What causes variation in Brett in various bottles of the same wine?
I have some notions but they may not be complete or correct, so posing the question here. Perhaps there is a relevant historical thread.
Today I tasted a bottle of 1983 DB and there was more Brett on it, slightly more evident on the nose but to me even more so evident on the backend of the palate, than a bottle I opened in November.
The bottle wasn’t mine but it very well could have been - the main point was this subtle difference which to me made the wine less appealing.
Not certain but I’m guessing it’s because the little beasts that cause the aromas and flavors are not going to be evenly distributed in the source wine. Maybe it came from say one barrel out of ten. If one bottle has mostly wine from that barrel and your next bottle had very little then there would be a difference in how much brett is active in there.
Of course, if it’s a popular producer then it’s not brett. It’s some sort of funk you’ve never heard of before. But rest assured it’s not brett. Cuz all the wine from a winery of popularity are protected by a shield of collectors dispensation.
Here are my experiences with 3 brett notorious bottlings. I’ve had good luck with both the 2009 Rhys Family Farm and the 2008 Pegau. Both stored in my well-insulated SF Bay Area passive cellar. OOTH the 2006 Alesia Fairview Syrah, briefly stored in colder SF before opening was totally undrinkable.
So what temperatures make brett bloom?
This is pretty much it. If it’s an unfiltered or lightly filtered wine, viable brett cells can get into wine and they are not evenly distributed. Normally wines are not bottled straight from the barrel, but instead blended together. However, it might be that a winery has three 10,000 liter blending tanks and 30,000 liters’ worth of wine in barrels, so it might be that there might be some brett in one of the tanks and not in the other two. And even then only some of the wines from the bretty tank might get enough viable cells that could produce funk. This is how we get bottle variation.
Of course, if it’s a popular producer then it’s not brett. It’s some sort of funk you’ve never heard of before. But rest assured it’s not brett. Cuz all the wine from a winery of popularity are protected by a shield of collectors dispensation. >
According to a beer web site I visited, brettanomyces optimal temperatures for flourishing are 59F to 72F (brettanomyces is cultivated in some beers). Almost every wine you encounter will have spent at least some time in that temperature range, but probably the more bretty bottles spent more time, or may have been at that temperature their entire storage life.
There are other possibiities. At Hospices du Rhone in Paso Robles one year, Guigal was pouring their Chateauneuf. It was served in four different places. The level of brett varied substantially from one bottle ot the next, all brought there by the importer. I asked a representative for an explanation and he said that Guigal buys already made wine from a number of producers, hence the variation. And he wasn’t apologizing!
That wouldn’t account for a variation in Ducru Beaucaillou, though, if that’s what DB stands for.
Brett is one of the most interesting - and challenging - topics to discuss here, there and everywhere It can be so variable that it’s difficult to discuss any specific wine - only a specific bottle of said wine.
I remember going toe to toe with RMP about an 03 Pegau that he had just rated a 99. I had a bottle along with 5 other winemakers and it was pretty much undrinkable - smelled and tasted like horse crap. Parker said that that was the problem with us CA winemakers - we were ‘brettophobes’. I replied that if a wine smelled and tasted like this, no one would like it. We obviously had different bottles of the same wine . . .
There is no doubt that if you do not filter your wine, there is always a chance you will get selected brett blooms in your bottles, depending upon provenance - shipping and delivery. Temperature swings will cause a bloom. If I had to guess, I would say that it’s probably anything above about 80 degrees or so - and brett in beer is totally different than brett in wine.
One other interesting point to note - brett does not like SO2 and you can ‘keep it at bay’ by having a decent amount of SO2 in a wine. It won’t kill it, but will stunt its growth.
If a wine does have brett and is sterile filtered, the brett effects that had been there will still remain, but there will not be a chance of further bloom. Therefore, if a winemaker wants ‘just a touch’ of brett, this would be the way to do it.
My biggest question what it comes to brett and when it blooms selectively - is this what the winemaker intended the wine to smell and taste like? My guess - no.
I suspect the rep didn’t know what he/she was talking about. I believe that Guigal blends the wines he buys in. So, while there may well be different lots, I doubt they correspond to separate producers. Since he aims for consistency in his negociant wines, I can’t imagine he’d bottle one lot with noticeable brett.
Say more about that. I guess one difference is that in beer it’s cultivated, while I don’t think it ever is in wine (though happily tolerated up to a point by some). Also, in beer, the brett flavors are developed before it goes in the bottle, right? (Are bretty beers pasteurized?) If so, that’s another big difference – in wine, some of the brett development may be in the bottle.
But I’m just speculating. If you can explain the differences, I’d be curious.
I’ve just never seen brett materialize in beer the same way that it does it wine - ever. Spoke with someone knowledgable about beer yesterday and we talked about ‘band aid’ - she said it happens in beer but it’s a bacterial issue from open top fermentors - does not have to do with ‘brett’ at all. So interesting indeed.
But yep, beer geeks who want ‘brett’ in the their wine to show the same way are oftentimes disappointed . . .
I think concerns about brett blooms would be raised at much lower temps than 80 degrees. I suspect anything above the mid 60’s would raise concerns, but appreciate input form anyone with more specific information. For me this is the strongest reason for keeping cellar temp in mid 50’s, although who knows what has happened before you get the wine.
I think it will be difficult to get a specific temperature at which it will begin to bloom. If you do find one, I’d be curious about the source in the testing that’s done. There are so many variables at play here.
One other major variable in responding to the original OP is that our ability to pick up Brett maybe different from day-to-day as well. We as humans are imperfect, and things like ambient temperature and the barometric pressure may make things go just above or below are individual thresholds for picking these things up.
In beer it can be inoculated or just stuff that appears, like in wine (well, basically only in barrel-aged beers). For example, Orval is traditionally fermented “dry” with normal saccharomyces and the bottled with a dose of brett, which is capable of capable of breaking up those unfermented sugars that remain into fermentable sugars.
As a sort of brett-head I can understand Larry’s point in that brett usually tends to appear somewhat differently in beers than in wines, but I’ve still had some bretty beers that have tasted like old, funky Rioja, yet still obviously very beer-y as well. So, every now and then you can get compounds that smell and/or taste exactly the same both in beers and in wines. However, usually brett characteristics do appear quite differently in wines vs. in beers. I guess it might have something to do with what the brett lives on, be it fructose (wine) or maltose (beer). I suppose you’ll find glucose in both. Of course there are different strains of brett, but I guess you’ll encounter all of them in both beer and in wine.
Orval is definitely a classic example here. The differences between a freshly bottled version, a developed bottle (around 1 year of age) and a mature bottle (4-5 years bottle age) are remarkable.
Many beer enthusiasts say that Orval is a living organism, and quite rightly so.
It can be so variable that it’s difficult to discuss any specific wine - only a specific bottle of said wine.![[wink.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/0/04707e6a7bbb03e0153e349d8a9270d30e1e9525.gif "wink"){kind=small}