Help me understand primary, secondary, tertiary characteristics

Marc_Frontario · October 13, 2019, 11:47am

I would like to see the '98 in here …which is still one of my most memorable Sociando

Howard_Cooper · October 13, 2019, 2:01pm

maybe it is best to say that the wine has taken on “additional” characteristics with age and stop worrying about definitions.

Marc_Frontario · October 13, 2019, 2:45pm

Thanks. This is somewhat helpful. Maybe as Chris suggests there is no real answer and these are terms that, despite the “formal definitions”, are not understood the same way by everybody who uses the terms?
Let me ask the question differently. In an Oregon Pinot Noir and a French Chablis, what would be some tastes /aromas that YOU consider primary, secondary or tertiary? Could I take two vintages of the same wine (one young one mature) and get a sense of what primary/secondary tastes like in comparison to tertiary? Can YOU suggest two available vintages of a specific wine that would illustrate this. Do I overcomplicate? oversimplify? Thanks.

I cannot comment on Oregon Pinot Noir, as I do not drink enough of them to know which ones develop. If I had to pick one, I would try Domaine Drouhin, but I have only had one wine of theirs with any age on it. French Chablis is a great example, although it is complicated now (as is the case for virtually all white Burgundies) by premox making it dangerous to age white Burgundies. If you want to try with Chablis, I would suggest premier crus (should age a bit faster than grand crus) and for a good producer who is reasonably priced try Christian Moreau. I would try three wines - a 2017 or other very young wine, a 2014 (a five year old wine) and a 2010 to get one that is more mature.

I highly recommend trying a similar experiment with Bordeaux and Burgundy. There, try a wine that is young, then one that is 5-10 years old and finally one that is 10-15 years old. You don’t need to buy really expensive wines to try this. [The first time I tried something like this was the late 1980s when a group tasted together a 1978, 1982 and 1986 Chateau Potensac.] A suggestion would be Chateau Cantemerle or Chateau Sociando Mallet in Bordeaux (although I would think that Potensac would still work) and in Burgundy Joseph Drouhin or Hudelot-Noellat (the one complication at Hudelot-Noellat is that the wines from 2008 on were made by a new generation in the family and are different and probably better than the ones before it). Try villages level wines or lesser premier crus in Burgundy to keep the price down somewhat.

Go with the '97 Potrnsac, this is showing its age beautifully

Keith_A_k_e_r_s · October 13, 2019, 4:04pm

sounds to me that you couldn’t pass advanced

Wes_Barton · October 13, 2019, 6:36pm

Exactly. Most people have no basis to know with esters and other compound come from the grape, what are the result of specific yeast strains converting precursor compounds, etc. Drawing that line means people are guessing, and even the most experienced winemakers and hipster somms will guess wrong some of the time.

It’s easy to learn the progression of a wine from a primary phase onward. That’s intuitive. Consumers trying to guess which characteristics come from what is folly and serves no purpose.

GregT · October 13, 2019, 8:00pm

I agree. I’ve seen the various definitions and the first one I ever learned was the one I noted earlier, from Peynaud, but I really have no idea where some particular aroma comes from and I’ve never actually used the terms in describing a wine. I might describe a wine as primary or mature, or even “maturing” because it has all kinds of fresh and fruity notes but also some things I associate with aging, but it would simply be shooting in the dark for me to say with any authority that I’m picking up such and such as a secondary aroma and such and such as a tertiary aroma.

This is the kind of stuff that’s fun to think about on an intellectual level, but is pretty useless for most people in day to day conversations unless you’re a chemist studying chemical changes as wine matures.

As to Eric’s comment, I kind of get the sentiment. Often I meet people, frequently quite young, who know very specific things about wine. Sometimes it’s even impressive. But get outside of very specific units of knowledge and they’re lost. Reciting a definition is an example. Maybe the WSET people can ID the various aromatic compounds and even give you the chemical structure of them. Maybe.

That said, I’m not sure it’s a bad thing to have some structured way of learning about wine or anything else, provided that it’s understood that competing whatever course is the beginning, not the end. I started learning by floundering around, basically becoming a pest to anyone who had any knowledge, and drinking a lot of swill. Pretty much what I still do - old habits are hard to break.

Robert.A.Jr · October 13, 2019, 8:40pm

I agree. I’ve seen the various definitions and the first one I ever learned was the one I noted earlier, from Peynaud, but I really have no idea where some particular aroma comes from and I’ve never actually used the terms in describing a wine. I might describe a wine as primary or mature, or even “maturing” because it has all kinds of fresh and fruity notes but also some things I associate with aging, but it would simply be shooting in the dark for me to say with any authority that I’m picking up such and such as a secondary aroma and such and such as a tertiary aroma.

This is the kind of stuff that’s fun to think about on an intellectual level, but is pretty useless for most people in day to day conversations unless you’re a chemist studying chemical changes as wine matures.

