i was sitting around rearranging my bottles of wine when i noticed a beige coloured spot on one of them. on closer inspection, the spot was in fact on the inside of the bottledirectly in contact with the wine inside. not knowing what it was, i started swishing the air pocket in the bottle over the beige spot. to my horror, it started to dissolve into the wine!! seemed quite disgusting.... is the beige spot actually the beginning of crusting? not knowing better, that would be my optimistic hope. or is it some gunk that got inside at bottling? or brett substance? or TCA solids? anyone got any experience with this?
otherwise, i would have to open it and find out... btw, it's a veritas christa rolf 02, so i am not looking at significant damage...
beige spot of gunk inside bottle....
Hi Hi n Dry
I would suspect this may be some settled yeast esp. if this wine wasn't filtered prior to bottling, however I am not sure about Rolf's preferred techniques and I am sure he can enlighten us on that point.
One other less pleasing possibility is that wineries usually do not finish a palate of bottles at the exact same time that they finish the bottling run, therefore there are usually some bottles left on the palate in a less than sterile environment. Any condensation that forms from being stored in the sun/other is a great breeding ground for any micro-organisms or spores that manage to get into the open bottles. Therefore it is quite feasible that a small colony of liquid resistant bugs/mould could have formed, and (which are probably dead) would not break apart until you agitated it enough.
Either way, neither will kill you, or affect the taste (btw, if they were bugs that were going to affect the wine, they would have dissolved into it and probably wouldn't have started up in condensation in the first place).
You may also be able to check to see if they were unfiltered yeast by looking at other bottles if you have any. If this is the case, all bottles should have this deposit.
I would suspect this may be some settled yeast esp. if this wine wasn't filtered prior to bottling, however I am not sure about Rolf's preferred techniques and I am sure he can enlighten us on that point.
One other less pleasing possibility is that wineries usually do not finish a palate of bottles at the exact same time that they finish the bottling run, therefore there are usually some bottles left on the palate in a less than sterile environment. Any condensation that forms from being stored in the sun/other is a great breeding ground for any micro-organisms or spores that manage to get into the open bottles. Therefore it is quite feasible that a small colony of liquid resistant bugs/mould could have formed, and (which are probably dead) would not break apart until you agitated it enough.
Either way, neither will kill you, or affect the taste (btw, if they were bugs that were going to affect the wine, they would have dissolved into it and probably wouldn't have started up in condensation in the first place).
You may also be able to check to see if they were unfiltered yeast by looking at other bottles if you have any. If this is the case, all bottles should have this deposit.
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Hi n Dry
Hi Wizz, it's the christa rolf shiraz grenache, so the beige spot, which was almost a swirl, looked pretty menacing against the dark background.
Glen, thanks for the information! i really hope it's the yeast and not anything nasty which may kill the wine. after the dissolution of the spot, i was holding the bottle up against the light and it still has that healthy ruby redness about it, so really donno what to make of it. in any case, if it smells remotely funny upon opening, i will feed it to the faucet for sure...
Glen, thanks for the information! i really hope it's the yeast and not anything nasty which may kill the wine. after the dissolution of the spot, i was holding the bottle up against the light and it still has that healthy ruby redness about it, so really donno what to make of it. in any case, if it smells remotely funny upon opening, i will feed it to the faucet for sure...