The BIGGEST WINE FAULT no one talks about!

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I use this wine key: Forge de Laguiole Ebony
I have used this glass in this Video: RIEDEL Veritas Champagne
I have tasted the following wines in this Video:

2022 Clavel Regulus Côtes de Rhône Rosé France

96-100: An extraordinary wine of profound and complex character displaying all the attributes expected of a classic wine of its variety. Wines of this caliber are worth a special effort to find, purchase and consume.
90 - 95: An outstanding wine of exceptional complexity and character. In short, these are terrific wines.
80 - 89: A barely above average to very good wine displaying various degrees of finesse and flavor as well as character with no noticeable flaws.
70 - 79: An average wine with little distinction except that it is soundly made. In essence, a straightforward, innocuous wine.
60 - 69: A below-average wine containing noticeable deficiencies, such as excessive acidity and/or tannin, an absence of flavor or possibly dirty aromas or flavors.
50 - 59: A wine deemed to be unacceptable.

The biggest enemy of wine might not be what you think it is. It turns out that something that is essential for making wine is also causing one of the most common flaws in wine and no one seems to notice. Sommeliers are trained to look for cork taint in wine or maybe oxidation in older bottles. The rise of low-intervention wines meant that we also started looking for volatile acidity, mousiness, and brett.

However, the most important flaw might mainly go unnoticed and could be easily avoided if more of you knew about it – let’s talk about it and taste how big the problem is in a blind-tasting experiment. What does the vine need to grow and produce fruit? Water, nutrients, CO2, and sunlight! Sunlight is essential for photosynthesis and without sunlight, there would not be wine. But as soon as the grapes are harvested light becomes an enemy and bottled wine needs to be protected from sunshine.

That’s one of the reasons why wine was traditionally bottled in colored bottles and stored in dark cellars. Colored bottles reduce the impact of harmful light and therefore protect the wine. Green bottles tend to reduce the impact significantly but dark amber-colored bottles are even better at protecting the wine. However, over the course of the last decades, clear bottles have become popular, particularly for white and rose wines – even though these tend to be the wine style most susceptible to light damage.

Consumers want to see what is inside the bottle in particular when they buy Rosé wine and therefore most Rosé producers now bottle their wines in clear bottles.
The producers know something you might not know: this decision has a tradeoff – a big one, as the wine bottled in the clear glass is naked and unprotected against light, causing lightstrike.

According to the Oxford Companion to Wine Lightstrike is also known as goût de lumière in French, is the damaging effect that light at short wavelengths in the ultraviolet and blue end of the spectrum can have on wine.

The light triggers chemical reactions within the bottle stripping the wine of aroma and resulting in funky smells reminiscent of cardboard, garlic, and cooked cabbage. Red wines tend to be more protected because of their phenolics and it is therefore extremely strange, why red wines are generally bottled in dark bottles and whites and rosés often aren’t.

Lightstrike was first documented in 1977 in a study focusing on the impact of light on Champagne and today the most well-known example of a winery trying to mitigate the risk of light strike is Louis Roederer with their Cristal, which comes in the iconic clear glass bottle but is wrapped in this orange foil to protect the wine inside.

Interestingly sparkling wines made using the traditional method are even more in danger from lightstrike because of the long time the sparkling wine spends on the lees … Now you might think … okok Konstantin … but why have I never heard about this problem? It must be a minor issue as no one really talks about it.

That is what I thought too to be honest but over the last few months, I started to dig a bit deeper into the topic and realized that the impact of Light Strike might be MUCH bigger than the impact of cork – especially for Rosé wines. But its impact might not be as apparent as cork taint for example

[rockvillemmf]

Thank you for shedding light on this topic.

[liamblake]

Not surprised by the bottle that was left out in the sun for 2 days was damaged, but the fact that you could discern between the wine that was in a display fridge and the wine straight from the box is crazy! We should be more careful at the shop I work at.

[fingersfinesilver]

You mentioned about leaving wine on the kitchen counter. I don't really drink white wine and as for red I have solved any potential problem by drinking all the wine immediately.

[masamunesword]

Not just wine either. The folk at Whiskey Tribe found out that whiskey also radically changes flavor and color when exposed to light.

[byron]

When it comes to supermarkets, I always choose a bottle from the very deep of the shelf. No matter the color of the bottle. I knew light was damaging to wine, but didn't realize it was THAT damaging. Great experiment, thank you!

[TheFisch]

Now, THAT is what I call a lesson on Wine. Thanks again for sharing such valuable content.

[FlintIronstag]

I had heard of the damaging effects of light. It is the same with beer in clear bottles. What I find funny is most wine fridges have glass doors so people can admire their collection when an opaque door would actually be better for their bottles.

[SirWussiePants]

Thank you! As a home winemaker who has been railing against clear glass for a while this just supports my choice to always bottle my whites in dark glass bottles. Sure, it is pretty to look at a rose twinkling through the glass but light is as bad for wine as oxygen.

[JnB-fbgv]

So cool you made a video about this topic! We made a similar test with beer bottled in green glas two years ago. The difference was extreme. A friend of mine, who arranged the test and who had studied brewing technology, explained to us, that a special substance in the hop increases the effect of light and that it’s complete nonsense to bottle beer in green glas or clear bottles…

[clintonbeasley]

I would be very interested in seeing this same experiment with dark bottles! Maybe another video with red and sparkling wine?

[psychotropicalresearch]

This phenomenon affects beer even more and I remember speaking to the senior people at GROLSCH nearly 30 years ago responded that reason for the green bottles was the marketing department! Living in the tropics we had to make sure we never bought such beers or wines, unless they have been stored in an unbroken case. Thank you for reminding us about this problem, because even those who know about it tend to forget its importance when buying from supermarket shelves (which I very rarely do), since I almost always buy by the dozen, we rarely encounter this problem, but for the average Consumer it’s a really important problem to be aware of and Constantin has done a great service By bringing this to everyone’s attention. It is a good example of a situation where consumer knowledge could pressure distributors to change their behaviour very quickly if people simply refuse to buy such wines left out in the light. On a light-hearted note, I did offer to act as a consumer tester for grolsch by leaving bottles of their bear out in the tropical sun for varying lengths of time, they declined my offer very politely!

[johnde]

It's something I've been wondering about, with how shops store wine. I'd be curious to see a deeper dive experiment with different colored bottles etc.

[monsieug]

Very insteresting, I didn't know much about light strike, thank you Konstatntin!

[Kapplaa]

That's really interesting. With beer, the same issue exists. It's predominant with beer in green bottles and responsible for the typical Beck's-flavour, which is traditionally bottled in green bottles

[paulmassey]

My local supermarket chain now has changed fresh milk from clear to white painted bottles .
Definitely cleaner taste . Who knew that with wines?

[lmmadsen]

Wine is not only ruined by sunlight but the heat from same will cook it in your car. I shop from the darkest part of the shelf, and cover the wine while on the way home.. I often bring a cooler to pack it in if I am not returning home right away.

[guermeisterdoodlebug]

Garlic and sulfur—two of my favorite wine attributes. Must begin introducing more sunlight.

[felipe_callado]

Fascinating! Thank you for such an interesting content!

[orlovsskibet]

This is why I prefer Bag-In-Box wines 😁

[paulgoodwin]

Great and timely video. Gracias Senor Konstantin . I experimented by buying 2 Chenin Blancs - 1 from the front of the shelf and 2 from the back of the shelf. The front one was indeed funky, the back one pleasing to my taste buds. And the store uses led lights. Whoa!