Ladybug, ladybug, get outta my wine
Last Updated Tue, 28 Jan 2003 10:22:18
TORONTO - The latest vintage of Ontario wines may have a hint, a soupçon shall we say, of ladybug in some of the finest whites and reds, all because of an infestation of nasty Asian ladybugs in the late summer of 2001.
Asian ladybug juice infests 2001 Ontario vineyards The hint of ladybug is not harmful to one's health, but the wine industry isn't thrilled at having to hold back a million litres of wine it considers spoiled by the bug's aftertaste.
Konrad Ejbich, president of the Wine Writers Circle of Canada, told CBC Radio's The Current Friday it's a bad news story for an industry that was expecting an excellent vintage from the 2001 crush. He also said it could be financially crippling to some small Ontario wineries.
The biting Asian ladybugs arrived in late summer of 2001, their numbers torqued by an unusually plentiful supply of tiny, green, soybean aphids, the ladybugs' favourite food. When the soybeans were picked, the ladybugs sought out other food.
The result of this is that a taste of ladybug juice found its way to the vineyards, the grapes, the fermentation tanks and ultimately the wine from the grapes of 2001.
When frightened, ladybugs secrete a strong, foul liquid, which contains pyrazine. Some critics compare the taste of pyrazine to cooked spinach or rancid peanuts.
Sauvignon blanc naturally contains some pyrazine, but a problem with other whites, such as chardonnay, is that they are all tasting like sauvignon blanc, with an added rancid finish. The ladybug pyrazine even affects some of Ontario's prize-winning icewines.
"Some wine-makers have dumped up to 1,000 litres of juice," Ejbich said.
The Vintners Quality Alliance of Ontario (VQAO) and LCBO issued a statement saying it had directed winemakers to withhold from sale any wines where the taint "was significant enough to mask the varietal characteristic expected of the wine."
The VQAO said that a small number of ladybug-tainted wines were recalled.
Written by CBC News Online http://cbc.ca/bios.html staff