I sometimes pick up gobs and gobs of smoke in nebbiolo. This includes nebbiolo that may have been properly stood up and decanted, removing the vast majority of sediment. I am curious for two questions, (i) what about these particular wines result in so much smoke (production style, specific vineyard, etc?), and (ii) do folks interchange ‘smoke’ and ‘tar’ as tasting descriptors, or do you find them to be dramatically different notes?
To me, smoke =/= tar.
No idea where the tar comes from. Smoke can come from oak char or …?
Smoke and tar are two completely different things for me.
Tar tends to be a reductive aromatic in my experience.
Completely different. Tar is usually from some kind of sulfur compounds. It’s not uncommon in many wines, not unique to Nebbiolo. Smoke is something a little different. It can come from barrels or from actual smoke, but I think sometimes it’s associated with a meaty quality that you get in some Syrah, some Tempranillo, and a few other grapes. I read at one point that it’s sometimes caused by a kind of brett - I never researched that further, but it may be the case. It usually seems to appear broadly across the back of my mouth when I get it. Some Outpost can have it. But it’s nothing like tar.
There are different types of smoke aromas found in various wines. Variety typically comes from the interplay of wine with wood.
I don’t associate the two at all. Tar is quite distinct from smoke.
Ditto for me. I don’t equate smoke & tar in the character of a wine. Smoke is something I seldom get in a wine other
than the rare on affected by smoke taint.
In Nebbiolo, from whereever, Calif & Italy. I usually get a floral/violets/lilacs character. And the other end of the
spectrum, I will often get a pungent character that I associate w/ fresh road tar, Not something I associate w/ Sulfer compounds
or reductive character. Or there will be somewhere in between those two extremes. And I will sometimes get a pungent character
that resembles the smell of heavy-roast/espresso coffee beans.
Tom
To my understanding “tar” in Nebbiolo refers specifically to a note very much reminiscent of wood tar, whereas “tar” as a term in the US normally refers to asphalt, or bitumen as it is elsewhere known, which is a completely different story. I’ve never had any asphalt / bitumen notes in my Nebbiolos, but a note of wood tar (a somewhat smoky yet very distinctive aroma) is relatively often present in many a Barolo and Barbaresco - especially if they have some age.
I don’t know how familiar you US people are with wood tar aromas, but they are pretty familiar to a Finnish nose and palate, since we have here eg. tar shampoos, tar-flavored candies and whatnot. If you’ve grown up with those kinds of products, picking up a tar note in a Nebbiolo is a breeze.
Well, Otto…that’s a good point. I suspect what you & I are talking about are one in the same. It’s just a matter of the descriptor we use.
I’m not at all familiar w/ what you label as “wood tar”. The tar that I smell in Nebbiolo I label as “road tar” or fresh asphalt.
But that smell, though rather pungent, is, in my mind, somewhat different from the “road tar/bitumen” that I
recall from my childhood…but it’s the closest thing in my smell memory catalog that I can come up with.
Tom
Could a large prevalence of tar in a given wine be perceived as smoke?
What wine are we talking about here?
I don’t have a particular wine in mind. It is an observation that I use smoke as a descriptor for Nebbiolo I suspect more than others. And the sensation to me is smoke, but could also be road tar.
For example, in tasting note below, 2007 Castello Nieve Santo Stefano which I had a few months ago, my note mentions smoke many times. I suspect I perceive wood tar as tar and then road tar/asphalt as smoke.
90/91
Some chunky sediment came out in decant. But a lot of smokey tannin in this wine.
Nose: purple raspberry, notes of red rose, a little tar, smoke.
Palate: Red Cherry, black plum, black raspberry, smoke. Finessed juicy fruit that is dark purple overall. Clean mouthfeel. But the structure kicks in nearly immediately. First adds a nice smokiness and then overpowers.
Structure: Tannins quickly overpower the palate at this stage, with a modest puckering of smokey and bitter tannins. You get fruit, but the tannin are powerful. and then this rather surprisingly short finish. Over time I felt a little heat in the finish.
Funny, because I’ve had some asphalt / bitumen tones in some wines, but very rarely in Nebbiolo. On the other hand, I’ve had numerous wines that exhibit wood tar notes - which I’m very familiar with, too.
It might be that we are talking about the same things with different words, but I just want to point out that the asphalt / bitumen / mineral tar aromas are very different from wood tar notes and while I’ve no idea how mineral tar / bitumen tastes like, I know very well how wood tar tastes like and it’s sometimes almost identical to the flavors found in Nebbiolo (up to the point when I discreetly burped an hour or so after a dinner where I had some Barbaresco and from the flavor that filled my mouth I first wondered that I hadn’t eaten any tar candies recently - until I recognized that it was that Barbaresco I was re-tasting!) ![[snort.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/b/bdc3944606213c4dca6c1169cf0a166c8bc4f8c9.gif "snort.gif"){kind=small}