KWV, Chemistry, Ladybugs, and Vin au naturel

So I've been commenting on all things KWV since the whole 'tainting' thing broke. It has been interesting to see this whole thing unfold. From the 'those 2 clown were on their own' to the 'it was an experiment' to the we have eradicated the problem' to the 'another vat found tampered with' and so on... All the while, the only thing reported having been added to the wine was whole bell peppers, ground green peppers, a homemade extract of bell peppers, and blah, blah, blah. Up until now:

KWV sacks winemakers in additive scandal

Surprisingly, Decanter.com seems to be a little late in the reporting game but they did bring a little more to the table.

"The Laborie was adulterated with green pepper and the Reserve with piracine. Both are natural substances but are illegal."

Piracine? I suppose I should have paid more attention in Chemistry class and maybe this stuff is actually not bad for you or wine, but it does have a slightly menacing name. Not knowing what this stuff is, I starting snooping around the web. A google search for 'piracine' yields very few results, most of which are referencing the article I cited from Decanter. Apparently, there is a different spelling on this side of the pond. Not so surprising, except when you do a search for 'pyrazine'. I'm sure there are myriad people who know far more about this than I but here a some things I found when searching for the 'American' spelling.

PYRAZINE

Some of the highlights from the run down are:

Storage:
Keep tightly closed.
Store in a cool dry place.
Keep away from heat, sparks, and open flame.

Inhalation: May be harmful and cause irritation to respiratory tract.
Skin: May be harmful if absorbed through skin. May cause skin irritation.
Eyes: May cause eye irritation.
Ingestion: May be harmful if swallowed.

Boiling point: 115-116ºC
Melting point: 54-56ºC
Specific Gravity: 1.031
Appearance: white crystals

I know this reads with a bit of the old 'Doom and Gloom' but maybe it isn't so bad. Further digging yielded this exchange about my grandmother's favorite insect:

"Phil: There were millions of them and they were everywhere. Since most grapes are harvested with machines that have many fingers the buggers went into the containers along with the grapes. they were then crushed. the smell you get from them is pyrazine. some wines like Chardonnay have
naturally occurring pyrazine but with the buggers bodies it is over the top horrid. We bought a car vac to vaccum them from our house each day. We have a 160 year old non air tight house that invites the little buggers in each day.

When they have eaten enough aphids they turn to other crops. They also
ruined raspberry and strawberry crops. These are the Asian variety and are a light orange colour and bite you.We had customers run from their cars to our showroom while being swarmed by clouds of them."

I'm sitting here possibly re-thinking my stance on wine altogether. I have been a whole-hearted subscriber to the school of organic/bio-dynamic, unfined, unfiltered wines. Maybe they don't have ladybugs in Europe. And ladybugs that bite? I thought we had it bad enough with flying palmetto bugs (that's local speak for 'big damn cock roaches).

Evolution can be a bastard.