ZAP!
Like alot of other wine bloggers I had a great time at ZAP, but I’m still tired from all the tasting. Morgan, Jimmy and I tasted through over 200 Zins from 8-10 am before the media arrived in an effort to screen for TCA. It was something (I think we only found 4 bottles with taint).
Overall I was extremely impressed with Napa and Russian River Zin, and with the former especially. Napa fruit from the Hayne vineyard produced by Chase and Turley were standouts. Really tremendous stuff that, when made in the restrained style, sports refined aromatics that rival those of Pinot. Just amazing stuff. Down the line the Ravenswood vineyard designates were phenomenal as well.
I looked for fellow wine bloggers, but alas none of us crossed paths. I did however get to spend some time talking to Paul Draper of Ridge and had a fantastic conversation about the similarities between Zinfandel and Pinot noir with Joel Peterson. It was a great experience all around.
Morgan led us on a whirlwind tour of his favorite producers and introduced me to some very cool folks who have built their reputations from years of producing great wines. Interestingly, I even heard talk about a controversial new antiseptic that sterilizes high pH wines. I’m currently attempting to locate more information about the chemical, but so far there is very little out there besides what I heard at ZAP. What makes it controversial? In its pure form it’s poison! More on this later I’m sure.
In other news I wasn’t able to record the ASEV talk on berry ripeness like I’d hoped, but I’ll be posting some slides and commentary from the conference as soon as I get them.
4 Comments → “ZAP!”
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- - 4 years ago
[...] About a week ago I mentioned that after talking with folks at ZAP that I heard about a fairly toxic chemical that winemakers were using to kill microbes (yeast, mold, bacteria) and stabilize wines. It turns out that the chemical has been around and in use, with FDA approval I might add, since 1988. So basically I’m pretty late to the party on this one. Cyril Penn at Wine Business Monthly has even written a piece on new mobile Velcorin dosing services back in July of 2005. [...]
Are you talking about Velcorin maybe? This stuff is even usefull in low PH wines too since a even a low PH is not going to protect you from Brett (allthough some of the tartaric junkies may not agree).
http://winebusiness.com/ReferenceLibrary/webarticle.cfm?dataId=39048
That is indeed the stuff, and it looks like I’m late to the party since Bayer started making this stuff in 1988. I had actually heard of dimethyl dicarbonate before in passing, but I’d never heard of Velcorin until ZAP. My concern is that there are no label requirements currently, but given the new interest in government wanting us to disclose the use of milk, eggs and fish bladders in winemaking, how would it look to have to put a chemical on your label that can cause burns, is combustible, and that if inhaled “may be irritating to mucous membranes and upper respiratory tract. May affect behavior/central nervous system. Symptoms may include somnolence, tremor. May also affect respiratory system (dyspnea), and metabolism.”
Nasty stuff. I wouldn’t want to have to work PR on this one.
Thanks for the comment.
Is this a wordpress blog? or some other software?