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60 W i n e s & V i n e s D e C e M B e R 2 0 1 4 body of the wine, and the yellow above it reports the headspace. The two together give you the TPO. The differences between wineries are alarming. Good wineries can manage TPO less than 1 ppm. That looks like the goal. The other wineries are getting 2-3 ppm. We have already discussed the sources of high initial DO. Now check out those errors bars. The first thing you notice is the very high variability in HSO. Wine DO is practically constant. That means that we can stop worrying about the splash patterns of individual spouts. Far more important are causes of HSO variabil- ity, which include bottle-gassing equipment, vacuum at the filler and multi-head corker. There is a lot of variability in HSO error bars, so some wineries do get it right. Wineries 5 and 10 illustrate the special problems of small wineries, bottling small lots of red wine through small fillers. Win- ery 5 had a lot of initial DO and a moder- ate but highly variable headspace oxygen. Winery 10 did much better on the wine DO and the variability of DO, but it had a very high headspace oxygen when one considers that an inserted closure was used (leaving a tiny headspace), so the lack of variability was probably simply a lack of any vacuum at all. If these were big, young reds with high oxygen appetites, there would likely be little cause for concern until these wineries went to bottle their Sauvignon Blancs on the same systems. Scanning for the remaining high HSO wines, we highlight wineries 2, 4, 14 and 17, which include some very high-volume, highly professional facilities. The common thread? These are the four screwcap closures. Four toast levels Economical Sustainable Time-saving (800) 201-7125 www.InfusionSpiral.com Our spirals made from Premium, American or French Oak deliver 100% new barrel flavor (8 months) in as little as six weeks. Now you can boast authentic oak flavor using neutral barrels or tanks – with rapid, controllable and predictable results. Inspired Design Patent # 7357069 West Coast–New York–Texas Len Napolitano (805) 712-4471 len@thebarrelmill.com TPO Partitioning Measured by 18 Trials at 17 California Wineries Wineries differ widely in levels and variability of TPO. HS Oxygen Wine DO 4 3.5 3 2.5 2 1.5 1 0.5 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 1 8 Winery Number Oxygen Concentration (mg / L -1 ) G R A P E G R O W I N G W I N E M A K I N G