Bad Eggs/Sulfur Oder Chilian Wine

[BobbytinCT]

Happy Holidays!
So we bought some Chilian grapes back in April made some 30 gallons of Malbec, Camenere and Cab. Sav. The sulfites used to "keep it" during transport were apparently overwhelming and we didn't wash well enough. We have stirred it up with pennies and still have a bit of an oder even after oaking it.
Does anyone have any sugestions on what we can do to salvage these wines?
Cheers
Bob

 

[FentonCellars]

I personally have not heard of tricks with "pennies" before, but I have not heard of any resolution to sulfur odors. I am waiting for WineMaker Magazines Answer book, but in the meantime, I did search winemakermag.com and found in the Wine Wizard section a note about this topic....

http://winemakermag.com/mrwizard/169.html

Hope this helps!

 

[Wine Maker]

Hi Bob,

Did you try to splash rack the wine to remove the odor? Splash racking is where you vigorously rack the wine back and forth a few times between carboys letting the wine splash to get air into the wine to push out the sulfer odor. I had a sauvignon blanc that developed the dreaded rotten egg odor and used this technique. It took 4 real good splashings to get the odor out. It was a lot of work but the wine went on to win a bronze medal in the American Wine Society amateur wine competition.

I would also like to recommend a web site I discovered through another forum that has some excellent articles on sulfer problems. This is perhaps one of the best collection of articles I have found.

http://vawa.net/winemaking-articles.html

 

[BobbytinCT]

Rocco,
Many thanks! We will give that a try this week to see if we can get some results. I also will see the recommended website!!!
Note to self: When using Chilean grapes that are well preserved extended travel, wash very well.

 

[john750ml]

Happy Holidays!
So we bought some Chilian grapes back in April made some 30 gallons of Malbec, Camenere and Cab. Sav. The sulfites used to "keep it" during transport were apparently overwhelming and we didn't wash well enough. We have stirred it up with pennies and still have a bit of an oder even after oaking it.
Does anyone have any sugestions on what we can do to salvage these wines?
Cheers
Bob

Order a bottle of copper sulfate from Presque Isle. Take two glasses and pour two ounces in each. Place 3-5 drops of CS in one glass and swirl and let it sit for five minutes..then smell both glasses. Is there a stink on the untreated wine and not on the treated wine? If so, you have H2S and need to treat the batch with Copper Sulfate.

John H

 

[Wade E]

Splash rack 1st to see if that works, if not get some copper wire or a pce of copper pipe and sanitize it well and stir your wine for about 3 minutes, check again in 1/2 an hour and stir again if needed. Copper Sulfate ia a poison and not recommended but in very small amounts will do the trick but make that a last resort please.

 

[oldwino]

Happy Holidays!
So we bought some Chilian grapes back in April made some 30 gallons of Malbec, Camenere and Cab. Sav. The sulfites used to "keep it" during transport were apparently overwhelming and we didn't wash well enough. We have stirred it up with pennies and still have a bit of an oder even after oaking it.
Does anyone have any sugestions on what we can do to salvage these wines?
Cheers
Bob

I splash rack, wait a week or so and splash rack again. In my experience the odor didn't leave immediately. Sometimes it takes a couple of weeks to a month.