The Auswine Forum

It is with some annoyance that I must explain my unfortunate experience with a wine and winery which I hold in such high esteem. Some 4 years ago I purchased 2 x 2001 Moss Wood cabernets under stelvin from an auction house. Since my purchase they have spent the entire time in a wine fridge and last night I decided to try one. To say i was disappointed is an understatement.

After a 2 hour decant
Medium - dark garnet colour and glorious clarity without showing any visible aging signs
Soft reticent violets on the nose (at this stage you could imagine my anticipation)
Aggressive, hot and unbalanced acid through the palate. (I had tasted it throughout the decant and there was a subtle improvement but it never rid itself of that unbalanced aggressive feature)
Over the next 2 hours of drinking still no improvements.

Any suggestions as to why such a pedigree wine with great colour/nose/closure would end up as it did?
Clearly not cork taint or even heat damage. What else could have gone wrong?

Regards

Provenance from previous owner? Heat
Do you taste prior to decant?
I have had this wine 6 times from stelvin
Pretty young still

michel wrote:Provenance from previous owner? Heat
Do you taste prior to decant?
I have had this wine 6 times from stelvin
Pretty young still

No idea re previous owner. Tasted on opening -similar traits. Minimal change throughout the evening. I thought it may have been too young but at 16 years? I recently had a 2005 Woodlands Cab Sav which was perfection in a glass, a totally different experience to the Moss Wood from a wine which also demands patience.

Will leave the last bottle for another 5 years.

Yes, unfortunately the key words are "purchased at Auction House" .

It dose sound like heat affected wine.

Rory

Rory wrote:Yes, unfortunately the key words are "purchased at Auction House" .

It dose sound like heat affected wine.

Rory

Really pisses me off that someone potentially knowingly offloaded heat affected wine. Why would anyone buy $80/bottle wine and not respect it?

Buying at auction is a lottery. The risk is always high. Thus why I avoid it.

When I get a wine I know should be good, but isn't, if it's expensive (say $50+) I'll keep as much in the original bottle as I can, and immediately send it (under my own steam) to the winery, not making any claims of any particular fault, simply stating my own unhappiness with it, and asking for the winery's assessment. I'm not an expert, and not sensitive enough to always distinguish between TCA, oxidation, heat, or other factors. Sometimes the winemaker will reply that the bottle is sound, with no faults that they can discern, and I'll accept that with good grace. Sometimes I'll get a response that the particular bottle is indeed faulty (and on occasion a winery has mentioned some fault I've never even heard of!). However, on almost every occasion, the winery will graciously send me a replacement - if not the same high level wine I've returned to them, then a lower rung wine, as good customer relations.

Rory wrote:Yes, unfortunately the key words are "purchased at Auction House". It does sound like heat affected wine.

Whether heat affected or not, and only tasting could confirm it, "purchased at auction house" may explain things.

I recall many years ago stopping at a Woolies on the way up the coast from Sydney and picking up a few bottles of wine. Later that evening at dinner I opened one of he bottles, a riesling, and despite it being a current vintage it was clearly cooked, so obviously heat affected that I returned the bottle on the way home later that week. Clearly a shipping and storage problem, not he fault of the winery.

Mahmoud.

You could always bite the bullet and pick up the same bottle same vintage from a certain retailer I won't mention to test it side by side with one of your bottles to find out if it's actually faulty or just not your style. If by some freak chance that bottle is also shot, then atleast you can return it to the retailer.

Plenty of notes on CT. Whilst there might some notes that align to your experience, the majority don't seem to. Palate variation / TN writing varies so much that such a comparison should be applied with caution, but it doesn't seem to suggest a widespread problem.
https://www.cellartracker.com/list.asp? ... +Sauvignon

Ian S wrote:Plenty of notes on CT. Whilst there might some notes that align to your experience, the majority don't seem to. Palate variation / TN writing varies so much that such a comparison should be applied with caution, but it doesn't seem to suggest a widespread problem.
https://www.cellartracker.com/list.asp? ... +Sauvignon

Thank you all for your comments.

