Can some please explain to me what the desirable aspects of tasting green bell peppers in a wine. I was at a dinner last night with an 06 Jordan cab and a lot of the folks mentioned loving the taste of bell peppers. Is it a sign of good things to come? Does it lessen with time? I take it that is the style of that wine as this is the second time I’ve had it with the last one being an 03.
It may have to do with whether you’ve been drinking a lot of wine from Chile.
Or if you’re a member of the AFE.
As far as desireable - a touch can add interest to wine, much like a touch can add interest to your tomato sauce. The worst is where you have a combination of overly sweet fruit and still have the bell pepper notes. Sometimes you get a vintage where the sugars in the grape accumulate too fast but the fruit isn’t completely ripe and you end up with the worst of all worlds.
To me a touch of bell pepper adds complexity to the wine…too much can mean the grapes did not fully ripen and is not usually desirable…
I agree a touch does give it a little character but to me it seemed out of place last night with the overly sweet fruit that greg was talking about.
Yes, this is a terrible combo! Quite a few central coast/SYV Bdx varietal wines fell into this category for me.
Overall I do like it, though, as long as it doesn’t dominate the taste. It’s a fine line since we’re generally very sensitive to pyrazines, yet vary person to person in threshold sensitivity.
Jacob,
IIRC, bell pepper is a key flavor characteristic of Cabernet Sauvignon. In the classic Napa & Sonoma Cabernets, a hint of bell pepper was desirable to traditionalists. I still get hints of it in alot of Bordeaux. In my opinion, since the mid-90s or so, there has been a move to get the fruit so ripe that there is not even a hint of bell pepper, both in California and Bordeaux.
Of course, too much bell pepper, as noted in prior posts, is a sign of underripe fruit or grapes that perhaps did not reach full physiological & phenolic ripeness.
I think that having a hint there adds to the wine, so you actually have a sense of what grape the wine is made from.
…exactly and I personally don’t care for it. You will find it quite frequently from cooler regions that have difficulty ripening the fruit.
David,
the full quote is too much is a sign of underripe fruit. Some would say that the absence is the sign of overripe fruit.
With time it will transform into a tobacco note (and there are things a winemaker can do to accelerate this process).
Personally, most of the time pyrazines come across more as green peppercorns, so it’s more of an aromatic spiciness and a piquancy on the palate. When I do perceive it as bell pepper it’s not a positive.
Yep, like 70% of the wines from Walla Walla. Candied AND under-ripe all at the same time. Sickening for me…
What DJ said. I expected a note of it in Cab Franc. I like a note of it in Cab Sauv or Bordeaux blends though I don’t necessarily expect it. If it dominates then the wine can be less interesting or even bad.
I think it can be like many other non-fruit notes in wines. They come down to personal preference often. Brett is famous for this sort of division of preferences.
I don’t know about Bordeaux, but in CA I know it’s not just about getting the fruit more ripe. UC Davis discovered some time ago that clusters exposed to direct sun didn’t have nearly as much pyrazine, and lots of producers started taking measures in the vineyard to make that happen, according to what I have read. I think it might be more about canopy management and/or training methods than more ripeness, though I am not doubting that the latter might play some part.
Like others, I enjoy a hint of this flavor, but it can easily become too much for me. I associate it with underripe fruit in any grape variety. I dislike the vast majority of Loire Cab Franc (though I have greatly enjoyed a few) because of the overt greenness, which really bothers me when combined with all of the smokiness that I often get.
Bell Pepper happens pretty early in the phenolic process. I usually taste it right after green bean makes it’s nasty appearance. It’s soon after verasion, as in 1-3 weeks after the grapes have turned color. Even in my coolest sites it’s gone by week 4-5 at the most. It makes me think when you get it in a wine it’s not so much a site or season thing as it is a sorting or picking thing at least for California Cabernet. Sunshine resolves the bell pepper notes so for something to go 8-10 weeks after verasion and still tastes of bell pepper seems improbable.
For that to happen I would think either fruit that is significantly shaded or secondary clusters are getting in the fermentation bins. The decrease in wines that show bell pepper I think has more to do with improved picking and sorting than extra hang time.
I always remember a 1995 Les Pagodes de Cos I had a few years ago that tasted like cold bell pepper soup. Blech.
But, as with almost everything in wine, it can be a positive in the proper (in this case very, very small) amount. Most other flavor dimensions that wine lovers generally consider to be positive (forest floor, black pepper, olives, leather, smoke, cocoa, eucalyptus, etc.) would be a bad thing if they were too prominent as well.
I find that Pichon Lalande is the poster boy for wines where green can become tobacco. But for the most part, I find that it either stays green or that I am not willing to wait the 10-20 years for that transition to take place. I find in older Napa cabs where it was present early, the remaining fruit just falls out and the green turns to some mulchy, weedy flavors after 10-15 years. I think it is more important to get it out in Napa Cabs than Bordeaux, but I am not a fan of it in either.
Also agree with your green peppercorn statement. I find that this flavor can arrive even at 28 brix and might actually be caused by something else as often as not, but I am not sure what.
Yep. If you have a heat spike while flavors are still developing and the grapes raisin, and you do not sort those out, you can have the worst of all worlds. Raisined fruit almost always becomes pruney, but within that flavor, if the underlying fruit was still unripe, it will hold the green flavors as well. I have had tasted grapes on the vine that taste like this and it is awful. Nothing beats a sorting table.
IIRC, bell pepper is a key flavor characteristic of Cabernet Sauvignon. In the classic Napa & Sonoma Cabernets, a hint of bell pepper was desirable to traditionalists.
Thats interesting DJ, I usually associate it with cabernet franc.
I actually like it, but only smalls hints in the background, it adds a nice complexity.