unpleasant floral note

crackermonkey · Oct 20, 2019

Hi everyone , I'm new to this site wondering if anyone has some advice , we have made kit wine at a local home brew place for the last decade when they closed down we couldn't find a new one we liked so I decided to do it myself at home . we mostly made wine expert wines primarily their 6 to 8 week kits .
so far I have made the brunello , Australian cab sav , the eclipse shiraz and the pinot . they all seem to have the same unpleasant floral note . I ts drinkable but not what we are used to. I don't add the sorbet and follow the instruction to the T. now they are still young 8 months , 4months and 2months . we usually wait a year but I have been sampling as we go . some of my racking wasn't as good the first couple of batches but other than that I don't know .
thx

user 36973 · Oct 20, 2019

If you are repeatedly getting the same results with different kits, that seems to point to some issue with your process or equipment.

Can you identify the fault? Is it more apple like (acetaldehyde)? Is it a light fruit with a chemical aroma (ethyl acetate)? Are you sure it isn't a light vinegar which can smell pleasantly fruity at low levels?

Do you use glass or plastic carboys? How do you clean and sanitize between uses? Do you carefully add Sulfites as directed? Do you eliminate air headspace while settling the wine?

Most common issues go back to insufficient Sulfites and excess exposure to oxygen. Without more info, I'm just starting there.

crackermonkey · Oct 21, 2019

thx for the reply,
I use chlorine tsp as my sanitizer and I believe I'm pretty thorough ,I always make sure my carboys have less than 1.5 inches of air space .they are plastic wide mouth carboys. I would describe it as a flowery taste on the pallet not the nose . my wife cant taste it but I do. . all the kits have been Wine Expert ones .and I follow all the instructions other than the sorbate .I plan to try some RJS kits next to see if I get some same results. the only mistake I could see I have done has been in when I racked the wine with to much haze making it into the bottles , my youngest batch a pinot I double racked during the clearing stage an dit is much clearer .other than that where I stored the wine had erratic temperature fluctuations so I have rectified it with 200 bottle wine fridge . my gut is telling me the y just need more time to age. I just wondered if people had any of the same issues with Wine Expert kits?

GreenEnvy22 · Oct 21, 2019

Not sure the cause of your floral notes, sorbate can cause geranium event but you said you don't use it.

Chlorinated Tsp is a good cleaner, but I wouldn't use it as a sanitizer. You need to rinse away the bleach or you'll pickup flavors from it, and rinsing defeats purpose of sanitizing.
Some star San or even just sulfites wound be better.

WellingtonToad · Oct 21, 2019

Geranium is a technical term that means "floral notes". So, it would seem you do have geranium.
Geranium has two causes.
1. Sorbate is just one.
2. The other is yeast nutrient, type or lack of it.
I have had a couple of occasions where I have made a port without nutrient or using minimal DAP. Both had geranium.
There is not a lot of information out there on this one, and it took me a long time to work it out.
I am not sure that 2 is your problem, but it may give a direction to look.
Good luck.

Johnd · Oct 21, 2019

crackermonkey said:
thx for the reply,
I use chlorine tsp as my sanitizer and I believe I'm pretty thorough ,I always make sure my carboys have less than 1.5 inches of air space .they are plastic wide mouth carboys. I would describe it as a flowery taste on the pallet not the nose . my wife cant taste it but I do. . all the kits have been Wine Expert ones .and I follow all the instructions other than the sorbate .I plan to try some RJS kits next to see if I get some same results. the only mistake I could see I have done has been in when I racked the wine with to much haze making it into the bottles , my youngest batch a pinot I double racked during the clearing stage an dit is much clearer .other than that where I stored the wine had erratic temperature fluctuations so I have rectified it with 200 bottle wine fridge . my gut is telling me the y just need more time to age. I just wondered if people had any of the same issues with Wine Expert kits?

Nix the bleach as noted above, it’s presence can lead to TCA (cork taint) and result in your bottles being corked. I don’t allow bleach anywhere near my production or storage area.

Sounds to me that your “floral note” is what’s referred to as “kit taste”, it’s not an unpleasant taste, but you can detect the same taste in all of the WE kits. That’s at least how I detect kit taste. And yes, age helps a lot, as does aging in a barrel, both make it almost go away a few years down the road.

If your wine tasted of geraniums, it’s considered a major wine fault, you’d spit it out, throw it away, there’d be no wondering if it was going to go away.

crackermonkey · Oct 21, 2019

thanks everyone, I will take the advice on the chlorine and switch to something else , and I was already planning to bulk aging my next batches . last night my father in law gave me a bottle of the same brunello he bottled a year ago and I compared it to one of mine that is around 9mos , in his the note is almost undetectable while mine is much better than I last checked at 6 months. I'm going try making the RJS super tuscan this weekend and would love any other suggested big red wine kits