H2S Formation during Wine Storage in Aluminum Beverage Cans – Effects of Wine Composition and Liner Type
Austin Montgomery, Gavin L. Sacks,* and Rachel
B. Allison
*Cornell University, 411 Tower Rd, Ithaca, NY, 14850
(gls9@cornell.edu)
The fastest-growing category of wine packaging, canned wines offer several advantages over glass-packaged wines in terms of recyclability, durability, and convenience. However, storing wines in cans can occasionally (and unpredictably) increase hydrogen sulfide (H2S; “rotten egg” aroma) in certain wine × can liner combinations after several weeks or months. We report the development and validation of an accelerated aging test to predict H2S formation and use its evaluating parameters that affect H2S production during canned wine storage. For the accelerated assay, coated Al coupons are incubated in 25 mL wine at 50°C in crimp-topped glass vials and H2S is measured after three and 14 days. Reliable control of oxygen during storage to <1 ppm was critical to achieve reproducible H2S results. Validation with commercial wines showed good correlation in H2S production between conventional aging up to 32 weeks and accelerated aging. Traditional BPA epoxy and newer BPA-NI epoxy liners had similar performance, but acrylic liners resulted in significantly more H2S formation in all wines. Among wine composition parameters, molecular SO2 was most strongly correlated with H2S production during storage. Several other components, including Cu, did not correlate with H2S production.
Funding Support: The Sherwin Williams Company, New York State Wine and Grape Foundation
