Off taste on Eclipse Nebbiolo kit

[stian84aa]

Xmas 2018 i set a Eclipse Nebbiolo kit.
Today i finally got around to taste it after my holiday and something seems off. Its is pretty good but it got a bit of sour taste. It isnt that strong but it is there.

What i did/didnt do:
After the i finished all the steps in the recipe it let it age on a plastic 5 gallon carboy instead of botteling it. I changed the carboy four times to help it clear. Two of those times i added k meta. From what i read here thats probably too little. Another mistake (well laziness) was that i didnt top it off when i changed carboys, so there has been a bit of headspace.. see picture below from today:





I did try to take a sample and add some sugar. That helped. After that i added a bit of water and it tasted even better. Maybe a bit dilluted but good.

Any suggestion to what the problem is? I fear i oxidized the wine but hoping it might not be that. Also any suggestion if i can fix it, or at least make it drinkable?

 

[Rocky]

How is the color of the wine? Wine that is oxidized tends to show a brownish ring in the glass. Pour some wine into a clean wine glass and hold it over a bright white paper and look down through the wine. Do you see any browning? If you can manage a good picture of the wine in a glass over the white paper, we may be more able to help.

In the meantime, I suggest racking into a clean, smaller carboy (5 gallon) and adding 1/4 teaspoon of Potassium Metabisulfite. You said that sugar and a little water seems to help. I suggest you try to make a pitcher of Sangria and see how that tastes. There are many recipes on line on YouTube.

 

[stian84aa]

How is the color of the wine? Wine that is oxidized tends to show a brownish ring in the glass. Pour some wine into a clean wine glass and hold it over a bright white paper and look down through the wine. Do you see any browning? If you can manage a good picture of the wine in a glass over the white paper, we may be more able to help.

In the meantime, I suggest racking into a clean, smaller carboy (5 gallon) and adding 1/4 teaspoon of Potassium Metabisulfite. You said that sugar and a little water seems to help. I suggest you try to make a pitcher of Sangria and see how that tastes. There are many recipes on line on YouTube.

Thanks. I added some pictures below. It do looks a bit brown on the rim of the glass but not much. If I tilt it it gets a bit brown on one side. What do you think?

 

[stian84aa]

One more :

 

[Rocky]

Sorry to say that from the pictures and your description of the taste (sour) it appears to be oxidized. I would guess that it has little to no fruit taste, so making sangria or even vinegar would produce an inferior product.

Sad, that is a very good kit. A tough lesson learned.

 

[stian84aa]

Sorry to say that from the pictures and your description of the taste (sour) it appears to be oxidized. I would guess that it has little to no fruit taste, so making sangria or even vinegar would produce an inferior product.

Sad, that is a very good kit. A tough lesson learned.

Yeah it really sucks. These kits are far from cheap where i live. I was talking to my uncle that make peach wine. Apparently he do all his clearing/degassing/ageing in a fermentation bucket. I was suprised when he said that because of the possibility of oxidation, but he just laughed it off and said he never had a problem with it. Those words kind of put the idea into my head that head space isn't that important.

I guess the lesson that is learned that i need to remove all head space after changing carboys, add k meta every 3 months and double check my carboy caps/airlocks for leaks.

I think ill try to experiment a bit with this wine. I found this post that seems a bit interesting. Maybe it will help and it seems easy enough to do.
https://www.winemakingtalk.com/threads/can-i-fix-an-oxidized-wine.17638/
Anyway, thanks for the input. At least i learned something

 

[Rocky]

@stian84aa That is all very interesting and I must point out that all of those posts are very old (from 2012). I suggest a private message to some of those people to see what the outcome was. If any of this is possible, it is certainly worth a try both to save the wine and to learn a technique.

Good luck.

