Hi Sam, glad this is useful 🙂 I don’t actually know precisely how bound sulfite gets handled in/through the body. But yes, my understanding is that it is relative inert as opposed to free sulfite that’s active and reactive with whatever molecules are around it, so the free sulfite is the part that you feel, smell and else, the most for sure.
Sulfite-free wines are very difficult to make, unless the winemaker has a great deal of control over the quality of the grapes and the whole winemaking process. It generally takes rather modern material, gret hygiene at the winery, impeccable grapes, and a fair bit of trial and error, all of which not all winemakers have and do so results vary as you’ve noticed. Those who do it well though, make for really excellent wines. I personally love the purity of fruit expression you get out of sulfite-free wines. They do feel less heavy on your system as well. So i wouldn’t turn them down entirely. But yes, I heavily dislike winemakers who make wines that smell of things I wouldn’t put i my mouth, just for the sake of not using at least a little bit of sulfite. It’s a good thing that winemakers are more careful with using it now, and the doses that are used are overall reduced which in turn makes for overall better, purer wines. Tx for stopping by and engaging in a fascinating conversation 🙂

OK
Please send to us the address in order to send our products

Interesting Yoryakis! Now you have to send me some wine so I can taste it, review and share my impressions. Sounds intriguing ?

The organic (BIO ) “Akratos Oenos” of Helession is a high grade vivid wine with natural and red vinification with wild yeast. Hasn’t been added sulfites preservatives or any other kind of additives, is 100% from grapes! There hasn’t been protein precipitation and is not filtered! Thus they passed to the body of the wine almost all antioxidants, polyphenols, resveratrol and OPC from the grapes.
All our wines have conserved since 2008 and every year is better!
The grapes that had vinified are from traditional variety vitis vinifera of organic farming, from the highlands of Kitheronas, Central Greece (Hellas).

Interesting Scott. It seems strange indeed. Although I guess informing consumers is fair enough in a way. But I think we eat a lot of sulfites and many not-so-nice products in many common foods without being warned or alarmed. Anyway. Thanks for stopping by 🙂

Thanks for the kind feedback, and the interesting questions mate 🙂
Answer to Q1: In short, once the wine is bottled, the sulphur doesn’t disappear out of the wine. As you know, in nature, “Nothing is lost, nothing is created, everything is transformed”, especially in a bottle of wine 🙂
What happens however, is that the SO2 gets bound, it combines with other molecules in the wine and/or oxygen as O2 slowly gets into the bottle. Tehcnically, from a winemaking perspective, we divide two types of sulphites in the wine, the free SO2 and the combined one. The free SO2 is the one that is antiseptic and antioxydant. During ageing, the total amount of sulphur doesn’t go down, but the amount of free-sulphite (the active one) does decrease. Hope that makes sense.
Answer to Q2: technically, none of those levels is too high if we’re talking of total SO2 level in a dry white. As detailed in the article, the European limit (which is a strict one) for this type of wine is 200 ppm. I guess you could say that 150ppm starts to get a little high for a dry wine. But then it really depends how much ‘free sulphur’ that corresponds too because it is the one that is the most ‘annoying’ or perceptible in the smell and palate. A dry white that has gone through a long ageing in barrel might have a higher total sulphites level because it would have gone through succesive additions during its long winemaking process that involves some oxygen in the barrel, more than say a Sauvignon Blanc fermented in tank without ever seing a molecule of oxygen and bottled 2 months ofter fermentation. But the free sulphur level would normally be adjusted by winemakers to the same level prior to bottling, and its impact on the wine’s profile would be similar. Again, hope this makes sense 🙂 Cheers

I have to admit I’ve never tried any of these devices Bonnie 🙁 So couldn’t tell you from first-hand experience. That said, they must use some sort of filtration, getting the wine through a substance (probably a metal) that oxidizes or binds the sulphur as it goes through so it does get into your glass. I would imagine serious manufaturers would test their accessory to get the expected result. So it probably works to an extend (nothing is never 100%, so it probably doesn’t remove ALL the SO2).
Then what’s the maintenance process on these devices? Whatever results they give, their property probably fade with time and usage.
Another question is their overall impact on the wine and its taste. If it modifies the chemical composition of the wine (including binding or oxidizing sulphur) what else does it affect? As highlighted in the article, some grape varieties have sulphur compounds as part of their varietal profile. In this case, the wine’s aromatic profile might get dramatically changed to the point that you’d lose its intended personality.
Sorry that’s more question than answers. In short, I’d think it works overall, at least as long as the device is relatively new or properly maintained.
Tx for taking the time to comment 🙂 Cheers