It’s not being pedantic at all. Those are technical choices as can be brett, mercaptans and VA depending on how the wine is made and where. I’m not a fan of any of them in any big amount but neither am I a fan of wines where the oak stands out or have low acidity necessarily. But I have enjoyed wines with levels of all five things all over the place. Not everyone agrees that the ‘flaws’ are flaws all of the time. I also think it is a shame when people are taught to dump their glass out at the first sign of brett because it is a “flaw”.
![[soap.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/a/a7ea1fffd3ef237e8f19d17a83270ad8452218ca.gif "soap"){kind=small}
Of your list I would agree with TCA, and TCA alone.
All of the others–Brett, sulfides, VA-- are integral components of some of the world’s finest wines.
When they’re out of balance with other components in the wine, then they’re off-putting. But that is a subjective call.
Buying a wine that is known to be Bretty year in-year out and then returning it because it is Bretty strikes me as no different from buying a wine that is always heavily oaked and returning it because you find it too oaky.
I don’t know what Ryan’s wine was, so I cannot say whether it fits the above definition. But unless a buyer does due diligence to obtain a wine that conforms to his or her preferences, then returning a wine because you don’t like the style strikes me as having someone else pay for your own experimentation.
Regards,
+1
You’re both confusing two things - the presence of compounds generally regarded as flaws with the fact that, in some wines, at certain levels, those flavors are desireable to some tasters. Note that you cannot ascribe the greatness of the wines to the flaws - is Beaucastel a great wine because of the brett it often has? Or despite it? I think equating a deliberate style choice such as oak levels with a technical flaw such as brett or VA (NO ONE introduces brett or VA deliberately) is, well, silly.
Anyway, feel free to nitpick at this… it’s completely uninteresting to me, so I won’t be saying more.
Rick,
You are holding onto the ‘technical flaw’ thing as tightly as a recent UC Davis/CSU Fresno grad. Let go. ![[wink.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/0/04707e6a7bbb03e0153e349d8a9270d30e1e9525.gif "wink"){kind=small}
Not all wines need to be ‘technically’ correct to be enjoyable unless you are making industrial wine.
I agree that many great wines have some brett/va/etc. I really like Chateau Musar, which is a great example. I do think there is a point with sulfur/reductive aromas and brett where the “off” flavors coming from those components is so strong that most people would agree the wine is flawed. I know the idea of where “the line” exists is subjective, but if you go way past most people’s line, you have a flawed wine. I have rarely returned a wine for any of these reasons, but sometimes it is warranted. I opened a Vin Santo recently with so much VA (ethyl acetate, not just acetic acid) that I would not even put the wine into my mouth and spit it out. It smelled awful, and even someone unfamiliar with what VA is would probably recognize that the wine was undrinkable. I suspect it could have actually made someone sick. Are those on the other side of this argument saying I shouldn’t have returned that bottle because Musar has VA as well and I like Musar? That seems silly to me.
I have never returned wine due to Brett domination. I do think it is reasonable for someone to return it and for the shop clerk to have a civilized discussion about the percieved flaw and perhaps bring the manager or owner of the shop to the discussion.
I think that discussion can then be, we are giving you a refund or exchange today. Then give them the buyer beware on old wines and I think some risk sharing from the customer is reasonable there. I don’t have a good filter for retailers who provide eye rolls etc when you return something and I generally let them know.
Sub-55? Really? I bet there isn’t a domaine in all of CdP that meets that standard.
Not that I disagree with your main point. If I have had the bottle for years, even if I remember where I bought it, I am almost certainly not going to return it. In fact, I really can’t remember the last wine I tried to return.
Actually, Band-aid is a classic Brett descriptor. Of the two main chemical compounds that produce the Brett aromas, 4-E-P generally produces the barnyard, and 4-E-G can produce the Band-aid/chemical/plastic/spicy components.
I most often hear that band-aid is associated with reductive wines, not bretty - interesting
Depending on the strain of Brett and the wine it is in, it can produce some very strange aromas. I inoculated many wines with 30 strains of Brett- I had one produce an unmistakable aroma of roses (phenyl ethanol), one smelled like milk chocolate, and I had several smell like exhaust fumes. In addition to the aforementioned poo and band-aid. I had a few wines that daily would change from one to the other- poo, then spice the next day, then band-aid the day after. I guess the dominant chemicals were in flux while they were refermenting.