 

[salcoco]

I am not sure it is oxidized. normal oxidize wine would give a sherry taste or nutty taste not sour. I think you have a acidic wine therefore the sour taste and maybe picking up sorbate taste. since you said adding water and sugar helped I would suggest a bench trial with sugar syrup. make a sugar syrup with two cups sugar to one cup hot water. mix in a blender until sugar is dissolved. take 1/4 cup sample of wine this equal about 60ml use a 1/4 tsp(1.25ml) of sugar syrup in first continue with each sample increasing the syrup by a 1/4 tsp. do taste test find the desired one add calculated addition to carboy, add k-meta and sorbate bottle.

 

[Rocky]

I am not sure it is oxidized. normal oxidize wine would give a sherry taste or nutty taste not sour. I think you have a acidic wine therefore the sour taste and maybe picking up sorbate taste. since you said adding water and sugar helped I would suggest a bench trial with sugar syrup. make a sugar syrup with two cups sugar to one cup hot water. mix in a blender until sugar is dissolved. take 1/4 cup sample of wine this equal about 60ml use a 1/4 tsp(1.25ml) of sugar syrup in first continue with each sample increasing the syrup by a 1/4 tsp. do taste test find the desired one add calculated addition to carboy, add k-meta and sorbate bottle.

I agree with Sal. We are not sure the wine is oxidized and anything is better than dumping it. Try some different things, don't expect too much and learn. May as well give the Sangria a try. Nothing to lose but a little time and some fruit.

 

[FTC Wines]

You can’t dump it. Yet! It’s our fav kit, just started drinking our 2016. It’s awesome, we make this kit every 2 years. Sorry you’re having trouble with it. Roy

 

[stian84aa]

@Rocky
@salcoco
Thanks for the input. I hope you are right salcoco.
I just tried to add sugar syrup to some batches. I figured i would do this before i start trying the advice's from the other thread.
I changed it up a bit since we use ml/dl/l here.

I made a syrup with 1 dl water and 2 dl white sugar. Then i prepared 4 glasses with whine.

Batch 1 - no syrup
Batch 2 - 1 dl wine, 1ts syrup
Batch 3 - 1 dl wine, 2ts syrup
Batch 4 - 1 dl wine, 3ts syrup



I'm a bit undecided, but its between batch 2 or 3.
I worry it might get too sweet if i give it some time in the carboy. Maybe batch 2 is the safe choice. Any input?

@FTC Wines
You know what. I read on this forum that the Eclipse Nebbiolo is great. That why i buyed it

 

[salcoco]

You are correct in that it will get sweeter with time. I am not sure what ts is but can you start with batch 2 and add smaller amounts of sugar than 1 ts? basically to find if there is a batter match. if you are happy with Batch 2 go ahead and calculate amount for full batch add syrup and then add k-meta and sorbate. good luck

 

[Rocky]

@Rocky
@salcoco
Thanks for the input. I hope you are right salcoco.
I just tried to add sugar syrup to some batches. I figured i would do this before i start trying the advice's from the other thread.
I changed it up a bit since we use ml/dl/l here.

I made a syrup with 1 dl water and 2 dl white sugar. Then i prepared 4 glasses with whine.

Batch 1 - no syrup
Batch 2 - 1 dl wine, 1ts syrup
Batch 3 - 1 dl wine, 2ts syrup
Batch 4 - 1 dl wine, 3ts syrup

View attachment 64129

I'm a bit undecided, but its between batch 2 or 3.
I worry it might get too sweet if i give it some time in the carboy. Maybe batch 2 is the safe choice. Any input?

@FTC Wines
You know what. I read on this forum the Eclipse Nebbiolo is great. That why i buyed it

I suggest batch 2. You can always add more sugar if you like but it is hard to take it out.

 

[stian84aa]

When i said ts i meant tsp.

I think ill make half of batch 2 to be safe. I can allways add more later on. Lets see how this turns out... Thanks again

 

[cmegaf]

It seems I had the same problem . I had it aging in the carboy for 5 yrs. I added a layer of Co2 when I finished thinking that would be enough to protect it. I didn't know either about adding MS. The taste is very strong alcohol taste and does have brownish color. Has anyone ever heard of using powder milk?

