Reduction-the new Curse

With Ladybug’s(04 and ?11?) and Rot(83) reduction is the new curse.

Just did a tasting of 05 Laurent’s(15) three had reduction(CDR,Mazi.and a black label NSG).

Laurent 03 CSD was effected along with 05 Gros Frere Clos Vougeot Musigni.

Only Burghound is reviewing this now-very bad to buy futures with out good data.

Hi John,

Did you try decanting to see if it would blow off?

Loren:

That is the big lie-it doesn’t blow off.

Example Laurent 03 CSD- tried two times-after 3 days it is 95% gone but so is the wine.

John

Reduction is very rarely a permanent state, but you are right, three days open will kill almost any Burgundy. These particular wines are not for current drinking.

I read about it, people talk about it, everyone thinks about it, but after thousands of wines, I’m still not sure what it tastes like. Is it that burning rubber smell that reminds me of that time a Chevrolet caught on fire in front of my house? But someone else says that’s mercaptan. Or is it that wet cardboard with mold after your cellar floods? Or maybe that wet wool sweater drying out? No, that’s corked. Anyone have a good descriptor.

Reduction is the baby-killer’s well-earned sentence.

I’m also not really clear on how reduction shows up. Is it like the sulfur in JJ Prum that needs time to integrate? That often blows off with some decanting. Three days for reduction to blow off seems quite extreme. I have noticed that Burghound mentioned reduction on the nose for a large number of 09s and '10s that I’ve seen recently. I would assume the solution would be to avoid opening these wines up for 10-15 years, as the wine probably needs.

It’s the burning rubber thing you first describe, sometimes some other sufurous things, but not any of the other things you listed. It can blow off if not severe, and will gradually diminish over the years, but you can still find wines with unpleasant reduction after 10-15 years or more. If it’s not blowing off, throw a penny in your glass (it works). Meadows tastes wines pretty early, so a lot of them have reduction that won’t so much be an issue by the time we’re sampling them, so it’s hard to draw conclusions on his comments. I think he’s mostly putting it in his notes so we know his impreesions might be compromised.

Not only in Burgundy. Priorat and the Roussillon (Carignan is especially prone) as well as Sicily and many an Aglianico have fallen victim to the ‘the curse’…

If it doesn’t blow off, it is probably a disulfide that would need more treatment than merely with copper.

Yes, if it is so bad that disulfide bonds form, then you’re screwed, at least if you’re a consumer and have bottles with this defect. I can recognize this in whites easily, but harder for me in reds, other than recognizing something that doesn’t blow off and doesn’t go away with copper.

It might be nice for a winemaker to give a quick synopsis of reduction, since I think for many folks it’s confusing that it seems desirable to make wines in a somewhat reductive manner, but wines that end up in a retail environment with obvious reduction have a tendency to put people off.

I’m sure we’ve talked about it here before. Reduction is generally the presence of sulphur compounds. H2S is the front-runner, it smells of rotten eggs. It appears during fermentation and can be removed by adding yeast nutrients or aerating (hence why its called reduction). It can also develop in barrels which are left on lees without stirring. If it’s left in the wine it can (will?) over time produce secondary compounds like dimethyl disulphate and mercaptans. These have aromas ranging from undergrowth to burnt-rubber to dodgy seafood to garlic.

Winemakers dabble with reduction for 2 reasons. Firstly it’s the opposite to oxidation in terms of style. So if you are try8ing to reduce oxidative characters, there is a higher risk of reductive ones. Secondly it adds complexity and is reminiscent of Pinot noir. So you will hear people say that some wines from Languedoc-Roussillon are Burgundian, when what they mean is they have a bit of reduction. Certainly before Natural Wine became trendy, there were quite a lot of wines being made reductively so that critics would praise them for being Burgundian.

I’m not an expert on which sulphur compounds fade over time and which get worse. The fading is almost certainly down to oxidation, so screwcaps will prevent it happening.

As long as one can find the fruit and complexity underneath the reduction, then I simply feel the wine needs more time.
Obviously if overbearing I think one needs to take stock and ask questions.

I find the smell to be very eggy, but can sometimes give a truffle or cooked onion aroma if starting to integrate. All IMO of course.

In whites however, it simply reminds me of the sulphur used in wineries and it very often sets off my asthma, so I am very sensitive to it. A discussion I’ve had with the winemakers at Dog Point… whilst nearly all the guests preferred the young stuff. I mentioned the reduction, my sensitivity to it, and that thus the older wines showed more character.

I agree 100% with John about reduction and have written about it at least a couple of times.

Of-course ‘more time’ - but where is the evidence to support this? And in extremis as mentioned above, there’s no return-path, so you can forget ‘more time’.

I made a blind tasting with some growers a couple of weeks back; the wines had been decanted for 6 hours and suggested to them that any wine that still smelled or tasted reduced after that time was essentially flawed - having asked if they had an opposing view, all mumbled, looked at the floor and essentially said nothing. One wine was indeed marked on both the nose and palate - it was the only wine I gave zero points to as it was flawed for current drinking.

Something ‘anecdotal’ came afterwards from one winemaker, suggesting they had been ‘worried’ (but sold-out!) about reduction in their 1998s for years - but in the last 2 years, every bottle tested was fine. I have the balancing experience of one grower’s Chambolle from 1996 where eventually the sulfur fixed and you could leave the wine open for a month and it would do nothing but oxidise. Power to the merchant, they replaced my whole case with one from the latest vintage - but that was the 2004 vintage - yeuch! oh-well!

Bill indeed,

I can’t say I have anecdotal evidence as all the wines that I taste that are heavily reduced, I rarely get to try a whole case of as many are at various trade tastings, or from barrel.

In reality, there should be some reduction on all young wines, it is for me at least, when the wine is so riddled with it, that you can’t decipher anything that I worry, but a slight eggy note can be found on wines that are not hugely reduced, especially when young. I suppose it depends on the producer as well. If you taste say a young Gouges from barrel samples in London (well there isn’t any point, they are hugely reduced every year) but then every year, the wines come good eventually. howwever, we know that story well. I suppose it is more worrying when a producer who usually doesn’t taste as reduced suddenly tastes hugely reduced that one might sit back and take stock, and wander why…

I can only speak of what I’ve experienced, and many wines show these characteristics to integrate or blow off (the Dog Point example being one).
FWIW, I found a lot more obvious reduction in the 2011 samples of Burgundy than in any of 07/08/09/10, and it did worry me a little bit, and so time will tell as those are all a bit young to be getting too involved with now, but I’d agree that 98s after 5-10 years still showing lots of reduction would worry me…

A friend who has tasted every vintage from barrel in Burgundy since '84 recently told me this:

When you have a reduced wine, dump it into a decanter, cover and shake it as hard as you can for 30 seconds. then let it sit for a few minutes and pour back into a glass and drink. Should get the requisite oxygen into it. You can also just cover the glass top with your palm and shake (as I do in cellars during barrel samples), but the amount of o2 that you can get into the wine is limited.

By the way, barrel samples are much more indicative of what a wine will ordinarily taste like in the future than recently bottled wines.

I did this a week ago with a '10 Clavelier VR “Aux Brulees” and it really made a difference!

sorry, Bill, but…

let us know if they replace your case of 2004s…that would be the true test…

You gotta laugh Stuart. I didn’t have the schutzpah to get another replacement - such a shame, and Barthod too! Still, if I do some pyrazine workshops they will come in handy

It works on mercaptans, but not on disulfides.

Meadows explains himself, here: Making Sense of Reduction | The PinotFile: Volume 8, Issue 45

Thanks for the link - Robert.