That would be my guess as most likely.
Ditto!
A (somewhat) controlled experiment would be to buy two bottles from same source. Store one in the cooler, one on the counter, allow them both to come up to same temp, then taste and compare.
I have noticed wines stored in the regular fridge too long can become off, but that takes longer than a month or two in my experience.
I might suggest taking one of the bottles that the two of you considered ‘ruined’ to a wine shop or somewhere else and have them taste it as well. Or open one up with other local wine friends.
The thought of a cooler ‘ruining’ all the wines is kind of hard to believe - and it’s hard to believe that all of the wines would have been ‘ruined’ in the same manner from the store itself. Yes, a few of them may have had issues, but all of them? Not likely.
Keep us posted - this really is interesting . . .
Cheers.
And have someone bag and poor them so you’re tasting blindly!
i didnt read every response but from the ones I did read I have a couple questions:
- have you tried any of the bedrocks or non-fruit bomb wines youre concerned about from the cooler yet? this is something thats worth some infanticide to ensure its not destroying them all
- i would suggest getting two bottles of prisoner at the same time, put one in the fridge and the other in a shady/cooler part of your house for a couple weeks. bottles sit on store shelves for years sometimes without issue, room temp for a month or so shouldnt hurt it. taste the two bottles side by side a few weeks later.
Try putting some sodas and/or water in there for awhile and taste. Is it different from normal? Then it’s the cooler. Probably a small freon leak, which would also effect the temperature swings.
I had a small fridge at my shop do this. Water, Pepsi, Gatorade, and beer that came out of that fridge tasted like what you describe.
This sounds like the possible culprit…
Yes, or put one in the fridge over night after the other has been in there for a month and do the same thing after taking them out.
A coolant leak is an interesting conjecture. I don’t think they’re supposed to use freon in most of these units any more, but it’s worth looking into - maybe a coolant is leaking?
Check around for some oily residue. The coolant is pressurized and when it leaks, it expands into a gas very fast and can blow around some of the lubricating oil. The main business of the cooler is usually outside, so check outside and around and on the unit itself for a thin oily residue. Also check inside. That could indeed affect the temperature swings.
But freon is odorless, so the mushroom character is still a mystery, unless there’s condensation and mildew forming somewhere. In any case, I find it nearly impossible to believe that the flavor would permeate the wine. And flavors are not going through the corks.
Even sealed liquids?
I can’t say it effected anything in glass bottle, but it defintely spoiled everything in plastic or aluminum can. I think some of these small refrigerators do not do an adequate job at isolating the cooling mechanism from the contents. YMMV
Curious what your Uline smells like after being emptied and turned off for a few days (if btls can be stored elsewhere).
If the unit is keeping consistently cool bottle temperatures, it shouldn’t be affecting the wine negatively. It doesn’t seem like it’s getting cold enough to freeze the wine and compromise the seal. One cooler in our place gets indirect light and keeps wine in the 60s. Not had a bad bottle, even ones stored in there for years, to the point that I no longer worry about it. I’d consider the storage conditions in the shop and how the wines were handled in transport to the retailer. Do you always purchase from the same establishment? Maybe buy a bottle from a different store?
For some odd reason, this thread is starting to remind me of the “Saccharomyces cerevisiae in wine making/allergies” thread.
I suspect there will be a “yes, but” for every hypothesis.
I’m falling more and more into the camp others have mentioned: cold temperature mutes fruit bombs.
I’ve never heard the pine nuts thing. Can you expand on that?
Bad pine nuts can impact perceptions of taste for several weeks after consuming in rare (but well recorded) cases. My mom had a bad batch once and everything tasted bitter and metallic for her for almost a month and a half.
I had heard it was raw Chinese pine nuts that did, not sure if true.
I have had the pine nuts thing happen – in my case it wasn’t for weeks, but for about 3-4 days. There’s some argument about what’s going on (it doesn’t seem to hinge on the nuts being, for instance, organic or not, but I too have heard whispers about the Chinese pine nuts being an issue). I’ve found that the Mediterranean Pine Nuts you can buy from nutsinbulk.com are a-okay.
TL; DR
I’d say get some friends together and open some bottles. See what they think, how your impressions differ.