Petillance or spritz in a still wine

I am curious about what people do when they encounter petillance or spritz in a still wine that isn’t supposed to have any dissolved CO2. When it comes to minimal intervention wines, it’s sometimes considered a feature, not a flaw, as it probably has to do with low SO2, no filtration, and some unfinished fermentation (ML incomplete in a cold cellar I wonder?) completing in bottle. I’ve also seen notes on wines like SQN or Marcassin where bubbliness is given a pass. Another thread on a CdR, however, broadly views spritz as a fault.

I guess from my perspective, if the intent is still wine, spritz is an outright fault. Am I being too harsh? Is it OK if it blows off with decanting, assuming any off aromas created by in-bottle fermentation are minor or even complementary?

A lot of low intervention producers leave gas in the wine to protect it from oxidation. I generally decant those.

Edited to add: is it a fault? Well, it can be surprising. It doesn’t bother me most of the time.

I get mad when I find it in SQN or in Saxum, but promptly give whatever it is a Mollydooker shake and the problem is solved more often than not…

Interesting–how does the CO2 buffer against oxidation? I guess if you get enough dissolved, it saturates the wine and no oxygen can dissolve. I wonder how they do it. I doubt they add it, so perhaps they bottle just after fermentation has completed.

Are there any funky aromas associated with the spritz? Wondering if this trapped CO2 as mentioned above, or some small in-bottle fermentation. If it doesn’t taste/smell bad and decanting/shaking solves the bubbles, then no harm, no foul I suppose.

It does depend on the amount for me but in general I think we can say there was a flaw in the winemaking. On the CdR, those bottles had too much to ‘blow off’. So much so that the wine was flawed and undrinkable even if you could decant the spritz away. At least my bottles were. I’ve also been able to drink other wines where a small amount of spritz faded with swirling, decanting or just plain time but then I wondered about that producer as well as how it affected the wine.

Ive never detected a foul odor but I always feel like the wine has lost some of its character. The 04 Saxum Bone Rock had a problem with spritz and at its worst the wine tasted watery even post shake.

Greg – Are you including whites? J.J. Prüm wines often have some spritz, as do other many other top Germans, and I don’t think anyone would accuse their wines of being flawed. I asked Katherina Prüm about that and she said it may be because they don’t move their wine around so much.

In reds, after a year or more of barrel aging plus racking, any spritz has to be regarded with suspicion unless it’s an effervescent wine by intention.

I vaguely recall some winemakers on eBob a few years back debunking the notion that CO2 would help preserve the wine. But it’s only a faint memory, and it doesn’t mean that the non-interventionist don’t believe it helps.

As far as whites, I think they should be included, but I’m aware of many styles like Vinho Verde and Moscato d’Asti that intentionally aim for a slightly bubbly style. Seems like upper-tier German Riesling probably falls in the ‘petillance by intent’ camp.

Since intent is sometimes hard to judge, it’s probably easier to discuss reds since so few intentionally aim for spritz.

CO2 is heavier than air/oxygen so a layer of CO2 will sit on top of the wine, keeping oxygen away.

The degree to which CO2 is soluble in wine (or beer ) is temperature dependent. Lower temperatures = more soluble. This is true of oxygen and nitrogen as well, but these gases are 50 to 100 times less soluble than CO2. A wine held in a very cold cellar will retain quite a bit of CO2 from fermentation, even in a barrel. So a wine that is minimally handled and kept in a very cold cellar until bottling could retain at least some CO2, and that CO2 will be released as the wine’s temperature rises.

OK, this is kind of similar to formation of tartrate crystals, just with solubility of the gas moving in a different direction with temperature relative to dissolved solids. I wouldn’t consider tartrate crystals a fault, so I suppose dissolved CO2–assuming a cold cellar is the cause–shouldn’t be either.

