Oxidation

Mark, be careful you don't confuse oxidation with micro-oxygenation. They are 2 very different things, and each has very different end results. Oxidation should be avoided as it causes off colors and more importantly, off tastes. Micro-oxygenation is beneficial to a wine aging and is usually done through either barrel aging or from stopping bottles with corks and their slight breath-ability.

Dean, how do you feel about synthetic vs. natural corks? I'm sensing you lean towards natural...

I like both actually! I use synthetic on my kit wines and natural on fresh grape wines that I know have the structure to age beyond 5 years. It's been a very long time since I've had cork taint from natural corks too, but synthetics are always being improved to allow the micro-oxygenation to occur as well. In short, I use both.

Dean
do you store your wine bottles laying down with synthetic corks, or do you store them upright?

I store everything laying down due to how my racks accept bottles, but you don't have to lay down synthetics.

So, I imagine RJ Spagnols has their supply of natural corks that they make available to the retailers. Care to comment about the quality of these corks?

And on another oxidation question, I've noticed that some wine kit manufacturers suggest a twice a day stirring in the primary to help provide oxygen to the yeast, and then also encourage allowing the wine to "splash" into the secondary when transferring from the primary. RJ Spagnols kit instructions do not suggest these two items, nor do the instructions from WE. So are these steps considered detrimental oxygenation or not?

Depending on whom you talk to would be the closest answer to your question. When a kit hangs the first thing you are asked to do is stir the must. This is the answer by any kit manufacturer. I have called the help lines of a couple of them and they have all answered this the same way.I did this not for help but to find what each was saying about their restart procedure. When making wine from scratch you always punch down the cap again this will keep the fruit wet but it introduces oxygen into the wine each time you do the procedure.
So oxygen introduction is a necessary part of wine making.
There are also different levels of oxidization. one is beneficial and the other is detrimental.These are both different than adding oxygen in to help the ferment.Oxidization is actually a form of rusting. Simplest terminology. Think about when a piece of metal goes from something structurally sound into a brown flaky material that is useless.Dean has mentioned micro oxidization that is where minute amounts of oxygen turn our product into what we expect in the bottle. Oxidization is where the product is off colour tastes funny and may smell bad a different thing altogether.

RJS has 2 types of natural corks they sell in their retail store: regular agglomerate and "reference" corks. The reference corks are made by Oeneo, and would be very similar to Altec corks. These are corks made with cork dust and a binder. All the benefits of natural breathing without the danger of TCA, or cork taint. The Synthetics they sell are made by Nomacork. I use the reference corks for most of my wines that I want to age long term. I've been using them for 4 years now, and have been quite happy with their quality.

Oxygen helps during the first part of fermentation as the yeast need a good supply of oxygen to multiply and develop a strong cell wall. This is why other kit manufacturers want you to stir during the fermentation at the beginning. They also have you transfer the wine withing 4 to 6 days to a secondary vessel to finish the fermentation, at which point you are told to just leave it alone. This is because fermentation should be going strong by this point and oxygen will now contribute to *oxidation* and not *oxygenation*. RJS has you finish the entire fermentation in a single vessel (usually), so while stirring can help in the beginning, there is diminishing returns after a few days and then you can start to damage the wine. RJS also chooses a yeast strain that doesn't need much in the way of stirring to get going quite well (EC-1118) and that also helps to not need as much stirring. Besides, you should have stirred very well and oxygenated the must when you were mixing in the water and bentonite.

rjb, careful on the terms. I know what you mean, but again, there is a HUGE difference between oxidation and oxygenation. Like you mentioned, oxidation is rust. So oxidation = bad, oxygenation = good.

Here is an interesting article from Wine Enthusiast today about corks, etc.

http://www.winemag.com/Wine-Enthusiast-Magazine/March-2010/Closure-Wars/