Chemical Glyphosate (GMO handmaiden) found in California Wines

[Glassunion]

113. My post was sarcasm... At that level, no human can taste that residue.

You cannot discern the flavor of anything in those small quantities.

Denatonium is the most bitter chemical known to humans that I am aware of. It is an additive in shampoo, antifreeze, ect... to make them too bitter to prevent folks from consuming them.

Now, to give you an idea on the limitations of the human tongue (my ever-so-refined palate excluded) you would need to do the following.

Suppose you took 1 liter (1,000,000µl-microliters or 1,000,000,000nL-nanoliters) of the purest water and began to add Denatonium. The human tongue will not be able to discern the flavor of the Denatonium until about 0.05µl or 50nL. It is not until you get to around 10.0µl where it will become undrinkable. Now according to Post #9, we are talking about 18.74nL or 0.01874µl (at the most) of Glyphosate. This number is barely a hair over 1/3 of the numbers needed to taste the most potent bitter chemical known to man. So, in essence there is no human walking the planet that can taste even the most bitter chemical known to man, let alone this one.

If your wine tastes like shitty chemical residue, most likely you are just buying a shitty wine for your particular palate. Wineries and breweries add all sorts of additives to their products. For wine alone you have: sulfites, thiamine hydrochloride, tannin, copper sulfate, albumen, isinglass, trypsin, pepsin, casein, ect... Now some if this may sound scary, however it is quite normal, and natural.

I think the ancient Egyptians came up with the process of adding sulfites to their wine. This is actually a good thing. By adding sulfur dioxide (sulfites) to wine you are denaturing the enzyme Poly Phenol Oxidase... Boom! Your wine is now an antioxidant, and a tool in your body's fight against free radicals. Now the standard for this in most countries is to never add more than 350ppm to the wine. It is primarily used in wines made from late harvest grapes. However, if your wine is from older (late harvest) grapes that may have molds, more sulfites are added for the anti microbial properties. This can result in a flavor change if the numbers get high enough.

Thiamine hydrochloride - Simply a B vitamin added to feed yeast during the fermentation process.

Tannin - This is one of my personal favorites. I actually enjoy younger Bourgogne (Burgundy) wines for the sharp, crisp flavors that the tannins add to a wine. Now the seeds of the wine contain tannin, as well as oak barrels or chips when aging wine. It is one of the traits you look for in a wine that will age well. If a wine lacks in tannin, it will not improve with age.

Copper Sulfate - Gets rid of odors in the wine by removing sulfur. This has been said (not by me) to leave a tinny or metallic flavor in wine even though it is removed from the wine.

So, what you are thinking may be a chemical residue taste in your wine, may actually be a completely harmless, natural additive that was put in the wine, or the wine actually lacks an additive that may have balanced the flavor in a more pleasant way. I'm of the opinion that there is no such thing as a "good" or "bad" wine. I personally enjoy simple, younger wines 2012 - 2013 from Bourgogne France that go for about $25 a bottle. My wife on the other hand enjoys an older one 2006-2009 that goes for $54 a bottle. She raves about it, but it is nothing special to me, and I get more excited over a 2012. We did however have a '96 at a steakhouse that was orgasmic.