Reconsidering Sulfites (SFGate.com Article)

This is a pretty interesting article about sulfites. At the end of it, the author gives a little "Sulfite Primer" which might be interesting to the novice wine geek.

Read it here: Reconsidering sulfites: Progressive vintners weigh the pros and cons of the controversial winemaking tool

Thanks for the post, interesting.
I tend to like Dashe's zins a lot (a forgotten '98 was very good couple months ago).
I am slightly confused on the L'Enfant Terrible, where it says he and Mark E. agreed no new oak, but later he could avoid sulfur as it was going into new barrels?

Thanks for the post, interesting.
I tend to like Dashe's zins a lot (a forgotten '98 was very good couple months ago).
I am slightly confused on the L'Enfant Terrible, where it says he and Mark E. agreed no new oak, but later he could avoid sulfur as it was going into new barrels?

Maybe this is it. The article states, "Ellenbogen said any potential new wine needed to be made from grapes farmed organically or biodynamically, picked early, then processed in a way that avoided high fruit extraction or the heavy flavors of new oak (my emphasis)." And farther down Dashe mentions that the oak is new and clean. Perhaps it has to do with the structure of the and treatment of the oak in the barrels Dashe is using. I'm guessing one can choose a barrel which will impart more or less barrel flavor. And, I imagine, you can also handle the wine such that it picks up less oak flavor. Minimal intervention is also intervention ...

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Ed. Note: It's been my turn in the barrel so often that I guess this is something I should have noticed by now.

Yeah, I wondered if it was just a super light toast. Still, I found it funny that they mentioned avoiding new oak flavors and then apparently Dashe used 100% new.

Given a choice between just a smidgeon of sulfites and....peanut butter......hmmmmm?

MIke's "L'Enfant Terrible" was raised in a 900 gallon foudre, that had had, I believe, one wine in it before. It was bottled in April, on the 11th, as I recall, so the time in wood was fairly short.( I bottled a wine at Dashe that same day, and gave Mike permission to use the "L'Enfant Terrible" name, which I'd used on young-vine Mourvedre for three vintages back in the '90's.)

Not mentioned in the article is the fact that when the foudre (or any other barrel, for that matter) is filled, the barrel will have received an SO2 rinse after being emptied of the last wine it contained, and if stored empty for any period of time beyond a few days, will typically be stored full of water containing a substantial dose of SO2 and some citric acid. When the filling is done, it's often done under inert gas. The tools available these days to minimize or avoid direct sulfur additions are myriad and impressive.

[David M. Bueker]

Thanks for the insight Steve. I purchased 3 bottles of the L'Enfant & now I cannot wait to taste one (though I will wait until fall).

for sulfites as for many other things: better safe than sorry.

MIke's "L'Enfant Terrible"

I loved loved loved that wine when we had it by the glass at Slanted Door, on a lazy afternoon sitting at the bar, this past July. We went back two days later and had a bottle with lunch. We own four bottles of it currently. I wish it was many more.

thanks for clarification. When it said new barrels I was envisioning 225 litre or maybe 200 gallon ones, a 900 gallon foudre obviously has less contact (and of course if used even once less obvious oak). I just threw in a couple of these in my CSW order.

Good article, but with one factual error at the very end. The article mentions that SO2 can result in aromas of burnt matchsticks or rotten eggs. Burnt matchsticks, yes. Rotten eggs, no--rotten egg aroma is specifically hydrogen sulfide (H2S), not sulfur dioxide (SO2).

-Paul W.