And as far as bloom in the bottle, many wines are bottled at the “intolerable” level for some people, so no amount of proper storage would guard against that.
I’m saying that people who have a low tolerance level for VA shouldn’t be buying Musar.
And people who fit into this category but end up buying Musar anyway, because of a self-inflicted mistake?.. well, returning the opened bottle is really asking others to pay for your own mistake.
Re: your Vin Santo… I don’t know the specific bottling you had, but if the wine was as intended by the winemaker (no post-bottling instabilities or abusive storage ex-cellar) then it is possible to say that you returned the wine because it was made in a style not to your liking.
This happens all the time.
People return Sauternes because they’re too sweet, and Zinfandel because it’s too red.
I’m just not a fan of that kind of thing.
Regards,
I’m not a fan of that kind of thing either, but as a retailer, it’s not about me. If I expected my customers to behave logically, I’d do something else for a living.
This is a great thread…very informative.
As a beginner wine nerd I never knew that the barnyard smell (which I am NOT fond of) was from brett.
Now a question…I was tasting some wines for a restaurant with a friend and a rep today. One of the wines we had had a light barnyard smell. The rep told me that when it opens up that it would blow away. Certainly as it sat in the glass other aromas came forward…but, will it really blow away?
Thanks!
d
Well, I’m not really surprised this happened. I wasn’t 100% sure it really was brett. I thought I’ve read many times band aid = brett, so I thought that’s what it was. I am a bit of a noob though, so if it was something else, then maybe it was something else. But I do know that smell and there is no mistaking it.
I can definitely appreciate that there are some traits that people will argue whether it’s a fault or not, but I cannot imagine anyone thinking that this wine was intended to taste like that. It was so overpowering I could not smell anything else. On the palate, maybe not quite as bad, but really, that’s not saying much. My wife and friend agreed, and neither wanted to drink it.
Whatever the case, I think I may have read too much into the reaction I got at the store. They did take it back, so I’m not going to criticize.
There’s a pretty wide range of sensitivities to these components. Beyond that, there is a wide range of likes and dislikes out there. While I’m sure you found the wine undrinkable I have no way of knowing how others would react.
Whatever the case, I think I may have read too much into the reaction I got at the store. They did take it back, so I’m not going to criticize.
I’d disagree here.
If the store clerk rolled his eyes or copped some kind of attitude then he was wrong. Even if I don’t agree with returning these kinds of wines, you obviously thought it was the right thing to do. You should have been treated with unequivocal respect.
Brett produces a lot of H2S, so there certainly can be a bit of the aroma of a Bretty wine that can seem to blow off at first. But it is just the sulfur compound blowing off, not the poo-ie aromas produced by the Brett. There are also wines with H2S from other sources that someone might mistakenly think it Brett at first, and when these aromas blow off, they think the “Brett” has blown off, even though it was not there to begin with. Brett does not blow off. In fact, often it gets worse with air.
Thanks, Linda!!
Speaking of off-odors blowing off …… I’d love to get your opinion on something, Linda. I’m convinced that our “noses” acclimate to a particular odor, i.e., the smell is still there but it just isn’t as obvious as when we first stuck our nose in the glass because we’ve gotten used to it.
I see this on a fairly regular basis when I’m tasting a flight of wines with several other people. Everyone may agree that there’s something funky in the nose of a particular wine, but the person who stays with that wine before moving on often reports that the offending smell has blown off. I’ll move on to the other wines (but will occasionally swirl the stinky wine to make sure it’s getting plenty of oxygen) and when I get back to the questionable wine the funky aroma is still there.
Thoughts?
I’m not Linda and I don’t play her on TV, but it sounds like you are describing an aromatic version of tasting a wine with extremely strong, chewy tannins. The first time you taste it, you think it’s very tannic. With repeat tastings, the wine doesn’t seem as tannic (binding to tannin receptors on the tongue?).
As for funky wines, I’ve seen that go both ways–I’ve seen wines get funkier with more aeration, and wines where the funk seems to dissipate. Besides the chemical reactions that occur with aeration, my guess is that wines are often “shut down” aromatically and in terms of taste when first opened. So when you first open them, the funk is predominant. But if the wine opens up while breathing, the non-funky elements MIGHT emerge and start to overtake the funk.
Bruce