The trip to the Ricasoli vineyard was by far one of the best field trips I have ever had. Being able to see and learn about all the various stages of production of my favorite Italian beverage was itself a wonderful experience, but receiving free wine at the end of it was absolutely amazing.
Because fermentation, photosynthesis and a couple of other topics have already been covered, I will give a brief and extremely oversimplified overview of the role that sulfur plays in winemaking. Hydrogen sulfide is the compound that smells of rotten eggs, and as one might expect, too much of it can make a wine taste bad. It comes from residual mildew-killing spray, or from yeast cells that are stressed or known to produce high levels of it. On the other hand, another sulfur compound involved in wine making, sulfur dioxide, is very good for wine. It is added during the wine-making process to kill undesirable bacteria and yeast that may be present on the grape skin coating, and it also serves as an antioxidant, keeping the wine from browning. It can also bind to acetaldehyde, resulting in an odorless compound. Unfortunately, sulfur dioxide isn’t all good and it can bind to anthocyanins, which we already know about, and it can also make the wine taste and smell bad, so wineries have to be careful of how much they add.
http://www.bcawa.ca/winemaking/h2s.htm
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