Does VA Have A Positive Role To Play With Red Burgundy?

I’ve always considered that VA at best is a distraction. But I see reviews where it is mentioned and the critique overall is quite good. So, can a little bit of VA be a good thing with red Burgs?

Yes.

Not always, but it can.

Like everything in wine, it’s a matter of degree, I think. I’m not sure why you single out Burgundy, unless to troll. You can certainly get VA in some Northern Rhones, Barolos, Spanish reds and high-octane California wines.

Winemakers here (maybe even Larry!) have said that low levels of VA can “lift” a wine, accentuating other aromas and adding a little acid zip.

How much is too much? When you can pick it out, I guess. But I’m pretty sure that sensitivity levels vary widely person to person, as they do for many aromas in wine. I make vinegar and I have a high tolerance for acetic acid in foods (salads, pickles, olives), but I’m not keen on it when I can identify it in a wine.

I’ve never followed any threads on VA and I’m inquiring about red Burgs because that’s what I’m interested in at this time. I’m not interested in imperceivable levels because other than testing, how would you know that it’s there. Is it considered to add anything to the aroma/flavor profiles?

By knowing that there is always some VA in wine. It becomes perceivable once it gets above a certain threshold and that threshold varies by person to person.

I can tell you hyper-sensitivity to VA (which I have) is a blessing and a curse.

This kind of seems to be going the way of a root canal. Okay, you know that VA is always present at some level. If it is not present at a level where you can perceive it, how would you know that it is a contributing factor to the overall quality of the wine? And if it’s present at a level where you can perceive it, can it be credited with adding to the overall quality of the wine, specificly regarding the aroma/flavor profiles?

Let’s really get the popcorn going -

All wine does have some level of VA. I have, occasionally, thought that VA does provide something a lift to a wine (echoing Larry’s comments). Sometimes I think that a wine that is flat on the nose and has a particularly low level of VA could use a bit more to give it a bit of a lift. I don’t think this is anything a consumer would know but as a winemaker it has occasionally come up for me. – VA is a matter of degrees but other things - such as brett and TCA aren’t. A wine doesn’t have to have them.

Adam Lee
Clarice Wine Company
Beau Marchais Wines

As with many aspects of wine, think of it as having two perception thresholds. One is where it’s obvious to anyone what it is; the other where the effect is there and perhaps some tell-tale character, which isn’t something an inexperienced person would link to the cause.

A wine with some small level of vinegar aroma and/or taste is going to bug most people. If you don’t pick up overt vinegar, but the wine has enhanced aromatic expression, that’s probably a big plus. Of course, with our range of perceptions, some bottles like that will have some people loving the wine, while others recoil in disgust. (I’ve seen that often enough in my blind tasting group as the reason a particular wine got both a high number of first and last place votes.) Then, some wines just have so much good stuff going on, you might tolerate a little or little more vinegar, above your normal threshold - doesn’t mean it’s not a negative factor.

What’s VA?

Volatile acidity, smelling like nail polish.

This made me smile… too true.

That’s the extreme of VA, right?

I’ve gotten yelled at for saying a wine maybe had just a touch of VA, but now the winemakers here make me feel wicked smart.

The yardstick is to accept whatever helps to sell the wine at hand.

My understanding is that the nail polish aromas are actually from EA (ethyl acetate).

Well Fourrier seems to get away with it, so it cannot be all bad.

VA covers a range of chemicals. The smell of nail polish is acetone, I believe, while acetic acid is the main ingredient in vinegar.

I think that’s nail polish remover.

Lots of compounds affect the perception of other compounds. E.g., TCA can interfere with some aroma and flavors, but not all, which is why some corked wines have no taste, while others taste varying degrees of normal with TCA layered on top. To make “unscented” detergent, Procter & Gamble has to add things to the detergent to block the perception of its natural scents.

Wes, Jim, Adam and/or Larry can correct me, but I gather that at low levels VA can accentuate some aromas without itself being detectable to most people. Think of salt or lemon, which may not be identifiable in a given dish at low levels, but if you leave them out, the dish tastes flat.

How do you verify the effect? You test the wine’s chemistry and do blind sensory tests.