Page 11 - Grapevine May-June 2019

In The Winery

not express themselves directly as Hydrogen Sulfide
or Mercaptans. Some wines may have just enough
of one of these compounds, or both, to lightly mask
the underlying fruit expression. Winemakers may
not know nice smelling wine can actually smell
nicer. It is an easy test – so why not run these
trails!

Where? Most winemakers will perform this test
in the winery laboratory, away from the chill of the
cellar floor, where a wine will have the ability to
open up and allow for undisrupted critical analysis
of the wine’s aroma. If winemakers cannot find
this tranquility in their winery, it is recommended
to take a sample home and do the trials in a home
environment. One must be able to focus and have
conditions for the wine to open up. This is critical.

Tools needed

• Clean wineglasses with a narrow focused open-
ing to the bowl (I.N.A.O. style). All exact same
size and style.

• Glass watch covers for each glass (optional but
highly recommended). may be different.

• Representative samples of each wine to be sam- 2. Fill each glass with the same quantity of wine.
pled. This is often between 80-100 milliliters per wine
glass depending on the wine glass size.
• 1.0% Copper Sulfate solution (One percent).
3. Have another person place 1 drop of the 1%
• Spit cup. Copper Sulfate into one of the glasses and to
swirl all three glasses equally to mix the addition
• Clear and “in tune” nasal passages. into the wine and to treat each glass equally
with a swirl.
How? This test is very easy to perform as long as
the environment is proper for the aroma analysis. 4. Place watch glasses over each of the glass open-
If possible, work closely with someone else to mix ings and leave the glasses to sit for about 5 to
up the wineglasses after treatment so you will be 10 minutes.
blind on this analysis. If this can’t be done – do
proceed since experience will help take any bias out 5. Approach the wine glasses and remove the
of the results. watch glasses one at a time to smell the aromas
in the headspace of the glass. Go through the
1. Place three (“aroma free”) dry clean wine glass- wines at least three times and perhaps more
es on a table and label them x, 4 and > or any to select the wine that smells the best. Record
other random characters that may not lead a your results.
person to select one wine glass over another
but allow them to identify what glass or glasses 6. Leave the wine glasses for another 15 minutes

877-892-5332 The Grapevine • May - June 2019 Page 9

Grapevine Main Pages GV050619_Layout 1-1 .indd 9 4/16/19 12:57 PM