Strange film on Cab/Merlot blend

[TomMonger]

I'm not sure if this "film" on top of my Cab/Merlot juice blend is from a residue or something bad. It smells OK, and has no real taste. I was wondering if anyone can recognize what this might be.

Thanks,
-Tom in Scranton, PA USA

 

[winemaker_3352]

Is it a film?? Looks like it could be some TA crystalizing.

Feel it - is it gritty??

 

[joea132]

Do you have an appropriate dose of kmeta meta? What stage of life is the wine in?

 

[TomMonger]

Jon,

No, not gritty at all. I've had a "wine diamond" problem last year, which all settled to the bottom. This film disappears when I try to touch it.

Joe,

Yes, I k-meta (1/4 tsp) every time I rack. This wine is 6 months old. I am wondering if this is a k-meta film.

 

[BobF]

Could be protein and/or really fine MOG

 

[altavino]

that looks exactly like mycoderma , flowers of wine. a spoilage film.

caused by too much head space and not enough so2 .

you need to rack the wine out from under the film and get your so2 up.
I'd add 1/2 tsp (50ppm) to the carboy and make sure its topped right up close to the bung.

if your ph is high your 1/4 tsp additions might not have been enough.

here is an expert from a winemaker magazine article on spoilage.

Film On Top of the Wine

1. Don’t Send Flowers

With mycoderma you’ve got trouble. It can manifest as a fine film on top of the wine, sometimes called “flowers of wine.” It and Acetobacter only grow in aerobic, or oxygen environments. This means carboys that aren’t topped up according to instructions, and wines that do not contain sufficient sulfite. Mycoderma is actually a species of yeast (Candida vini) that breathes air. If detected soon enough you can sometimes treat the wine with a measured dose of sulfite (50 PPM, or a half-teaspoon of sulfite powder per 6 US gallons) followed by racking to get it off of any mycoderma sediment. Top the wine up to the neck of the carboy, use a solid bung, and taste the wine after a week to see if you caught it in time. You may wish to re-test the wine for sulfite level and filter it to keep it stable. Then go through all of your equipment and sterilize it by soaking it in a sanitising solution and scrubbing with plenty of elbow grease. Check all of your other wines, being careful to sanitize your wine thief and sample jars between wines. Mycoderma easily spreads to other wines and is difficult to get rid of.

 

[joea132]

that looks exactly like mycoderma , flowers of wine. a spoilage film.

caused by too much head space and not enough so2 .

you need to rack the wine out from under the film and get your so2 up.
I'd add 1/2 tsp (50ppm) to the carboy and make sure its topped right up close to the bung.

if your ph is high your 1/4 tsp additions might not have been enough.

here is an expert from a winemaker magazine article on spoilage.

Film On Top of the Wine

1. Don’t Send Flowers

With mycoderma you’ve got trouble. It can manifest as a fine film on top of the wine, sometimes called “flowers of wine.” It and Acetobacter only grow in aerobic, or oxygen environments. This means carboys that aren’t topped up according to instructions, and wines that do not contain sufficient sulfite. Mycoderma is actually a species of yeast (Candida vini) that breathes air. If detected soon enough you can sometimes treat the wine with a measured dose of sulfite (50 PPM, or a half-teaspoon of sulfite powder per 6 US gallons) followed by racking to get it off of any mycoderma sediment. Top the wine up to the neck of the carboy, use a solid bung, and taste the wine after a week to see if you caught it in time. You may wish to re-test the wine for sulfite level and filter it to keep it stable. Then go through all of your equipment and sterilize it by soaking it in a sanitising solution and scrubbing with plenty of elbow grease. Check all of your other wines, being careful to sanitize your wine thief and sample jars between wines. Mycoderma easily spreads to other wines and is difficult to get rid of.

This is exactly what I was thinking. Sorry Tom, looks like you've got some work ahead of you.

 

[altavino]

It would be a good idea to add sulfite to all your other wines and top them up too

Fwiw , don't feel bad , it's the most common spoilage problem in winemaking , and it looks like you have caught it fairly early .

 

[TomMonger]

I was hoping this wasn't the case. I had a feeling this would happen because when this juice arrived, I was out of the country. The guy I bought it from said he'd refrigerate it until I returned (4 days after it arrived). When I got it home and opened it, I knew it was fermenting because the lid was bulging and I could smell the yeast. When I opened it and did a SG check, it had already fermented down to 1.000 SG. So, I just let it go to .996 and then I racked it and added k-meta. Seemed OK the first couple months.

OK ... enough excuses. I got work to do. Thanks for the help and I'll keep my fingers crossed!!!

 

[robie]

Has the carboy been kept topped off?

From the photo, a little hard to say for sure, but it looks to me like the level of the wine is very low and not up to the neck of the carboy where it belongs. If that's the case, as was already stated, you do have a problem.

 

[TomMonger]

Robie... the level was a bit low... not much... but slightly.

 

[TomMonger]

OK, yesterday I did an "emergency" racking with super-sterile equipment. Left about 2" of lees behind. Added 1/2 tsp K-Meta and filled to the bottom of the neck with equal parts of store-bought Cabernet and Merlot. This morning, I see no signs of "flowers". Keeping my fingers crossed that this batch can be saved!!

 

[laxmaster1]

in the past, ive actually topped up with Brandy (u could use any liquor though) as the high alc level basically will kill it...if youve got a lot of hadspace you cant do this unless you basically want to fortify your wine

 

[altavino]

Many surface yeasts are not inhibited by alcohol .
Ie the flor family .

Really nothing works as well as so2

 

[laxmaster1]

Topping up means you are leaving little to no headspace, in which case the flor family cannot grow.............and the alcohol will kill everything else.........................(ive never used sulfites so i wouldnt know how well they work but quick questions altavino, you say the flor family is not inhibited by alcohol, have you ever seen it or anything else ever grow on brandy or any other concentrated alcohol???)

 

[altavino]

Flor yeasts are part of making sherry a fortified wine of 20 percent alcohol .
Wine is not brandy.

Myconderma will grow on wine with 16 percent alcohol without any problem at all and without so2 can grow with less than 1/2 inch of headspace.

Splashing a little 100 percent alcohol on the surface of a wine in a carboy won't offer protection as it will disperse in the wine pretty fast.

If you are not using sulfites filtering and getting the wine into bottles ASAP is a good strategy.