The procedure:

1. Calculate the amount of wine to be treated, in liters, and for each liter of wine measure out 0.5 gm of powdered skim milk into five (5) mL of cold water. Stir into a solution making sure all the skim milk is dissolved. NOTE: It is important that you use powdered skim milk, not de-creamed whole milk or malted milk.
2. Now bring the S02 level of the wine up to the required amount with respect to the pH.
3. Stir the wine vigorously and while it’s swirling, add the skim milk solution by pouring a single stream like what would come out of a sink faucet to make it enter the wine well below the surface. There may be a bit of foaming, but it will dissipate. Continue to stir the wine to ensure all the skim milk is well-distributed. It is important that the skim milk solution enters well below the surface. If you pour it on the surface, little, or nothing, will happen. I think the air is already having an effect on it. I have done this and botched ‘the pour’ before and it did nothing for the wine. Once the skim milk is fully distributed, brown curds will develop in the wine but will ultimately settle out.
4. Replace the airlock and allow the wine to settle for 2-3 days. Meanwhile, prepare a fining agent for fining the wine if you want to try to polish the wine again. I have skipped this with good success.
5. After 2-3 days, rack the wine off the oxidase curds into a clean carboy and stir in the fining agent (if you do one.) Allow this to settle for about 10 days, then rack the wine off the lees. Add an airlock. Filter and bottle.

 

[sour_grapes]

It seems I had the same problem . I had it aging in the carboy for 5 yrs. I added a layer of Co2 when I finished thinking that would be enough to protect it. I didn't know either about adding MS. The taste is very strong alcohol taste and does have brownish color. Has anyone ever heard of using powder milk?

The procedure:

1. Calculate the amount of wine to be treated, in liters, and for each liter of wine measure out 0.5 gm of powdered skim milk into five (5) mL of cold water. Stir into a solution making sure all the skim milk is dissolved. NOTE: It is important that you use powdered skim milk, not de-creamed whole milk or malted milk.
2. Now bring the S02 level of the wine up to the required amount with respect to the pH.
3. Stir the wine vigorously and while it’s swirling, add the skim milk solution by pouring a single stream like what would come out of a sink faucet to make it enter the wine well below the surface. There may be a bit of foaming, but it will dissipate. Continue to stir the wine to ensure all the skim milk is well-distributed. It is important that the skim milk solution enters well below the surface. If you pour it on the surface, little, or nothing, will happen. I think the air is already having an effect on it. I have done this and botched ‘the pour’ before and it did nothing for the wine. Once the skim milk is fully distributed, brown curds will develop in the wine but will ultimately settle out.
4. Replace the airlock and allow the wine to settle for 2-3 days. Meanwhile, prepare a fining agent for fining the wine if you want to try to polish the wine again. I have skipped this with good success.
5. After 2-3 days, rack the wine off the oxidase curds into a clean carboy and stir in the fining agent (if you do one.) Allow this to settle for about 10 days, then rack the wine off the lees. Add an airlock. Filter and bottle.

For context, the above procedure seems to have come from here : Correcting oxidized wine

which in turn seems to have been modified from here: http://www.makewine.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/How-to-Reduce-Oxidase-in-an-Oxidized-Wine.pdf

I have not tried this, but I started an old, obviously oxidized kit last night. May have to keep this in my back pocket.

 

[cmegaf]

For context, the above procedure seems to have come from here : Correcting oxidized wine

which in turn seems to have been modified from here: http://www.makewine.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/How-to-Reduce-Oxidase-in-an-Oxidized-Wine.pdf

I have not tried this, but I started an old, obviously oxidized kit last night. May have to keep this in my back pocket.

I may give it a try. What else do I have to loose, if I can salvage something out of it. I unfortunately seem to follow the school of hard knocks...