Wine shock / Solid State Burn In

[monkumonku]

Over in the wine world they have their own controversies. Like we argue about whether burn-in/break-in and differences between amps or cables is real, they argue about whether the phenomenon known as "bottle shock" is real. The proponents say you need to let a bottle of wine rest after a journey because the disturbance to the wine caused by its being moved around needs time to settle down, otherwise it will negatively impact the taste.

That said, older and/or unfiltered wines may have sediment resting in the bottle that will be disturbed if moved and that does need time to settle down so it doesn't get poured into your glass. But that's not the same as bottle shock, which postulates that just the mere shaking around of wine is harmful and you need to let recently-moved wine rest a while.

Here's a post quote from a wine forum thread in which the poster believes bottle shock is nonsense:

It would be good if people would just use common sense - and a tiny bit of science. I've said this a number of times before: the energy available from just moving liquid around, even shaking it violently, isn't enough to change any chemical bonds or structures. It just isn't. And if it were, the act of pouring wine into a glass, then into your mouth and swishing it around, would change the nature of the wine as much or more than driving across town, or across the country, with the bottle.

If travel shock is real, you better stop shaking your orange juice, or your salad dressing, or anything else you shake or even carry around before consuming.

The thread this was taken from is here:

www.wineberserkers.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=128997

The wine discussion reminds me of similar kinds of discussions here in the Lounge and other audio forums and I'm sure you will see the similarities.

[brubacca]

I know that in the industry I'm in Wine Makers prefer pumps that pump the liquid gently. They believe that if you shear the wine it negatively affects the taste. For example, a gear pump squeezes the liquid through the gears to move it. This is considered bad. A Air Diaphragm pump just pulls and pushes the wine, which is considered much better. Real or not the Air Pump guys in Napa and Sonoma do quite well with the wineries, is what I understand.

[monkumonku]

Jun 13, 2016 16:09:09 GMT -5 brubacca said:

I know that in the industry I'm in Wine Makers prefer pumps that pump the liquid gently. They believe that if you shear the wine it negatively affects the taste. For example, a gear pump squeezes the liquid through the gears to move it. This is considered bad. A Air Diaphragm pump just pulls and pushes the wine, which is considered much better. Real or not the Air Pump guys in Napa and Sonoma do quite well with the wineries, is what I understand.

Sounds like an industry Audioquest might think about getting into.

[novisnick]

The face one makes when they relize the grapes were bruised!! 

                                                                   

                                                       Howell,,,,,,,can one go on knowing this!

[DYohn]

Wine shock makes sense to me. My wife is a tester for a perfume company, and letting a perfume "rest" for several days after shipment is critical to her evaluation process.

[bluemeanies]

I am not an expert but I have found that opening my REDS an hour before consumption plays a role in the way the juice rolls off the palate.

[novisnick]

Jun 13, 2016 21:03:16 GMT -5 bluemeanies said:

I am not an expert but I have found that opening my REDS an hour before consumption plays a role in the way the juice rolls off the palate.

I like opening my reds too!!


                                                           

OH! Wait,,,,,,,,,,,,never mind 

[knucklehead]

Jun 13, 2016 15:50:44 GMT -5 monkumonku said:

Over in the wine world they have their own controversies. Like we argue about whether burn-in/break-in and differences between amps or cables is real, they argue about whether the phenomenon known as "bottle shock" is real. The proponents say you need to let a bottle of wine rest after a journey because the disturbance to the wine caused by its being moved around needs time to settle down, otherwise it will negatively impact the taste.

Hmm - no wonder that MD20-20 tasted so bad. I should have let it rest a few days before opening. But hey! That gal that followed me home wasn't going to wait around for a couple of days! She wanted some of that wine NOW! I didn't have the heart to disappoint her.

[bootman]

Isn't this all due (difference in taste of wine) to the amount of air (~78% Nitrogen/20% Oxygen the the rest a bunch of other stuff. ) introduced to the liquid before drinking?

[monkumonku]

Jun 14, 2016 8:47:30 GMT -5 bootman said:

Isn't this all due (difference in taste of wine) to the amount of air (~78% Nitrogen/20% Oxygen the the rest a bunch of other stuff. ) introduced to the liquid before drinking?

Once you open a bottle and expose the wine to air, it will begin to oxidize and the taste changes. A lot of wines benefit from having some breathing time. So a wine that has been sitting in the glass or a carafe for an hour or two or more will taste different than one just poured from the bottle. And often two bottles of the same wine won't taste the same. It depends on how they were stored and how old they are; even if stored in the same place, the older they get the more variation there could be.

But my post was about "damage" caused to wine while it is still in the bottle and moved or jostled around so exposure to air wouldn't be a factor in this case since the bottle is sealed. Personally I let bottles rest for at least a week or two before opening but I've never experienced what people say is bottle shock (or maybe I have but since I'm only drinking that one bottle with nothing to compare it to, I don't know it is "shocked"). Logically it doesn't make any sense because if it were true for wine then it should be true for other beverages as well. Like you shouldn't drink that bottle of milk from the grocery store for at least a month after bringing it home. Plus who knows how active that cow was - it might have been jumping around like crazy right before being milked.

Whether bottle shock is real or not I just thought it was an interesting comparison to the ideas, some may call them superstitions, present in the audio world.

[bootman]

I found this:

www.winespectator.com/drvinny/show/id/44883

Sediment settling makes sense to me but not much else.

[KeithL]

The problem with that, as with many things (like audio cables and power conditioners) is that "making sense" isn't the same as BEING TRUE.... which is a distinction that a lot of folks don't seem to make.

