Moderate chaptelisation should be much less detectible. I have never heard of particular aromas being caused by chaptilisation. But I would not be surprised if tiny chemical signatures could be detected by some chemical or physical analysis. As pointed out, most of the sugar is converted into CO2 and ethanol, but other trace chemicals and alcohols are produced and will probably vary depending on whether the yeasts are working on glucose, sucrose etc. Also, even in the dryest of wines the conversion to alcohol is not 100% and residual sugars will remain. But do you know anyone who could taste 0.1g of sucrose in a bottle of wine, and be sure it wasn’t another tiny amount of left over fructose?

Second, As a winemaker that has worked in cold, warm and hot growing climates and has used both chaptalization and acidification, it is my finding that detection all depends on the degree to which each is used. Chaptalization when used in small amounts (meaning raised 2-3 Brix) is virtually undetectable in moderately ripe grapes. Same with acidification. Moderation is key to balance in both instances. Adding sugar to super unripe grapes are a completely different story. Cabernet can be particularly difficult to hide sugar adds because the flavors in the grapes are not ripe, not because you can taste the sugar add. The trick to discovering sugar/acid adjustments is to note the ripeness of flavors and decide if the acid/alcohol balance makes sense for the flavor profile.

As Dan pointed out the sugar (if fermented dry) coverts to alcohol not flavor compounds. These are made through related but different pathways during the fermentation process.

Hope this helps!
Nova

Which is where the art of the winemaker comes in. Just as a perfect human should need no enhancement, so a perfect wine should need no additions. But how often does such as wine occur? If grapegrowers and winemakers can provide the equivalent of a few hours in the beauty salon or gym, in order to approach perfection, then that sounds like no bad thing.

However the problem then arises of who is providing the definition of perfection. And with wine, as with humans, there is no universal answer.

And to get back to the subject, there are wines that have been acidified/chaptalized where you notice the adjustments, and there are others where you don’t. Which I know is completely unhelpful for those looking for a concrete answer. But wine doesn’t conform to scientific method.

The bit I don’t understand is this bit: “claiming lab test showed a wine had been chaptalized (legally permissible)” – if chaptalisation is caried out it’s to add alcohol to wine. How can a lab test show that 1.5 points of the 13% abv points came from added sugar?

In re tastes of chaptalisation – again, I don’t see where the flavours are coming from. The sugar is conerted to alcohol, not to aromatic compounds by and large. Further, any additional aromatics would be quite weak so it’s highly unlikely that any different flavours would be noticeable.

While I don’t want to sound anti-blog there are two aspects to this that are annoying. First, I dislike anonymous posters – if you’ve something interesting to say then you should be willing to identify yourself. Second, this is an area where I’ll take advice from trained oenologists only, not wine geeks. As a Master of Wine one of the things I’ve learned is how little I know and how much I can learn but I want to learn from people who really know their stuff. This isn’t an opinion point, this relates to seriously technical stuff.

Good luck to the USA today!

Barley sugar is a smell that comes to mind but most noticeable is the ‘deadening’ of a chaptelised wine a while after it has been poured. I find good non-chaptelised Sauternes will keep ages in the fridge and retain its freshness and flavours while after only an hour or so a chaptelised wine will close up and the sugaryness dominate.