Ian S, I read all the CT notes in the preceding weeks to make sure that the bottle should be ready. Even my wife who has an excellent palate for detecting quality wine picked something was wrong.
Speaking of which, I made the mistake? of introducing my wife to red burgundy. Was only a premier cru but she loved it and now wants me to buy more burgundy. I haven't told her that it is a rich man's game.

Rocky wrote:I made the mistake? of introducing my wife to red burgundy. Was only a premier cru but she loved it and now wants me to buy more burgundy. I haven't told her that it is a rich man's game.

See if she is happy with top Aussie pinot (eg Bindi). If so, might end up saving you some serious cash!

May I interpose a question but what would you (collectively) feel is too high a temperature? My brother lives in Cairns and is always moaning about the temps being too high to keep wine. I believe him but I was wondering what a subjective tipping point might be.

Rocky wrote:Speaking of which, I made the mistake? of introducing my wife to red burgundy. Was only a premier cru but she loved it and now wants me to buy more burgundy. I haven't told her that it is a rich man's game.

Ditto, but with Barolo, Pomerol and Krug

RobK wrote:May I interpose a question but what would you (collectively) feel is too high a temperature? My brother lives in Cairns and is always moaning about the temps being too high to keep wine. I believe him but I was wondering what a subjective tipping point might be.

If I lived in cairns I would see wine fridges as a necessity, and good air conditioning in the room the reds are consumed in.
No way I would passively store wine in my house much north of Sydney. Even here I find the summer peak a little concerning.

RobK wrote:May I interpose a question but what would you (collectively) feel is too high a temperature? My brother lives in Cairns and is always moaning about the temps being too high to keep wine. I believe him but I was wondering what a subjective tipping point might be.

The temperature and length of time it takes to "cook" a wine will vary depending on the wine. If you ask 10 people, you'll probably get 10 different answers. It's not a well researched area. As a general rule of thumb, I like to use:
20+ degrees for a long time. e.g. A few years at mid-20s will probably cook a wine.
30+ degrees even for a short time. e.g. A few minutes in a hot car will probably cook a wine.

I store all my wines in a temperature controlled off-site cellar at 14 degrees.

Ozzie W wrote:

RobK wrote:May I interpose a question but what would you (collectively) feel is too high a temperature? My brother lives in Cairns and is always moaning about the temps being too high to keep wine. I believe him but I was wondering what a subjective tipping point might be.

The temperature and length of time it takes to "cook" a wine will vary depending on the wine. If you ask 10 people, you'll probably get 10 different answers. It's not a well researched area. As a general rule of thumb, I like to use:
20+ degrees for a long time. e.g. A few years at mid-20s will probably cook a wine.
30+ degrees even for a short time. e.g. A few minutes in a hot car will probably cook a wine.

I store all my wines in a temperature controlled off-site cellar at 14 degrees.

Thanks for that. I feel somewhat relieved that my own wine storage area ... won't call it a cellar has never exceeded 20. However, my brother thinks 26 is a pleasantly cool day. I think his house never goes below 24. He's almost certainly right when he says it's a waste of time. Even a friend of his gave up. He had his reds in wine fridges that just ran all day because of the heat.

Thank you.
Rob

Rocky wrote:I recently had a 2005 Woodlands Cab Sav which was perfection in a glass, a totally different experience to the Moss Wood from a wine which also demands patience.

Was the 2005 Woodlands their Margaret? I had a similar experience with the Moss Wood 2001 compared to the 2004 Woodlands Margaret. The Woodlands was so much better. Mind you, the Moss Wood under stelvin was very nice and everyone appreciated it, but perhaps it was still to young. Might try in another 5 years.

Hacker wrote:

Rocky wrote:I recently had a 2005 Woodlands Cab Sav which was perfection in a glass, a totally different experience to the Moss Wood from a wine which also demands patience.

Was the 2005 Woodlands their Margaret? I had a similar experience with the Moss Wood 2001 compared to the 2004 Woodlands Margaret. The Woodlands was so much better. Mind you, the Moss Wood under stelvin was very nice and everyone appreciated it, but perhaps it was still to young. Might try in another 5 years.