How does dissolved CO2 affect solubility of other gases? If we were talking about mixes of ideal gases on either side of a permeable membrane, the partial pressures would be most important. But my intuition here is that saturated dissolved CO2–I’m assuming that’s the case if an increase in temperature brings about the spritz–would generally prevent less soluble gases from dissolving along side it, though I suppose the partial pressure of CO2 vs. O2 and N2 would still be relevant. Once bottled, that seems like that might be the most important effect.

I don’t think any German winemaker would say he or she intended the CO2. I think it’s seen as a harmless fact of life that quickly dissipates.

If a winemaker wants petillance, they’ll do something to induce it. I don’t think they’ll rely on residual CO2 from the fermentation alone.

As for reds, there are a fair number, as I’m sure Bob Rogness will point out if I don’t. Italy boasts not only Lambrusco but Bracchetto d’Acqui and some sparkling Freisas. I’ve had a couple from the Languedoc, as well. And that’s not counting Bartle & James in California.

You might be a little harsh. Some initial spritz is fine with me. Unless it’s a sparkler or frizzante, I’m not so happy about watching a just stoppered cork…pop out, especially repeatedly.

Sometimes shaking can help. Too often, these seem to be “natural wines” that have gone native, causing a loss of patience. Usually, the flavor component becomes an issue pretty quickly. Not that there’s anything wrong with “natural” (other than being a virtually meaningless term), just that the success stories - in my limited experience, don’t yet seem to outweigh the wannabees.

One consideration, in Pinots atleast, is that higher dissolved CO2 levels will dull the aromas and flavors. Sometimes a quick bottle shake really is called for.

RT

Sounds like based on Rick’s post above, the CO2 probably relates to lightly handled wines in cold cellars. I guess from true cold climate regions, some dissolved CO2 should be a common occurrence.

I’ve had a bubbly Lacrima di Morro d’Alba–I hope Roberto would approve! Anyway, I want to stick with wines where intent is a still wine–the producer describes it as still, and maybe any reviews you’ve read say the same. If I buy a Lambrusco and don’t like the style, well, that is my fault.

I was thinking about that factor, too, with the Germans.

Well, you’ve met my show of erudition with your own. Good work!

And I can’t quarrel with personal taste, though a good Lambrusco can taste mighty fine with a good salame if you haven’t tried that match. But I fear I’m starting to sound like Deputy Rogness…

Many, many times the perception of spritz is the result of acidity in the wine. It’s a tactile sensation from the interaction of acid with mucosal tissues in the mouth. Some people are more subject to it than others, but I’d say at least half the time someone thinks a wine is spritzy, its not. Similarly the perception of minerality in many if not most cases is driven by tho tactile perception of acid and even tannin interacting with mucosal tissues in the mouth. The difference being the difference between actual flavors vs. what is tactile. Examples, bitterness is a flavor, but astringency is tactile and not flavor.

Since I only drink fruit bombs I guess I dont have to worry about fake spritz due to high acidity

A mild spritz is often just from dissolved CO2, which is more soluble at cellar temperature than room temperature. This seems to be particularly true with pinot noir which winemakers generally try to not move around too much (racking, etc) because pinot seems much more affected by exposure to oxygen.

Lots of California pinots have a mild spritz. Put your hand over the top and shake, then listen for the pffft when you remove your hand. If I can detect it when I taste, I just decant with a funnel that spreads the wine to the sides of the decanter and wait a bit.

"CO2 is heavier than air/oxygen so a layer of CO2 will sit on top of the wine, keeping oxygen away. " This doesn’t work. At any reasonable temperature (one where you will survive), collisions between molecules will keep the CO2 so thoroughly mixed in the head space that it’s uniformly mixed from a practical standpoint. Gravity could produce concentration chances with differences in altitude, but only over large distances (eg, several kilometers to change relative concentration by a couple tens of percent). Also, it doesn’t separate the gases into layers, just produces slow changes in concentration as a function of height. (If you squirted CO2 into an empty bottle, it would initially flow to the bottom but then the collisions will distribute it throughout the bottle. This is why people think there is a blanket effect.)

-Al

Interesting, and I don’t doubt that you’re right in many cases. In German Rieslings, however, you can often see the tiny CO2 bubbles.