Campden and Color

CowboyPhil · Sep 29, 2011

Has anyone had an issue with adding Campden to a finished wine and it removes the color? What happened?

naperwineguy · Sep 30, 2011

I've never heard of this happening. Ever. There has to be something else at work here. Can you describe in detail what you did and what you observed?

robie · Sep 30, 2011

I've never heard of it, either.

winemaker_3352 · Sep 30, 2011

I have heard that if you wine has experience oxidation - that SO2 addition can help dissipate the color a bit.

robie · Sep 30, 2011

winemaker_3352 said:
I have heard that if you wine has experience oxidation - that SO2 addition can help dissipate the color a bit.

Some clearing agent can also strip color. Can't forget that excessive filtering can, too.

winemaker_3352 · Sep 30, 2011

robie said:
Some clearing agent can also strip color. Can't forget that excessive filtering can, too.

Yup - that is true - just be sure you are not filtering a murky wine. Only filter a clear wine.

Wade E · Sep 30, 2011

Ive heard of the sulfites doing this a few times especially with Strawberry wine for some reason.

CowboyPhil · Oct 1, 2011

It was watermelon that it did it with, It went from red to almost a chardonnay color. It was odd.

homer · Oct 1, 2011

A couple of questions: What was the PH? How much Kmeta did you add? bk

Arne · Oct 2, 2011

Did you rack it when this happened?? I had a strawberry that was a nice pretty red, it cleared and I racked it off. It stayed the red color until I picked up a little of the lees. Then it turned the orangish color most strawberry finishes at. Cleared nice afterwards, but kept the diff. color. Arne.

CowboyPhil · Dec 13, 2012

I realized much later that this was because the whole batch went horribly awry. The finished wine tasted salty (yes you read that right) and smelled like fritos. I am thinking some bad bacteria got in there.