to create buttery esters and flavour components. Great, but uncontrolled bacteria can cause wine to go off.
Malic Acid – used in super sour candies, Mega warheads
Lactic Acid – Milk acid, milkder buttery esters

12. MLF Faults MLF in the bottle Geranium Taint Graisse
Symptoms: Spritz, turbidity, musty, stale dishcloth
Prevention: Add sulfides to avoid unintentional MLF
Geranium Taint
Symptoms: Smell of rotten geranium leaves
Cause: Lactic Acid Bacteria and Potassium Sorbate
Prevention: Do not treat wine that have undergone MLF with Potassium Sorbate. Don’t do MLF to kit wines.
Graisse
Symptoms: “Ropiness”, slimy or fatty mouth feel, egg white
Cause: Lactic Acid infection creating dextrins and polysaccharides
Prevention: Use only commercial sources of lactobacillius

13. Brettanomyces

14. Brett – friend or foe?
Cause: one of nine wild yeasts present in every wine region in the world
Symptoms: Barnyard, antiseptic, bacon, sweaty saddle, wet dog, mousy, metallic as well as sediment and carbonation
At lower levels is complexity and not a “fault”
-when at low levels it contributes to the complexity of the wine and can give an “aged” character to some young reds. Past the “sensory threshold” it is seen as a fault
-It metabolizes the disaccharide cellulose in oak and makes wine barrels an ideal carrier of this wild yeast
-controlled by sulfur dioxide

15. Prevention of Brettanomyces
Cleanliness
Know your barrels – sometimes the best use is as a planter
Proper levels of SO2 in wine
Keep wines topped up
Cross contamination – Brett spreads easily

16. Candida

17. Pichia

18. Yeast Wild Yeast (Candida, Pichia) Yeast Autolysis
Symptoms: Sherry-like, oxidized flavours, film on wine – called “flor” yeast or “flowers of yeast”
Prevention: Always inoculate with a wine yeast or culture – do not leave it to chance. Minimize ullage - top up wines, spray surface with SO2
Yeast Autolysis
Symptom: yeasty, brothy, meaty, rubbery, fatty
Causes: wine left on lees and cells to break down, done intentionally to create depth of flavour in some wines - “champenoise” method of making sparkling wine.
Prevention: Get wine off lees after fermentation is complete

19. Oxidized

20. Oxidation
The most common wine faults as the presence of oxygen and a catalyst are the only requirements for the process to occur. Oxidation can occur throughout the winemaking process, and even after the wine has been bottled.
Processing Oxidation
Symptoms: raisin, caramel, nutty, cough syrup, orang-ish brown colour of reds, dark golden white wines
Causes: wine left in primary too long, carboy left not topped up, wine not sulfited

21. Cork Taint
Cork taint is a wine fault mostly attributed to the compound 2,4,6-trichloroanisole (TCA) As cork taint has gained a wide reputation as a wine fault, other faults are often falsely identified as it.
Symptoms: earthy, mouldy, and musty aromas in wine that easily mask the natural fruit aromas
Causes: TCA most originates as a metabolite of mould growth on chlorine-bleached wine corks and barrels

22. Storage Problems “Cooked Wine”/Maderized
Wines exposed to extreme temperatures will thermally expand, and may even push up between the cork and bottle and leak from the top. Even if the temperatures do not reach extremes, temperature variation alone can also damage bottled wine through oxidation.
Symptoms: corks pushing out of bottles, rim of red wine around cork, prune, stewed flavours, oxidized compounds
Causes: overly hot storage area
Light Struck Wines
Symptoms: cardboard or wet-wool flavour
Causes: wine exposed to ultra-violet light

23. CLEANLINESS IS NEXT TO GODLINESS.
Oxidation, cont.
Ethyl Acetate
Symptoms: nail polish, glue, varnish, fake fruit
Causes: spoilage causing bacteria
Acetyl Aldehyde
Symptoms: sherry, green apple, sour, metallic
Actetic Acid
Symptoms: vinegar
CLEANLINESS IS NEXT TO GODLINESS.

24. Sediment Re-fermentation
Symptoms: carbonated or “spritzy” wine, sediment, dry when it should be sweet.
Causes: Not adding (or not adding enough) Potassium Sorbate to a wine that has had sugar or sweetener added, incomplete alcoholic fermentation.
Prevention: If adding less than 1 ¼ cup wine conditioner add 2 teaspoons potassium sorbate.
NOTE: some believe it adds a “bubblegum” flavour to wine if too high a dosage is added.

25. Sediment, continued Tartrate Crystals (aka wine diamonds)
Symptoms: clear or sometimes bown, crystaline deposits on bottom of the bottle or on cork, may be mistake for glass. More likely to occur with wine stored in cold location.
Causes: Tartaric acid crystallization is a natural
process that occurs over time when the salts of
tartaric acid and potassium salt form.
Prevention: Cold stabilization or addition
of metatartaric acid to temporarily keep
crystals in suspension.

26. So one last time…
PLEASE..
Clean and Sanitize
Questions??