When you have an old oil-heating system, you don't ever want to stir up your oil tank, because nasty sediment settles to the bottom (and is better off left there).
However, when you mix salad dressing, or buy house paint, you WANT it to be thoroughly mixed, and letting it settle would be bad.

And, of course, there can be some "happy medium spot" in between; perhaps you want wine to be mixed well enough that the liquid components are well mixed, but mixed poorly enough that the sediments stay on the bottom of the bottle.
(And maybe it depends on the particular bottle you have.)
I can see how perfume could; because it has things that should be well mixed, and perhaps those that shouldn't.
And, back to salad dressing, perhaps you want the oil and vinegar pretty well mixed, but you want little "bubbles" of each to give it "grain", so you get little tastes of each - rather than a super-fine homogenous mix.
And, with many paints and adhesives, you want to avoid over-mixing - because you can get bubbles, sort of like carbonation, that don't like to go away.

The point I'm sort of getting at here is that you can;t rely on "what makes sense"; you have to find out if it's actually true.
(Some things that seem to make sense turn out not to be true. Personally I've found that everything that's true turns out to make sense; but sometimes it can be tricky to figure out why.)

Jun 13, 2016 17:28:41 GMT -5 DYohn said:

Wine shock makes sense to me. My wife is a tester for a perfume company, and letting a perfume "rest" for several days after shipment is critical to her evaluation process.

[DYohn]

Jun 14, 2016 9:05:04 GMT -5 KeithL said:

The problem with that, as with many things (like audio cables and power conditioners) is that "making sense" isn't the same as BEING TRUE.... which is a distinction that a lot of folks don't seem to make.

Very well stated. Although I might argue that something can be "true" for an individual if that person perceives it as "true," regardless of any scientifically derived evidence. It could be "true" for that person but it may or may not contain any universal truth. This is the reason audio (and every other area that relies on human perception) is infested with "objectivist VS subjectivist" debates.

[monkumonku]

Jun 14, 2016 9:04:03 GMT -5 bootman said:

I found this:

www.winespectator.com/drvinny/show/id/44883

Sediment settling makes sense to me but not much else.

Yes, you do have to let the sediment settle to the bottom to avoid pouring it out with the liquid (or use a filter), unless you're the type that likes coffee grounds in the coffee. That's a practical reason for letting a bottle rest.

A way to test this bottle shock theory would be to open the bottle and pour out a glass, then seal the bottle and shake the remainder like crazy (shaken, not stirred) and pour a glass of that, then compare the two. Well actually, you'd have to use one of those devices that is inserted through the cork to pour out the first glass, that doesn't allow any oxygen into the bottle. Because otherwise someone would argue that the oxygen that was allowed into the bottle affected the wine while you were shaking it.

Now after the wine is poured into the glass, it is supposed to be swirled around to facilitate mixing it with air to let it develop. The more you swirl, the more air gets mixed in. I'm thinking, doesn't this swirling shock the wine? So how is that good when in the glass but bad when in the bottle? When in the bottle it isn't mixing with oxygen but movement is movement, whether in the bottle or the glass. Movement in the bottle = bad but movement in the glass = good. Doesn't seem to make sense.

[DYohn]

Oxygen affects the flavor of wine more than anything else besides, perhaps, age.

[vneal]

I am an expert and most wine drinkers think someone pours a little into a glass to make sure it taste good. This is not the real reason. It is solely to taste for any taste or smell of vinegar which of course is bad. Normally caused from wine stored incorrectly upright causing the cork not to remain moist thereby introducing air to the wine making it bad. Synthetic corks do not have this problem.

I am opening a bottle of SILVER OAK 1993 as I write. Ummmm bold  oak flavors. No cheese in the house? Life is tough

[ribbonking]

Unlike vneal, I make no claim of special knowledge of wine.

However, we do like to drink wine and visit wineries.

In California, our favorite areas to visit are above Santa Barbara - Los Olivos and Santa Ynez. We also enjoy wineries in the Paso Robles area. These areas are still developing and are not too big yet. Many times you can chat with the wine maker or the vineyard owner. Napa has become just a little too fancy for our tastes. YMMV.

Of late we've started exploring Zinfandels from the Lodi area - never realized there were even good wineries in Lodi until a few months ago. Lots of big and bold Zins made there and that's right up our alley.

Believe it or not, there are wine makers in Arizona and we have visited a few south of Tucson at higher elevations. To this point we haven't found any really good wines here but we are still exploring. There are wineries north of Phoenix as well but we haven't been up there yet.

We explore to try to find reasonably priced wines that are really good - more accurately, wines that we like. As a good friend told me many years ago, anybody can spend a lot of money and buy a good bottle of wine. The real fun is exploring and finding nice wines at fair prices. I have followed his advice since.

Maybe a little like audio. If have a lot of money its easy to buy expensive gear. More fun to find those special pieces that are less expensive but sound great, too.

[DYohn]

I can say from personal experience that the only true wine shock I have experienced is the shock of realizing that the bottle is empty.

[monkumonku]

Jun 14, 2016 11:58:01 GMT -5 DYohn said:

I can say from personal experience that the only true wine shock I have experienced is the shock of realizing that the bottle is empty.

I've gotten bigger shocks from pricing of some bottles.

[DYohn]

Jun 14, 2016 12:14:58 GMT -5 monkumonku said:

Jun 14, 2016 11:58:01 GMT -5 DYohn said:

I can say from personal experience that the only true wine shock I have experienced is the shock of realizing that the bottle is empty.

I've gotten bigger shocks from pricing of some bottles.

A compound shock then when it's empty.