New World Winemaker Blog

Originally published July 2006:

I hear this all the time in the Tasting Salon — “I can’t drink much wine; it gives me a headache. I think I’m allergic to the sulfites.” I don’t know how this myth got started, but I sure would like to dispel it once and for all. You are not allergic to sulfites.

At least, the chances are 100,000 to 1 that you are not. And if you are in that 99.9999th percentile you KNOW it. You knew it when you woke up in the hospital after nearly dying of suffocation from your first trip to a salad bar or your first bite of dried fruit (potentially loaded with metabisulfite, to prevent browning).

People who are allergic to sulfites go into anaphylactic shock when they are exposed to them — they choke to death. So far as I know there is no research to support the existence of a range of reaction to sulfite allergy. “Allergic to sulfites” equals anaphylaxis; no choking — no allergy.

I will allow the possibility that there could be a lesser physiological reaction, but I have not seen any sort of intermediate in myself or any of the hundreds of people I have worked with in all my years in the winery cellar. And in the cellar we not only ingest sulfites, but frequently breathe in clouds of sulfur dioxide — a much harsher test of sensitivity. Reactions may be choking and burning throat and eyes, but never headache.

You can do your own test at home (but only if you know you are not susceptible to anaphylaxis!). Light a kitchen match in a closed space and breathe in the fumes. If you develop a headache similar to the one you get when you drink wine, post a comment and let us know.

And by the way, everything fermented has a small amount of sulfites in it, because yeast produces sulfite as a metabolic by-product. Some wine yeast produce more than others. But every wine — even “organic” wines labeled with “no sulfites” — have some sulfites in them. So other fermented foods (bread, yogurt, kimchee, etc.) should give you a headache as well.

Update March 2009:

This piece has generated a flood of comments along the lines of: “I once ate this and this and this and this, and one of them contained sulfites, and I got a headache.” Some of these comments include the assertion “I have been told I have sulfite allergy.” I have rejected and will continue to reject publication of this line of commentary.

I am not a physician. If I was, I would not venture to make diagnoses online. I am a trained experimental scientist, and as such will say that coincidence is not the same as causation. The continued assertion that “I ate or drank something that contains sulfites and got a headache therefore I am allergic to sulfites” demsonstrates how deeply and unshakably this “sulfites in wine causes heacaches” meme has penetrated popular culture.

I am waiting for one of the “I have been told I am allergic to sulfites” comments to include “…by my physician who did his/her dissertation on sulfite sensitivities at [insert respected medical institution here].” I have not seen any such coda, and frankly don’t expect to.

John Kelly is the owner and winemaker of Westwood Winery in Sonoma, California.

There is a movement in winemaking that strives to make “natural wines”. These wines, sometimes called “real wines”, are wines that contain nothing but grape juice. In its purest form no additives whatsoever are added to the juice and the wine often does not contain any SO₂. This leads to a wine that is as pure as nature could have intended it, and sometimes quite far from what often is considered ideal.

The wine will have no protection against oxidation, and could sometimes turn brown within hours of opening. The acid might be way too low, which might let other components such as tannin, alcohol and fullness suffer. But the purpose of creating a wine where nothing was added, and the elixir of life being as natural could make it, is achieved. In the fashion world there also seems to be a movement away from perfection, with more normal sized women, with more natural dimensions and figures making a comeback.

“Winemakers” of this natural wine would sometimes let you know that it is even more difficult making natural wine, than normal wine. Fermentations are followed under the microscope, and the timing of picking is very critical. Organic winemakers have been using similar techniques, with mixed success. The Holy Grail seems to be a balance between natural techniques and modern winemaking.

Chris Anderson wrote an article (and lately a book) in Wired magazine in 2004, on the phenomenon known as the “long tail”. Chris postulates that in a market where there is an extreme amount of choice, about 20% of sales will be made out of a very small amount of products, while the other 80% of the total buying power is spread over a huge amount of products. This long tail can be extremely profitable, because it means that there is a market for a very large amount of small products. In a video store about 20% of the rentals will be made out of a very small amount of titles, while the presence of a large assortment of other titles will take care of the rest.

Making natural wine will be somebody’s ticket to success in the long tail.

