A little over a year ago we had pulled a few samples from our 2013 Heimat Silvaner to see how it can handle the air with different dosages of SO2 – and without anything added. You might remember the blog post.
One year later, second vintage. The wine is higher in acid (6g/l) and lower in alcohol (10.5%) than the 2013 vintage. It’s still in the barrel on the full lees. And it was time to document the oxidation process. No SO2 tests this time. I felt confident. So I got a decanter filled to leave it on our dining table plus a glass which I took pictures of from time to time.
Fresh from the barrel the wine tastes still young and closed. And it benefits from the air. Like – a lot. One hour later it slowly starts opening up. That was roughly the state of the bottles we brought to the Weinsalon Natürel in Cologne two weeks ago. Bertrand Celce from wineterroirs.com wrote about it:
Man, that’s such an easy drinking, I’m already getting beautifully high…
This is just the beginning. Take a look what happened from there:
Each our the wine becomes a little more orange, thicker, more intense, full, spicy and aromatic. After 4-5 hours there is a tiny little bit of sherry but more in a nutty way. We loved it. The next morning the wine had become deeply orange. But more of a red orange than a brown orange. And the wine was still beautiful. After 24 hours the color was freaking intense and the nutty sherry pretty obvious but still integrated. So oxidation flavors yes but also still a lot more. A completely different but still very enjoyable wine. This is a LOT more stable than what we had last year.
I did a little dance of joy realizing that.
2 Replies to “The 2014 Heimat Silvaner oxidation experiment”