Getting startedPlease help 159It is need...or neat. New winemakers are generally advised to start with a wine kit. Kit manufacturers are pretty adept...
Stu Pedaso
You have come down with the dreaded Hydrogen Sulfide disease my friend! Hydrogen Sulfide forms during fermentation when there is an excess of Sulfur present on the grapes due to late spraying to prevent mildew, or there are certain critical nutrients missing or in short supply in the grapes. It has plagued winemakers since ancient times, and can be sometimes difficult to deal with even today. Leaving especially whites on the gross lees too long can cause this condition as well. I am still learning how to deal with this, I discovered I had this problem in a big way on my Chardonnay when I did the first racking. Phew! It was so strong my eyes watered.
might as well dump the wine down the sewer. What happens is that if the H2S remains dissolved in the wine, it will react with Alcohol to form Mercaptans, which in turn will form disulfides and polydisulfides, which are almost impossible to remove from the finished wine.
The good news is, if you catch the problem early you can probably save the wine. Hydrogen Sulfide is present as a gas in solution in the wine. By just aerating it, you will remove much of the gas, but you also will have to deal with the Mercaptans that are already forming in the wine. I Googled for information on this topic, and came up with these links, along with several other good links that concisely explain the problem, and how to deal with it:
