Peach wine smells awful, but taste good???

I bottled some peach wine tonight. I made it from peaches that grew in my grandfather's back yard which he had sprayed with sulphur (I think). I washed the peaches before I mashed/fermented them and I sulphited the must before adding the yeast. During fermentation, there were some awful sulphur smells going on, but every time I racked it, it tasted fine. I bottled it tonight and had about a pint left over so of course I drank it.

It smells pretty bad.... sour smelling, a hint of sulphur, and just not very appetizing at all. However, it taste just fine, pretty good even. I imagine with some aging it will taste very good. It's dry and tart and fruity and I like it a lot.

I wondering though, what's up with the smell... Has anyone experienced this before? Will it go away with aging? Is it left over sulphur spray and is that safe? Anyone know?

I wonder if it's H2S? If it's bottled, it is too late to treat for it, but here's a little bit of info from Jack Keller's website:

Hydrogen Sulfide:
H2S for short, Hydrogen sulfide is produced in all wines by yeast combining with various forms of sulfur, but in excess creates an undesirable, rotten-egg-like smell in wine. If not corrected, the wine is ruined as the gas is transformed into mercaptans, with a skunky odor, and then disulfides, with a sewage smell.
Rotten-Egg Smell: Hydrogen-sulfide gas manifests itself as the smell of rotten eggs. Pour the must or wine from one container to another for a few minutes to aerate it. Refit the airlock and wait a few hours. If the smell persists, repeat the procedure. If the smell persists after four such procedures, destroy the batch.

Interesting stuff Yooper....

What really befuddles me is that it taste just fine, good really. Very strange.

Why would he spray the trees with sulfur? Perhaps the smell of Malathion, cygon or another incecticide or fungicide made you think it was sulfur? Some of them smell pretty bad. Systemic incecticides are pretty awful.

Sulfur is generally used as a soil acidifier.

Perhaps it just needs some time?

Well old folks done strange - to us - things.
To Reddy's grandfather, sulphur could well have been the way to go.
Wot was known at the time!

He had the tree strayed by a guy who does that sort of thing. I believe it was sulphur, or maybe a pesticide containing sulphur, based on some smells I picked up when I was mashing and steeping the peaches. Maybe the peaches themselves contain sulphur compounds, IDK, but in any case, it was the smell that made me think that.

I guess I have no choice but to let it go and see what happens.

So did you ever decide if this was pesticide you were drinking?

i've found that peaches just impart a lot of sulfur smells. I did a 3 gallon batch of edwort's apfelwein and a 3 gallon of half apple/half peach juice (otherwise the same as his recipe) and the peach one just came out smelling sulfury as well. I've heard apricots tend to throw similar odors

Sean said:

Why would he spray the trees with sulfur? Perhaps the smell of Malathion, cygon or another incecticide or fungicide made you think it was sulfur? Some of them smell pretty bad. Systemic incecticides are pretty awful.

Sulfur is generally used as a soil acidifier.

Click to expand...

Sulfur is widely used as a fungicide and insecticide (often in combination with oil or a type of clay as a surfactant) on fruit trees in both conventional and organic agriculture. At least where I come from.

I've made peach wine from my own trees, no insecticides or fungicides ever used, and from one variety I got a sulfury odor and the other I didn't (I did happen to use brown sugar on the sulfury batch, so it is possible this contributed to the odor). My suspicion is a wild yeast infection that is producing h2s. i'm planning to try aeration, although it's been in the secondary for a couple weeks so I'm a bit nervous about oxidation. Can anyone comment on whether I should dose with campden tablets after aeration if I'm at my FG? I've racked the wine off the lees once thus far and it's approx 4 weeks since I started this batch.

I had a friend's wine that smelled like rotten fruit but tasted good. I could get past the smell and drink it , my wife couldn't. It was raspberry something.

I don't know what was wrong with it. But he was the kind of guy where you always questioned his attentiveness to detail and sanitation. Generally, an all-around flake.

I don't have any helpful suggestions other than to commiserate and say, "It happens."

high fermentation temperature can cause H2S because the yeast are too active and get stressed.