Hacker, was the 2005 Colin flagship cab sav. A perfect wine and i have only 2 bottles left.
Regards

Ozzie W wrote:

RobK wrote:May I interpose a question but what would you (collectively) feel is too high a temperature? My brother lives in Cairns and is always moaning about the temps being too high to keep wine. I believe him but I was wondering what a subjective tipping point might be.

The temperature and length of time it takes to "cook" a wine will vary depending on the wine. If you ask 10 people, you'll probably get 10 different answers. It's not a well researched area. As a general rule of thumb, I like to use:
20+ degrees for a long time. e.g. A few years at mid-20s will probably cook a wine.
30+ degrees even for a short time. e.g. A few minutes in a hot car will probably cook a wine.

I store all my wines in a temperature controlled off-site cellar at 14 degrees.

I've never done any specific testing, but after reading your comment I was reminded of this: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=15492

Like you, I store all my wines off site in a temperature controlled environment but I was surprised to read about the results from the torture test....

Funnily enough I tried a bottle of this at a wine club event the beginning of this month with a whole lot of other 2001 reds from Margaret River and Coonawarra, and found it underwhelming, the fruit a touch on the green side while the finish had an unpleasant mouthwash/alcoholic burn (14.5%). This bottle was also under screwcap. Closing thoughts were maybe the wine was in a dumb/transition phase, or that maybe it just isn't panning out to be as good as what many initally thought? That said, I also thought the bottle I tried needed a lot more of a breathe/decant to give it a fairer assessment.

Also brought up in this thread was the possibily of wines being slightly cooked due to incorrect storage - I think the move of more wines to screwcap has changed the game, in particular Australian wines are a hell of a lot more robust than many people think. In the past temperature fluctuations were a key enemy of cork, being just as damaging as long term storage at a higher than ideal temperature - fluctuations are not an issue with screwcap, it just does not leak and let oxygen seep in due to expansion and contractions. That's half the battle already won.

I agree that long term storage above 20C is asking for trouble, but the idea that wines need to be kept at 14C for their entire life is being overly obsessive. In my experience up to 20C is okay long term, and they can take occasional days of up to 25C over summer - go over 30C for an extended period, well, then you are taking your chances...

Cheers,
Ian

Ozzie W wrote:

RobK wrote:May I interpose a question but what would you (collectively) feel is too high a temperature? My brother lives in Cairns and is always moaning about the temps being too high to keep wine. I believe him but I was wondering what a subjective tipping point might be.

The temperature and length of time it takes to "cook" a wine will vary depending on the wine. If you ask 10 people, you'll probably get 10 different answers. It's not a well researched area. As a general rule of thumb, I like to use:
20+ degrees for a long time. e.g. A few years at mid-20s will probably cook a wine.
30+ degrees even for a short time. e.g. A few minutes in a hot car will probably cook a wine.

I store all my wines in a temperature controlled off-site cellar at 14 degrees.

Would disagree with these statements, it takes much higher temperatures and longer time for a wine to get cooked.
In a recent Grape Mates tasting nobody could detect anything comparing a wine left between window and blinds for 14 months to a reference one.
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=15492

If you don't want to go thru the entire post, the relevant section is below;

The Torture Test

For me this was very eye opening, I thought without a doubt that the Heat Affected one would be nothing but port or a stewed mess. The fact of the matter was, no-one could say with any real confidence which one it was. They knew the control one so they could compare to it. Even knowing which one it was, I could see it was a bit flatter on the palate but that was all. (and I reckon had I not known the order I would not have picked it). It just doesn’t seem conceivable that a wine could be subjected to 45C+ days for 3-4 days/weeks at a time (probably hotter being in between the venetian blinds and window) and not suffer any real ill-effects after 14 months. It sort of made me re-think that when the courier guy leaves it on the doorstep for a few hours in the sun, or it being delivered during a hot spell may not stress me out as much now. (admittedly whites would probably be a whole different story). Obviously if done over 10 years you’d expect more difference, although that is quite extreme storage conditions. These bottles were under screwcap for what it is worth. They are age-worthy wines with 10-20 years well within their drinking window.

