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June 23, 2021 | Wine Geek Wednesday | Hannah Perry

Wine Geek Wednesday

🍇 Oxygen: Wine's Best Friend & Worst Enemy🍇

Oxygen can make or break wine, so the winemaking process is tedious and requires constant attention and awareness. Oxygen is needed particularly during the fermentation process as yeast need it to survive! A by product of the fermentation process is CO2, and can actually become very dangerous during, as it can cause a person to fall unconscious if breathed in.

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A FRIEND AND FOE

Why oxygen is needed during fermentation: Yeast devours high levels of oxygen in order to do their wonderful job of taking sugar in the must (grape skins, seeds, and pulp) and making alcohol. Different yeast selections help the winemakers' achieve their desired flavors and aromas.

Too much oxygen is a bad thing:

After fermentation has finished and the yeast is no longer producing CO2, the wine is no longer protected from oxygen and it can begin to oxidize. Too much oxidation can ruin a wine and all of its bright and pretty nuances and could even turn it to vinegar!

DID YOU KNOW?

White wines don’t want a lot of oxygen contact prior to fermentation because it can cause browning. So we use dry ice to blanket the juice in the tank and then start fermentation. Once fermentation is started, co2 blankets the juice and prevents browning. Some white wines come out darker due to the aging process, like oak aged Chardonnays.

For quality control purposes, we taste the wine on the job but begrudgingly have to spit it out as no one wants a boozy winemaker running forklifts or making their wine.