Ever wondered what goes into the launch of a new yeast strain? Well the answer is lots of research that costs lots of money, laboratory scale winemaking, small scale winemaking and then finally commercial trials. These commercial trials are usually done with a commercial production of the yeast, i.e. active dried yeast. Commercial trials happen in wineries off course, with winemakers conducting them and not researchers in a controlled environment. So one has to rely on these winemakers to follow your instructions precisely and fill in the required evaluation forms afterwards. OK so this is how it goes…

You phone a few winemakers. You ask if they are interested in a trial. They indicate they are. You lay the ground rules: same juice in two tanks, one tank inoculated with a control yeast of choice and one the experimental yeast. All juice analyses required beforehand and final wine analyses required afterwards. Fermentation graphs must be supplied as well as tasting notes and samples for the researchers or manufacturing company to taste. All willing winemakers agree to this. You give the yeast – for free off course.

After the harvest, this is what you get:

• Group A, the smallest group of winemakers, actually did what you asked
• Group B used the yeast, did everything you asked, except keep a control
• Group C used the yeast, kept no control, filled in no forms but managed at least to present a fermentation chart
• Group D used the yeast, no control, usually do have a fermentation chart, did not taste the wine and already blended it with something else
• Group E used the yeast, but has no record of where
• Group F did not use the yeast – it is still sitting in the store

And last but not the least a new group that materialised the last time I did trials actually used the yeast, kept a control but the cooling broke in the middle of a heat wave and both white wine tanks fermented at about 30°C. I am happy to report that the experimental yeast faired as badly as the control yeast and not worse.

So, commercial trials are, to say the least, quite challenging. The idea is to hand out enough yeast so that a critical mass can be obtained in Group A.  And don’t think selecting a different group of winemakers next time round gives you any different statistics. Nope, this is how it is.

It seems like it has been a while since the question of whether unfined and unfiltered wines are “better” than their more processed cousins was the topic du jour in the wine media space. Maybe the topic has been talked to death. Maybe writers and marketers alike have decided there is no “there” there. Maybe consumers have read all there is to read, and tasted enough wines to have made up their own minds.

Nah.

“Fining” is the addition to the wine of a tiny amount of some substance — usually a protein such as that found in gelatin, egg whites, or milk — that binds with something in the wine the winemaker finds objectionable and then falls to the bottom of the tank or barrel, allowing the clear wine to be racked off the fining lees.

“Filtration” is the process of passing the wine under pressure through some medium, in order to directly remove something undesirable to the winemaker. Both of these processes can be employed to improve clarity. Fining (and some types of filtration) can modify the wine’s tannin structure. Filtration can be used to completely remove yeast and bacteria, ensuring that a properly-filtered wine won’t re-ferment in the bottle. Specific types of filtration can remove alcohol or volatile acidity. And oh yeah, there’s more — lots more.

Fining and filtration are tools that the experienced wine craftsman can use judiciously to correct minor flaws in a wine, to make a wine “better.” A non-interventionist demagogue may argue that employing any of these tools invariably makes a wine worse, but I believe this point of view would be demolished in a blind tasting of certain wines by a broad cross section of knowledgeable wine consumers. Simply, some slightly flawed wines are improved by fining and/or filtration.

Now I can hear some passive-aggressive “critics” — with no money tied up in grapes and barrels — saying “so don’t make flawed wines.” To this I say “bite me.” You try this, genius. It ain’t as easy as I make it look.

At Westwood I don’t make any whites, and all my reds have no residual sugar, are 100% ML-complete, and are aged long enough in barrels that they should be stable to microbial activity and precipitation. Except in an experimental setting, I take special care in the fermenter to assure that the wines’ tannins have the structure I want to see in the finished wine. I don’t fine or filter Westwood wines because I don’t have to. And rule number one in my winemaking philosophy is “never do anything to the wine you don’t have to.”

That said, if I think a wine is too cloudy I will filter it. If a wine plates positive for Brettanomyces I will sterile-filter it — I don’t like Brett in the bottle. And if a wine is slightly flawed but in my opinion good enough in every other dimension, I will correct that flaw rather than lose a ton of money trying to sell the wine into a saturated bulk market.