Funnily enough most people preferred the one that had been frozen. (I’d frozen it solid the night before, I did unscrew the cap to-loose as I didn’t want it exploding). The one in the blender was seen as the worse (most thought that it was the heat affected one) all I did was pour it in the plastic cup and blended for about 15 secs at 20,000rpm and then back in the bottle. The Travelator (Travel Shock) one no-one could see any real discernible difference in it, and makes me think the whole idea is a bit meh. (thanks to Tez my dad for knocking it up for me, out of some old wood and bbq rotisserie motor)

ufo wrote:Would disagree with these statements,

Feel it is dependent on varietal/style.

Fuller reds, eg Australian Cab Sauv, South Australian Shiraz - feel these can stand up better than most reds to poor storage.

Pinot noir, nebbiolo - gutfeel that these would suffer more than normal from poor storage.

ufo wrote:

Ozzie W wrote:

RobK wrote:May I interpose a question but what would you (collectively) feel is too high a temperature? My brother lives in Cairns and is always moaning about the temps being too high to keep wine. I believe him but I was wondering what a subjective tipping point might be.

The temperature and length of time it takes to "cook" a wine will vary depending on the wine. If you ask 10 people, you'll probably get 10 different answers. It's not a well researched area. As a general rule of thumb, I like to use:
20+ degrees for a long time. e.g. A few years at mid-20s will probably cook a wine.
30+ degrees even for a short time. e.g. A few minutes in a hot car will probably cook a wine.

I store all my wines in a temperature controlled off-site cellar at 14 degrees.

Would disagree with these statements, it takes much higher temperatures and longer time for a wine to get cooked.
In a recent Grape Mates tasting nobody could detect anything comparing a wine left between window and blinds for 14 months to a reference one.
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=15492

If you don't want to go thru the entire post, the relevant section is below;

The Torture Test

For me this was very eye opening, I thought without a doubt that the Heat Affected one would be nothing but port or a stewed mess. The fact of the matter was, no-one could say with any real confidence which one it was. They knew the control one so they could compare to it. Even knowing which one it was, I could see it was a bit flatter on the palate but that was all. (and I reckon had I not known the order I would not have picked it). It just doesn’t seem conceivable that a wine could be subjected to 45C+ days for 3-4 days/weeks at a time (probably hotter being in between the venetian blinds and window) and not suffer any real ill-effects after 14 months. It sort of made me re-think that when the courier guy leaves it on the doorstep for a few hours in the sun, or it being delivered during a hot spell may not stress me out as much now. (admittedly whites would probably be a whole different story). Obviously if done over 10 years you’d expect more difference, although that is quite extreme storage conditions. These bottles were under screwcap for what it is worth. They are age-worthy wines with 10-20 years well within their drinking window.

Funnily enough most people preferred the one that had been frozen. (I’d frozen it solid the night before, I did unscrew the cap to-loose as I didn’t want it exploding). The one in the blender was seen as the worse (most thought that it was the heat affected one) all I did was pour it in the plastic cup and blended for about 15 secs at 20,000rpm and then back in the bottle. The Travelator (Travel Shock) one no-one could see any real discernible difference in it, and makes me think the whole idea is a bit meh. (thanks to Tez my dad for knocking it up for me, out of some old wood and bbq rotisserie motor)

As I stated in my post, every wine is different. You have proved that some wines can take exposure to high heat conditions better than others. But this just one example (there are others). This should not be generalised and applied to every wine. There are plenty of examples in various wine forums of wines getting cooked under much less extreme conditions. The way I see it, there is no way to know how much a particular wine will be affected by heat, hence taking precautions and storing in better conditions is what most of us wine lovers do. After all, it's not going to make the wine worse if we store under proper temperature control.

