The Difference between Brett and Sweat?

My nose is much better than my palate.

I am far more experienced with Cabernet than with Pinot Noir. More experienced by far with TCA than with Brett.

The first clue for a TCA-troubled Cabernet is the cork. Anything from “get-this-out-of-here” to dull, uninviting, a wine lacking engaging fruit aroma. A post-bottling wine defect.

But where is the line drawn (without chemical analysis) between funk and Brett? If you bring the wine to your nose, and you say “uh-oh,” is it style or defect?

All descriptors and discussion welcome. My non-Cabernet education continues.

Merrill, Sounds like defect to me. There is a type of PN funk, but it’s not sweat or in anyway animalistic. I’m more sensitive to TCA as well, but brett still gives me the shivers. Btw as for cab, there used to be plenty of Bdx that were famous for brett: Montrose, Lynch Bages, Gruaud Larose etc esp back in the 80s. Pegau is also very often bretty if you want a CdP.

This was Oregon PN, which I have been enjoying (on a thread around Thanksgiving, I gave the Thomas 2011 Dundee Hills the “I wish I had made this” seal of approval. If that matters .)

This is also 2011, also similar origin, and bleh. I put the cork in, put it in the fridge to await another opinion, but after your post, I pulled it back out. Nope. No good.

My experience with brett in Bordeaux, is typically that classic band-aid aroma.

I know - thank you for your comment -I get that, truly.

I think this is a Pinot Noir centered issue, and one where a line is perhaps drawn between “interest” and “defect.”

A little brett=interest. A lot of brett=defect. Yes?

I think because of the sensitivity of my olfactory senses, a little equals a lot. Hmmm. Is that phrase already coined?

Well yes and no. Someone can correct me but I don’t think all Brett is the same. I can’t tolerate any of the band-aid aroma, regardless of how strong but the horsey/leather Brett does not bother me until it takes over the wine. But yes, a little in my Syrah or S. Rhone can be a good thing. Can’t say I have noticed Brett in Pinot and not sure that I would like it if I did

I would think a person’s ability to perceive, tolerate, enjoy, and be repulsed by brett to be quite subjective. I believe Laube once wrote something along the line, “I know terroir when I experience it, and it’s not brett.”

Hi Brian! I appreciate your palate and understand it with regard to Cabernet. See you at Bassin’s in April!

But…this thing here…the worst example I had was probably one of my first PNs, and opened with a local “expert,” and I could not stand it! I could not drink even a sip or 2. That was at least 10 years ago.

I don’t know. I get saddle and leather and that stuff in Cabernet. I can draw the line for my personal enjoyment. But this is something else.

IMHO, I doubt most tasters can actually distinguish between the two (if analysis were done). My experience is that those that tolerate brett call it barnyard, etc… and those that cannot call it brett (defect). I truly believe barnyard aromas can exist and not as a result of brett. Of course I have no scientific basis for this, though I suppose Jaimie Goode as probably written on the subject. I enjoy Pegau, Beaucastel, Lynch Bages, etc…but when the brett is blooming and out of control, the wine becomes undrinkable.

Merrill - are you asking for people’s personal reactions or for something more general?

Brett is all around and in the past most wineries weren’t all that clean, so it was characteristic of many European wines from France, Spain, Italy, Greece, and so on. When people talk about “globalization”, one thing they’re talking about is clean winemaking because the bretty notes are gone from many wines these days.

The irony is that even in clean wineries, the wine making might help brett. It can grow very easily using the alcohol in the wine as a source of carbon, some amino acids in the wine for nitrogen, and even some of the sugars in barrel wood of the barrels, particularly the toasted ones. But it needs oxygen, so the trick is to deprive it of any oxygen. That’s the purpose of sulfur and therefore the trend to no sulfur is clearly beneficial to brett. As are higher sugar levels from riper grapes.

And then of course it multiplies much more rapidly at higher temps, so storage is an issue.

But not everything funky is brett. Sulfur that’s added to wine can form weird-smelling compounds all by itself. And we perceive things differently depending on their concentration. So the exact same molecule that may give a note of say, leather, may be really offensive if the concentration of it is doubled or tripled. And brett can manifest itself in many forms - I’m sure you’ve seen the brett aroma wheel.

As far as Pinot Noir and brett go, the brett from a ripe Sonoma PN may be entirely different from a PN from somewhere else in the world because the different components of the wine would be different. Some of the funk may just be from the reductive environment of the bottle and some from the grape. Tempranillo for example, has a distinctive funk to it. If a winery is super clean, the funk may not be apparent immediately, but last night I had one of those and it was 20 years old and now has that classic funky note and I’m sure it’s not brett - it’s just the signature of the grape, kind of mushroomy. PN has a distinctive note with age as well, but that’s always mixed with the grapey PN flavors that help to distinguish it in blind tastings. Brett adds another dimension.

Personally I tend not to like it in young, fruity wines, be it band aid, sweat, barnyard, or whatever. A hint of it in an older wine isn’t as offensive because it tends to mix with the other aromas and flavors of the mature wine, which aren’t so fruit-based.

I was looking for some discussion, and I got it. I am interested in people’s impressions and thoughts on the subject. I know my way around a discussion of TCA, but Brett not so much. I am not talking about the chemistry or lab analysis that might identify Brett, but about our ability to identify it and distinguish it from “style,” if that makes any sense. Earth and mushroom qualities I do not find offensive. I guess I will term this one “barnyard,” and I don’t like it. But I am not sure this is a “defective” wine - perhaps just with a profile that is unattractive and uninviting to me.

I will have someone else taste the wine on Tuesday and see what his impression is. I guess if he grabs the bottle, pour a glass and drinks it, then it is not defective, just not a wine I enjoy. I’ll post back on that experience.

This seems like a strange dichotomy… style and defect are not mutually exclusive.
“Style” is about the producer’s intentions, and “defect” is a matter of how a consumer reacts to the wine once offered.

Merrill,
This may be a bretty wine, or it may be reduced. Reduction is a problem (Brett is too) for a number of Oregon wineries, particularly in wines from the Dundee Hills. In addition, according to several winemakers (and based on personal experience), women tend to be much more sensitive to reduction and less forgiving of it. So you may find that if the someone else who tries the wine is male, they may like it.

Good post Greg. Pretty well agreed ac

Yes, it is a guy who will be tasting with me Tuesday. I am anxious to get his impressions.

Interesting discussion. I taste quite a lot, often blind, with NZ winemakers. They are fanatical about eliminating all traces of brett from their wines. I very rarely see it in NZ pinot noirs with a couple of well known exceptions.

When I taste Burgundies I or my non-winemaking friends will often comment, ‘Interesting, funky nose’. The winemakers will often call ‘Brett’ in return. I don’t want to drink a wine that smells like an outhouse but (1) at low levels, I cannot detect it, obviously and (2) at low levels, I often regard it as a positive. (1) is why my non-winemaker friends often speak of ‘winemaker’s brett’ (and there is a related phenomenon of ‘winemakers VA’).

After a few rounds of this with Burgundies at a recent wine tasting one of the winemakers said ‘Perhaps we should worry less about brett?’ However, other winemakers said, even though we weren’t complaining at low levels, it is a hygiene issue and can’t necessarily be ‘contained’ at low levels and needs to be eliminated, as much as it can.

This issue of the identification of brett is most acute with Old World Syrah, where winemakers will often detect what they describe as some level of brett.

I would add I recently had a discussion about this with Peter Rosback of Sineann who was adamant that brett was a spoilage issue and should be eliminated at all times, even if experienced tasters could not detect it at low levels.

Wasn’t there a rock group called Brett, Sweat and Tears?