There’s the old saw about the sow’s ear and the silk purse. It reminds me of my old adage of “never blend a loser,” which admonishes readers against blending bad wine into good. It improves the bad wine at the detriment to the whole blend. That’s too bad your grapes were sub-optimal and absolutely you did the right thing adding the SO2 to try to combat the rot and potential VA issue. Unfortunately, rot in both red wines and whites, especially if Botrytis cinerea are present, can mean the presence of laccase, a particularly nasty type of polyphenoloxidase (PPO). PPOs are naturally occurring enzymes in grapes that cause brown pigments in juice and wine. In your case, your rot has probably been unleashed by a Botrytis cinerea infection. Though most winemakers think of white wines when they think “browning,” this is because the colors in red wine often cover up, out-shine, and mask any brown pigments. Red wines, as you’ve found, can experience significant browning due to rot too, especially because the extra skin contact during fermentation compounding time with
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