Hi Ozzie
We do need to be wary of what is said on the wine forums, as the vast majority of comments I see about cooked wine are used to justify the poor performance of bottles. The owner doesn't know what conditions the wine was subjected to, but uses the poor performance to argue that it was heat damaged before they got it.

More such 'torture tests' would be of great interest and I'm guessing a white wine would be an ideal follow-on test. It may have only been a small scale test but at least the conditions were known rather than speculated.

regards
Ian

Ian S wrote:Hi Ozzie
We do need to be wary of what is said on the wine forums, as the vast majority of comments I see about cooked wine are used to justify the poor performance of bottles. The owner doesn't know what conditions the wine was subjected to, but uses the poor performance to argue that it was heat damaged before they got it.

I agree..even with this wine in the OP, I don't think it was cooked...

I think quite a few bottles that aren't corked but aren't performing, are pushed under the "heat" banner as the cause of the problem....even when it probably wasn't that..

Polymer wrote:

Ian S wrote:Hi Ozzie
We do need to be wary of what is said on the wine forums, as the vast majority of comments I see about cooked wine are used to justify the poor performance of bottles. The owner doesn't know what conditions the wine was subjected to, but uses the poor performance to argue that it was heat damaged before they got it.

I agree..even with this wine in the OP, I don't think it was cooked...

I think quite a few bottles that aren't corked but aren't performing, are pushed under the "heat" banner as the cause of the problem....even when it probably wasn't that..

Funnily enough, many years ago when notable reds under screwcaps just started appearing (about the same time that Moss Wood & Cullen switched to screwcaps) I talked with the owner of this forum about an idea to do some kind of baseline test to simulate less than ideal storage (from what I was witnessing at wine stores, with high priced wines like Penfolds Bin 707, Wolf Blass Black Label and the like being stored at on the top shelf to prevent theft but in some cases left there for years, and under cork!). I thought at the time it was surprising that Gavin mentioned that under screwcap more than likely they would ironically probably appear better with a bit of abuse in the short term.

Reds that were decent but sacrificial were relatively rare at the time (Gavin suggested whites may be a better option), but I grabbed a few leftover 2004 McLaren Vale cleankins as an afterthought - a couple were stored with decent cellaring conditions, a couple to simulate what I saw at the time was some wine shop conditions, vertically right near the roofline with some afternoon sun - being not to far away from the kitchen fridge and an air coinditioning vent was a bit of a bonus for this Frankenstein experiment...

At the five year mark I opened one of each and presented blind to a Winemaker from McLaren Vale - he thought the abused bottle from the kitchen was a bit more advanced, but actually drank better than the properly cellared one. I still have one bottle of each left at the ten year mark, just waiting for the right moment to inflict another blind tasting on the right group of subjects with an open mind...

Cheers,
Ian

For those interested, the AWRI study summarised here might be worth digging out and reading. The summary is (IMO sensibly) vague, but the full study might have some good examples.
http://www.awri.com.au/wp-content/uploa ... mgeour.pdf

Ian S wrote:For those interested, the AWRI study summarised here might be worth digging out and reading. The summary is (IMO sensibly) vague, but the full study might have some good examples.
http://www.awri.com.au/wp-content/uploa ... mgeour.pdf

Some pretty interesting stuff there, and it may go to explain why some young reds under screwcap ironically taste better after a bit of heat abuse:

"The most common and noticeable impacts on wines that have been subjected to high temperatures are the loss of sulfur dioxide", and "concentration of tannins in red wines appears to decrease with increasing temperature exposure".

So a young raw wine with lots of SO2 and tannin may be softened to be more appealing (at least to some), as long as it does not go so far as to significantly flatten the fruit characters.

That said, with age and/or continued heat exposure as the SO2 levels drop past a certain critical point, I would expect (further) heat exposure to have much more of an immediate impact.

Cheers,
Ian

This has been one of the more interesting threads i've followed in a long time.

I swear I can detect a wine that has been exposed to heat during storage, but now I'm fascinated by the various studies.

I guess you're never going to know unless you have that controlled experiment, which it seems has been done.