What's preservative 220?

While conducting a wine tasting for some punters the other day we got asked, again, what was this 'preservative 220' that you see listed on almost every wine bottle back label. This question often comes from someone with a worried look on their face and is usually followed by "is that why I get hangovers from drinking wine?"

Let's start with the facts. Preservative 220 is sulphur and it's added to keep the wine fresh. So it's there to help. Without it wine would oxidise, that is lose it's flavour, very quickly. Trust us you don't want to drink oxidised wine even if it's bottle number three for the night.

Aside from keeping the wine fresh sulphur does have other effects. It suppresses fruit flavour and can cause sensitivities in some people. In fact many people can pick the taste and usually describe it as a 'round hot character in the mid palate'. 

If you aren't one of those people don't worry. Peter Shields suggests that you can train yourself to pick sulphur by drinking cheap cask wine. This is because this type of wine is made with a lot of it. Frankly we don't think the gain is worth the pain.

While the amount added will vary, all winemakers are trying to do the same thing, which is to reach a balance between keeping the wine fresh for as long as possible and retaining as much fruit flavour as possible. Thanks to the improved sealing properties of screw caps we should see a reduction in the amount of sulphur being added in the future.  Sulphur is added very early in the process when making white wine because white grapes oxidise quickly. Red grapes, being less prone to this, don't have sulphur added until near the end of fermentation.

The amount of sulphur needed is also affected by the climate. Less is needed in wines that have high acid levels. This means that generally cool climate wines (ie: Tassie) should have less sulphur than wines from warmer regions. 

If the presence of preservatives is a concern you can buy wine without it but the shelf life of these wines is reduced so you will need to drink the wine quickly (and this is bad ... because .... - Ed). Preservative free wines simply don't keep as long as their sulphured cousins. You'll know how much time you have because preservative free wines have a use by date included in their labels.  So not only is the clock ticking but once the wine is opened it is unlikely to remain fresh for more than a day even when placed in a fridge. Given that the majority of Australians finish their wine within 24 hours of purchase this shouldn't be an issue.

So now that you know what sulphur does we turn to the second part of the issue. Will drinking better quality wine reduce your hang overs? Yes and no. Higher quality wines usually have less sulphur and this can reduce the worst aspects of a hangover. Unfortunately hangovers are a numbers game - the more you drink the more you hang.

A word from a professional

For those of you who prefer to get their information from people who know can hear Peter Shields discuss the ins and outs of sulphur by listening to: sulphur.mp3 ( 6.92 mb,  7:33  minutes )

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