As to Eric’s comment, I kind of get the sentiment. Often I meet people, frequently quite young, who know very specific things about wine. Sometimes it’s even impressive. But get outside of very specific units of knowledge and they’re lost. Reciting a definition is an example. Maybe the WSET people can ID the various aromatic compounds and even give you the chemical structure of them. Maybe.

That said, I’m not sure it’s a bad thing to have some structured way of learning about wine or anything else, provided that it’s understood that competing whatever course is the beginning, not the end. I started learning by floundering around, basically becoming a pest to anyone who had any knowledge, and drinking a lot of swill. Pretty much what I still do - old habits are hard to break.

Well said, Greg. I’m pretty sure that I have never used the term “secondary” in a note, partly for this very reason.

Doing a word search right now just in case I contradict myself, which of course, carries a high degree of probability.

[PS. Just checked. I’m fine. Over 20k posts and never used the word. The rest of you, well a large lot of you, are a bunch of pedants. ]

Marcu_Stanley · October 13, 2019, 8:57pm

Ok but in a TN are people not talking about stages of development? If I say I get red fruit, earth and hints of oak. But with 12 years this wine is definitely showing secondary characteristics.

Do u interpret that as definitely has wine making flavors. Or it’s secondary stage of development?
I think it’s pretty self explanatory right?

Agreed. The “wine making flavors” definition of secondary is completely different from certainly how I have used it but also how many others use it in tasting notes and the like, to mean basically how a wine mellows and adds complexity in its initial stage of aging.

And many others do not use it in that way, but instead how it is actually defined and taught in many places. One can always choose to use the term correctly or incorrectly.

I think the way I and many others have used it in tasting notes and conversation — to refer to an initial stage of aging — is just as correct. It is validated by use which is one way that words take on meaning. Just because some WSET nerd chose to associate a different meaning with the term doesn’t mean that’s the correct use.

James_Billy · October 14, 2019, 8:37am

I think refering to fruit flavours/aromas as primary non-fruit ones in young wines as secondary and flavors/aromas that appear as the wine ages as tertiary makes it a lot simpler.

But that’s just my opinion.

Wes_Barton · October 14, 2019, 8:10pm

Simpler, as in simply guessing? What’s the point in pretending we know which compounds come from what and trying to delineate them, anyway? Some of these compounds come from multiple sources Some of the precursor compounds come from various sources.

If the same ester exists in some grapes (say specific clones of a variety at the right site with enough ripeness it gets formed), but with other grapes it’s only formed by some yeast strains and not others, then of those yeast strains it can be formed at various functions of temperature. Is that primary or secondary?

Are you saying a savory herbal aroma is secondary? Even if you can taste it sampling in the vineyard? What if it’s present in the grapes, but most or all humans can’t pick it out due to other compounds obscuring it, but then it is not changed or acted on in any way through fermentation or aging (other than a little loss through evaporation)? If you pick it up when the wine is released, is it primary? Was it secondary all along? What if you have a previous experience with that same savory aromatic compound where you know it came from oak? Is it then always secondary, even if it comes from the grapes some of the time?

To Hank’s “forest floor” as an example of tertiary, I say try anything from the Ben Lomond AVA.

John_Morris · October 14, 2019, 10:34pm

Thanks for the informative post, Wes.

Otto_Forsberg · October 15, 2019, 5:45am

I think refering to fruit flavours/aromas as primary non-fruit ones in young wines as secondary and flavors/aromas that appear as the wine ages as tertiary makes it a lot simpler.

But that’s just my opinion.

Simpler, as in simply guessing? What’s the point in pretending we know which compounds come from what and trying to delineate them, anyway? Some of these compounds come from multiple sources Some of the precursor compounds come from various sources.

If the same ester exists in some grapes (say specific clones of a variety at the right site with enough ripeness it gets formed), but with other grapes it’s only formed by some yeast strains and not others, then of those yeast strains it can be formed at various functions of temperature. Is that primary or secondary?

Are you saying a savory herbal aroma is secondary? Even if you can taste it sampling in the vineyard? What if it’s present in the grapes, but most or all humans can’t pick it out due to other compounds obscuring it, but then it is not changed or acted on in any way through fermentation or aging (other than a little loss through evaporation)? If you pick it up when the wine is released, is it primary? Was it secondary all along? What if you have a previous experience with that same savory aromatic compound where you know it came from oak? Is it then always secondary, even if it comes from the grapes some of the time?

To Hank’s “forest floor” as an example of tertiary, I say try anything from the Ben Lomond AVA.

Fortunately with wine and esters it’s rather straightforward. Even though esters are often the main contributors in the aromas of many fruits, wines are quite devoid of esters originating from fruits, since grapes are fruits very low in esters - their aromas come from entirely different compounds.

That really doesn’t make your point any less valid, just wanted to point it out, the insufferable smartass that I am.