Cellar Craft Primitivo 2013 le yuck!

[knockabout]

Help my primitivo tastes awful! It has just come out of six months in the barrel. Has a very distinctive soapy after taste that coats your tongue. It is undrinkable. Was this caused by a defect in my winemaking technique? Has a bug gotten into my barrel? Is my barrel ruined? How have other people's primitivo turned out? I have made 14 kits none of the others have had this awful taste. I appreciate any thoughts!
Kim

 

[SouthernChemist]

Three possibilities that I can think of without tasting or seeing the wine myself:

1) disulfides and thiols - in low concentrations in wine can have a rubbery/soapy taste. Seems less likely in a kit wine, though.

2) high levels of sulfites - excess addition of sulfites can also cause this taste. I assume you testing the sulfite levels of the wine while it was in the barrel?

3) pH is not low enough - shouldn't be the case with a kit wine

 

[DoctorCAD]

My Primitivo was my best wine to date.

Anything unusual during processing? Change your routines? Use new cleaning chemicals?

I'd hate to think it is the barrel...that would suck.

 

[knockabout]

So I checked my sulfite - 200 ppm. I had gotten lazy and was adding sulfites without checking- at least my barrel is still good. I guess that means back in the barrel until my sulfites are back to normal!

At what point do sulfites become a perceptible taste?

 

[SouthernChemist]

So I checked my sulfite - 200 ppm. I had gotten lazy and was adding sulfites without checking- at least my barrel is still good. I guess that means back in the barrel until my sulfites are back to normal!

At what point do sulfites become a perceptible taste?

According to this presentation, anything over 100 ppm (that is 100 mg per liter of wine) of total SO2 will affect the taste and aroma of most wines. Sweeter, more intensely flavored wines can handle higher amounts.

http://www.santarosa.edu/~jhenderson/Sulfur Dioxide.pdf