Behavior of a hyperoxidized must during biological aging of Fino sherry wine

Hyperoxidation treatment of wine must is a technique that has been used inc reasingly in recent years to obtain white wines with greater stability agai nst undesirable oxidation phenomena. In the case of the typical "Fino" sher ry wines, the problem of browning suffered by the finished wine has been st udied for many years. Hence, in this study, the objective is to assess the viability of hyperoxidation of the must of the Palomino Fine grape variety, which is used in the production of these wines, as a means of giving the w ine greater resistance to browning while preserving the particular organole ptic characteristics derived from the biological aging of the wine under th e flor yeast film. For this assessment, musts from four consecutive harvest s were subjected to hyperoxidation, and the resulting wines were kept in an experimental solera under biological aging conditions. This experimental w ine was then compared with a control wine obtained by traditional winemakin g methods from the same four harvests. It was observed that during the agin g period the experimental wine showed similar behavior to the control, its sensory characteristics improving over the course of the period of aging in solera, while showing a reduced tendency towards browning.