Maturing in Plastic Bottles?!

[jamesbsmith]

So far I have been maturing my wine in 5 litre plastic water bottles. I mentioned this to a wine judge, and he said that the plastic is oxygen permeable and therefore not good for maturing wine in.

Surely cork in wine bottles and oak barrels are also oxygen permeable. When opening the plastic bottles, there has never been additional air space at the top to suggest oxygen ingress, or would the oxygen become dissolved in the wine (even though it should be saturated with CO2 and SO2)?!

I don't know if this is just a wives tale?!

 

[Arpolis]

Normal plastic water bottles are more O2 permeable than better bottles or glass and that is true. But it is also true that seals from synthetic cork or barrel aging is also O2 permeable but still usually less than the plastic bottles if used properly.

Using the plastic bottles for long term aging can cause an array of possible oxygenation issues. Now depending on the wine you can have varying degrees of effects and resistances. For instant red wines with a higher tannin content usually get negative effects later than whites because O2 will react with the tannins before they will other phenols or ethanol. Also free sulfer concentration will help to reduce some of the effects of oxidization.

The biggest issues with using the plastic bottles is when you get too much dissolved oxygen which can react with many compounds gaining electrons and turning into peroxide. Which peroxide can react with ethanol to make acetaldehyde. That is a compound that is well related to hangovers. That is why you see some people say their homebrew causes headaches or bad hangovers.

Other issues can just be loss of aroma or fruitiness in wines.

In summary long term aging is not best served in water bottles but if you do bottle within let's say 6 months then you are probably not getting much negative impact.

 

[jamesbsmith]

Thank you Arpolis. that was really informative and helpful.

I have heard that "bulk maturing" is better, although again I have heard this is an old wives tale!

I am going to bottle my wines and mature in glass bottles from now on.
OK I may not benefit from bulk maturing (if it works), but I will avoid damaging my wine from maturing in plastic and frees up my demijohns for fermenting in.

 

[Crysta Waston]

This is very great information, and a study has found that wine stored in polyethylene bottles starts to oxidise within six months.