Botrytis Wine Making

The meeting of the two rivers with different water temperatures regularly generates morning mist when the autumn is warm and dry.

Botrytis wine making. With botrytis there is a magical transformation and the wine moves on to another plane. By necessity these wines are therefore rarities. When god s grace ensures all those conditions are in the favour of making sticky the noble botrytis cinerea goes to work.

With a botrytis affected grape the loss of juice is estimated to be at least 65 compared to a ripened healthy grape. The verglas our dessert wine is both botrytis affected and an ice wine. Wine off flavors and aromas result from a number of compounds when made from grapes with botrytis and other bunch rot organisms.

Molly kelly enology extension educator department of food science. It can have a negative impact on the vine when it occurs due to wet or humid conditions and results in the loss of affected grapes in which case it is referred to as grey mold. Preparation for incoming diseased fruit can help winemakers make well informed decisions during processing to minimize the influence of disease on wine quality.

You can make a dry non dessert wine with botrytis affected grapes but it can impart an earthy note that reminds me of horseradish along with a honeyed note. This rare quality can be measured. These conditions frequently favor noble rot although the intentional use of botrytis attacked grapes for sweet wine making began two centuries later than in tokaj jonson and robinson 2001.

In a previous post bryan hed discussed early fruit zone leaf removal and its effects on the development of botrytis bunch rot and sour rot this is a good time to review the implications of molds and fruit rots on wine composition and quality. It s production is fraught with risk and the wine has to. Botrytis cinerea is the species name of a form of neurotrophic fungus also called botrytis that affects wine grapes.

Winemakers usually thin out the botrytis affected bunches before harvest. Botrytis tends to bring about greater concentrations of dried fruit caramel and honeyed characters whereas non botrytis affected ice wines can be more fresh fruit driven. The fungus attacks the skins of the grapes slowly developing and acting as a replacement skin with a porous nature that promotes the evaporation of water from the grapes.