# Oily slick floating on wine - what's wrong with the wine?



## jzwine

Hi guys,

I bought some wine from a winery in Spain. When I pour the wine into a glass, on first a couple of galsses, it looks there are some oily slick floating on the wine. After first a couple glasses, the wine looks normal.

But if I let that half bottle of wine sit for half a day and the pour it to a glass, i can see there is oily slick floating on the wine again.

Does anybody know what's wrong with the wine?

By the way, it's not an old wine. The wine was made only a few months ago.

Thanks a lot in advance.

Joe


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## Rocky

Joe, Is this a commercial wine from Spain? Does the wine have any "off taste" from the oily slick? Is the slick one continuous film or is it many tiny droplets? When you say, "The wine was made only a few months ago," how do you know this? and how many months ago? How many bottles of the wine do you have, how many have you opened and has the problem shown in every bottle?


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## jzwine

Rocky, thanks a lot for quick replying.
Yes, it's commercial wine from Spain and it was made from Monastrall grape. And sorry for posting questions about commercial wine here. 

The wine tastes normal and there is no off taste from the oily slick. The oily slick is continuous.

The wine was dealcoholized to less than 1% alc level on 2/5/2013 and was kept in a tank at ~ 5 degree C until got bottled in early May.

Unfortunately, I have 12000 bottles. I opened about two dozens. About 80% of them have the oily slick.

I uploaded the picture.


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## Rocky

You have 12000 bottles!? Wow!

It certainly seems to have the color spectrum of an oil. My only thoughts are that there was something in the tank in which it was stored prior to bottling, something in the bottles perhaps from cleaning or something from the de-alcoholizing process. Sorry I can't be of more help.


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## joeswine

*oily slick*

IT could be as rocky stated however sometimes an old world method of preventing oxidation was to float a little food grade oil on top, that was a barrier from oxygen, just a thought, because as you stated it didn't impair the taste ,right?


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## tingo

Could it be the beginning of candida mycoderma, aka film yeast aka surface yeast? Try this: take a cup of wine and let it sit out. When the oil forms take an eye dropper and drip some meta solution onto the film. Try to keep it on the surface of the wine and not in the wine per se. Be gentle dripping it, your goal is to not break up this oil. Wait a day. Did it go away? By the way Im very interested to hear runningwolf's assessment of this problem. He always has good ideas.


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## jamesngalveston

12000 bottles....i think you got had. who ever sold that to you, had to have known about the oil slick problem...First i would contact the seller and ask him some questions. and if it is a problem, how would you solve the issue with 12,000 bottles..open all of them and pour in a vat and treat.
I sure hope it taste good.


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## Duster

I think joe's wine may be onto something, I have heard of this trick before. It's not one I would recommend but It did and still happens


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## jzwine

Thanks a lot for all the replies.

joeswine, right, it doesn't impair the taste.

Duster, would you mind elaborate the trick a bit?


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## rob

12000 bottles is that correct? how did you have them delivered?


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## jzwine

It's shipped via ocean freight. 

I suspect the high temperature in the container might have something to do with it.


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## Rocky

_ Duster, would you mind elaborate the trick a bit?_ 

JZ, I think Duster is referring to the practice of adding a layer of olive oil to the top of a bottle of wine in order to prevent air infiltration. We used to do this a long time ago and we could never quite get rid of the oil. This was the reason why I asked you in my first reply if the slick was continuous or in globules. When we did the olive oil thing and tried to remove it to drink the wine, we could get most of it out of the wine but the remainder of the oil floated on top of the wine in globules.


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## jamesngalveston

this is a weird threat...12,000 bottles of oil floating wine..and I thought I had problems.


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## jamesngalveston

thread not threat


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## JohnT

joeswine said:


> IT could be as rocky stated however sometimes an old world method of preventing oxidation was to float a little food grade oil on top, that was a barrier from oxygen, just a thought, because as you stated it didn't impair the taste ,right?


 

Joe, 

This would be my best bet as well. Use of oil as a pertective barrier is a practice still in use today. It should have been removed by "bottom draw" or bottling from the bottom portion of the tank first. It looks like this is where they goofed. 

I would return the whole lot, or find a decanter that will pour from the bottom.


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## Duster

Here is a link to the thread
http://www.winemakingtalk.com/forum/f6/oil-top-wine-prevent-oxidation-15459/

And another.
http://www.winemakingtalk.com/forum/f5/use-mineral-oil-top-up-carboy-38032/

And an outside source
http://www.cellarit.com.au/wine-blog/protecting-wine-from-oxidation/new-ideas-for-preventing-oxidation-in-opened-wine-bottles/

I would again stress, I would not recomend anyone doing this. In todays bag of tricks there are far better measures against oxidation. Sometimes old habits die hard.


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