What do you do to prevent or eradicate brett?

There’s a rather heated discusson over in Wine Talk about a Ravines Finger Lakes cab franc that the winemaker acknowledges has some brett, and he says it “reliably” develops in the bottle in one of his single-vineyard wines.

I’m curious:

–Can you have brett in some wines regularly without it infecting others produced in the same facility?
–What can you do to eliminate it in a particular wine that develops it year after year?
–If you’ve got it in your cellar and don’t want it, how do you eradicate it from your cellar?

In order:
Don’t know
Use Velcorin and/or, if the population of Brett exceeds Velcorin’s capacity to destroy it all, sterile filter
Theoretically, sterilize everything - literally (although you can not do that in the vineyard and grapes can bring it in, boots can bring it in, wind can bring it in, etc.)
Best I can do, Jim

  1. Yes. We had one vineyard in particular (Petite Sirah) that had Brett every year we got it. Some grape varieties have more of the precursors which lead to 4-EP/4-EG. Brett is rarely seen in the vineyard (as far as published research is concerned), but I suspect it is there. It is a fastidious yeast and notoriously hard to grow in lab settings (although I never had any issues when I was working with it). As long as you are careful and clean, you can prevent cross-contamination.
  2. There are now RO membranes that can eliminate 4-EP/4-EG. There are other new methods as well. As far as I know, you can only (legally) add Velcorin at bottling. Not to say you couldn’t get around that, but if you have already started to develop the aroma compounds, that wouldn’t get rid of the stuff that has already formed.
  3. Steaming barrels and sanitation (as Jim said), is the best way. Eliminating any wooden structures/pallets, etc. as well.

Linda,
Regarding 2; if you kept sulphur high to bottling, do you think you could manage the population sufficiently that Velcorin or sterile filtering would be effective? Clearly, it won’t kill already developed aromas but, if you knew you had Brett (or in the case you mention, the almost certain propensity), is that a viable strategy?
BTW, I was not aware of the RO membrane for this purpose - thanks for that info.
Best, Jim

I wish I could find my notes, but I went to a Unified Symposium lecture a few years ago, and a Davis person had some (as of that time) unpublished data on Brett sensitivity to SO2, and some of them were resistant to very high levels. There are so many strains now, it would be hard to know offhand.
Whenever we had a Bretty lot, we would just sterile filter, steam the crap out of the barrels, and go back down, if very far out from bottling. That was usually enough to keep it in check.
Last year we sent out a sample (can’t remember where to- the winemaker I was working for wasn’t very communicative), and I believe it was some sort of charcoal treatment that was fairly new. I didn’t really like what it did to the wine, though.

Regarding No. 3, from everything I’ve heard, you can never completely eradicate Brett from a winery. It’s going to be there to some degree, whether you’ve made noticeably Bretty wines there or not. But through good sanitation and good winemaking practices such as those that Jim and Linda have mentioned, you can keep it to manageable levels where it should not create problems in the wines. Any wine facility that’s been around for more than a couple of years is almost guaranteed to have at least a little Brett yeast in it along with other yeasts. Of course you can still end up with a Bretty barrel or bring in fruit with Brett from a particular vineyard, but as Linda mentioned, you can prevent cross-contamination through good practices in the winery.

Clark Smith has an interesting take on brett in that he feels it is a “hospital disease”, brought on by an over-fixation on sterility and obsessive sanitation techniques. I’m sure one can google this and call up his articles.

That’s right, Hank. I took a wine chemistry class that Clark taught at UC Davis Extension and he talked about promoting “microbiological equilibrium” in the winery, and that this would help keep Brett in check. Not sure whether I buy it but it is certainly an interesting take as you say - perhaps there’s something to it.

Clark used to lecture at Fresno State, and while I like him as a person, I think his theory is bullshit.
Brett loves wood. The main area of concern in a winery are barrels (and other wooden structures, but wine doesn’t really come in direct contact with much other wood). Wood is something that you just can’t clean like other winery surfaces. It is porous. Staves have tiny gaps between them. Certain strains of Brett can form pseudomycelia that can grow into the porosity of the wood. They feast on cellobiose (wood sugar). Wood is not something you can get “too clean”.
Being a Microbiologist, I do agree that there are many microorganisms that thrive due to the hygiene hypothesis, and while it is a huge problem in human health, IMO this is not one of them. Wineries are generally not THAT clean. Go to a brewery and compare the sanitation protocols breweries follow as compared to wineries. It’s like night and day, and frankly, wine is just a lot more forgiving than beer. Or hospitals.
Unless wineries do away with barrels, I think it is just something we are going to have to learn to live with. When I was in school, we got two BRAND NEW barrels that were Bretty. Such is the life of wine and the winery.

All excellent points, Linda. I’ve heard about Bretty new barrels from a number of people, though fortunately I’ve never experienced that myself. One winemaker said that Brett can get into the new barrels pretty quickly once they’re in the winery since the sugars in the new wood provide such a good food source.

These barrels were filled almost immediately after being received. I suspect the source was from the forest.

I wouldn’t think any microbe could survive the toasting process. Even though only the surface is charred, the entire barrel heats up pretty quickly.

Heads weren’t toasted.

Lallemand has developed a new product that I have heard favorable things about, but haven’t tried.NO BRETT INSIDE™ (100 g) | Scott Laboratories

Interesting.

The most interesting thing about brett is the perception of even experience tasters when tasting New World and Old World wines. Ive seen this even in Master’s candidates. Old world with brett - “Wow this wine shows amazing earth and terroir. Love it.” New World - “This wine is bretty. Awful wine.”

I had Brett develop in a wine about 3 years ago. It hung around in the cellar but I think I’ve eliminated it now. I traced to to a used barrel where the wine smelled strongly of Brett.

I killed it in a tank of wine by using a commercially available biocide. It stopped the Brett developing further but left a residual aroma and flavour. (But as I’m a Old World producer I just sent the wine to some French critics and they loved it!).

I cleaned all my tanks and hoses with chlorine, rather than caustic and hydrogen peroxide as I normally do.

I sold the naughty barrel to someone to put in their garden.

Note however that I keep wine in the same barrels for 12 months and only blend at the end, so I could isolate the bad barrel.

Chlorine? [shock.gif] [swoon.gif]

Sure. It’s just a different kind of “terroir”.

This study suggested SO2 sensitivity in Brett strains may vary (hopefully the link works):

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/store/10.1111/j.1365-2672.2004.02549.x/asset/j.1365-2672.2004.02549.x.pdf?v=1&t=hny1lrbv&s=4c6a30c213aca5c29e2a8643f449d69762185dce