I Smell Coffee in my Wine

[Cris_Whetstone]

@Brian G r a f s t r o m

Look, I get your point, and agree with it to a certain exten (see abovve). Do you not get my point? Do you think descriptions on packages are never accurate and/or never helpful?

Never is a big term but in the majority of cases I would not pay attention to such descriptors. If for no other reason than as we’ve seen here many of us cannot even agree to what some of those mean. It is hard to rely on a note on the side of a product written but person X when I know its main purpose is to sell that product rather than inform.

Now if we are talking about small production, craft or local purveyors then I might be more apt to pay attention. In those cases I can often talk to someone there or try whatever it is they may have in order to get an impression. The sweetness scale you mentioned on the beer is interesting and would be useful. That is closer to data on a certain quality of that product though than a descriptor of any particular flavor. But even with beer I so very rarely ever read descriptors and look for style and notes about how it is made. I’m a geek. I prefer to be informed rather than rely on descriptions of strangers. Plus I’m just curious so if in doubt I’ll try it if possible.

[Brian_G_r_a_f_s_t_r_o_m]

OK, so you do “get” my point — you just don’t agree with it. I have no problem with that. Up to this point, it wasn’t clear you were understanding the point I was making, but now it’s clear you do.

[David_Glasser]

Paul Draper’s comments on the Ridge labels mean more to me than just marketing. But that may be the exception that proves the rule.

[Brian_G_r_a_f_s_t_r_o_m]

@David Glasser

Paul Draper’s comments on the Ridge labels mean more to me than just marketing. But that may be the exception that proves the rule.

Don’t blindly let Cris’ black-and-white interpretation of this matter become “the rule.”

[Cris_Whetstone]

@Brian G r a f s t r o m

@David Glasser

Paul Draper’s comments on the Ridge labels mean more to me than just marketing. But that may be the exception that proves the rule.

Don’t blindly let Cris’ black-and-white interpretation of this matter become “the rule.”

Well, to borrow from Rick Gregory clearly you have not been reading my posts.

Paul Drapers labels are fabulous. I wish every winery would do that. But those are informative labels that give details of growing conditions and wine making choices. That is a very far cry from a mere tasting note written by a friend of the winery. Those can lead to instances of descriptors used for sales rather than honesty of description like when someone would use Pinot Grigio to describe coffee.

[Brian_G_r_a_f_s_t_r_o_m]

But what if the coffee really does have a note of a Pinot Grigio-like flavor in it? Is your problem with the specificity of the term “Pinot Grigio”? If “yes,” would you rather the note merely say “fruity”? If that’s your argument, then that’s a tired old argument, merely being applied in the context of coffee. Please, feel free to admit as such, if that is, indeed, the case.

oh yeah, almost forgot: Smartypants!

[Cris_Whetstone]

If you get something as nuanced and specific as Pinot Grigio from your coffee then you need to wake up and smell the coffee.

[Brian_G_r_a_f_s_t_r_o_m]

@Cris Whetstone

If you get something as nuanced and specific as Pinot Grigio from your coffee then you need to wake up and smell the coffee.

I would imagine some would say the same about someone who pulls “redwood flavors” out of a wine:

“1999 Clos Pegase Cabernet Sauvignon (USA, California, Napa Valley) 12/29/2011 WetRock

Lots of rich fruit with still prominent tannin. Held up very well over night only beginning to show oxidation on the nose. Green elements hanging around the edges so that it actually tastes like Cab instead of a berry mocha. Cassis and redwood flavors.”


… Can’t have your cake and eat it, too, dawg.

[Cris_Whetstone]

Yeah dude. You KNOW that is completely different. Wood tones in wines are common. Old wineries actually used redwood tanks. Pulling specific wine varieties out of coffee beans is quite a bit different…for most of us.

[Brian_G_r_a_f_s_t_r_o_m]

So, you’re tellin’ me Clos Pegase actually used redwood tanks for that wine? You’re tellin’ me fruit flavors are not common in coffee?

Dude, seriously, keep ‘em comin’ … this will only keep getting better for you — I promise!

[Rasoul_Salehi]

ryan great thread.

as Jeremy said, i bet almost 100% of people using coffee as a term for descrying wine are referring to oxidative aromas coming as a result of a wine aged in toasty oak.

you gotta know your audience. to date i haven’t seen a strong or even noticeable correlation between serious wine drinkers being serious coffee connoisseurs. same thing can be said about tea which can have tremendous complexity like dao hung pao or aged puerh teas.

anyways, i encourage you and i will join you too in helping to spread the word that not all coffees are the same and how regional and more importantly processing method can have such tremendous effects on the final product. here is to using tasting notes reading: like Ethiopian coffee: blueberry, bright, floral, or a mexican coffee chocolate with hint of lemon… Guatemala: woodsy, spicy.

[Rasoul_Salehi]

@dave cuneo

The coffee business has discovered that it can sell it’s product using a version of “wine speak”, in fact from some of the descriptions I read you would think you were drinking wine rather than a cup of Joe. It’s just smart marketing, which I respect.

Dave not sure how is the coffee scene in your hood but here in pacific northwest we are blessed. if you ever visit seek out a geeky coffee shop that serves flights of single origin coffee and you can judge for yourself. or seek out coffees from such roasters like intelegensia, ritual, ethical bean, origins, phil and sebastien…

the differences are as clear and evident as a cab compared to a pinot compared to shiraz. also do remember that when you or me or anyone had just started this hobby of wine, to us, all red wines smelled like red wine. much like all fuzzy white stuff falling from the sky is snow to us, but the eskimos have apparently few dozen different names for this stuff b/c they are exposed to it so much more often and have had a chance to see the nuances and minor differences and have developed a different word for it.

[Eric_Lundblad]

@Cris Whetstone

If you get something as nuanced and specific as Pinot Grigio from your coffee then you need to wake up and smell the coffee.

Coffee can have fruit flavors/aromas. Ryan didn’t say what coffee he was talking about, but my guess is the ‘pinot grigio’ coffee is from Costa Rica…since a ‘high end’ Costa Rican coffee (with a light-medium roast…stopped well before the ‘second crack’) will typically be pretty high in acidity and will have citrus aromas/flavors. Kenyan coffees can have citrus to them but they have other things going on, berry flavors are common, so a Kenyan doesn’t seem that plausible. Kenyan coffees can be pretty varied tho, so you never know. I probably wouldn’t use Pinot grigio as a descriptor for a good costa rican, but it’s not a terrible descriptor either. Perhaps the folks selling the coffee didn’t want to scare people by talking about the coffee’s high acidity. The acidity is the key to the flavor distinctiveness of a costa rican (or kenyan or ethiopian yergacheffe, etc)…but acidity in coffee generally scares folks, so perhaps the ‘pinot grigio’ was an attempt to finesse the acidity.

Coffee can have quite a wide range of flavors/styles…much wider than you’ll see in a pound of coffee in a supermarket/starbucks/etc. Are you likely to have one that’s high acid enough and have enough citrus to think that a pinot grigio description is plausible? Probably not because Humberto is correct (in post #21 above) that there’s a fairly narrow range of coffee flavors that people expect from coffee and hence is ‘commercially viable’. To find a coffee like this (i.e. outside the normal range), you’ll have to find an adventurous coffee roaster. Intelligentsia coffee in Chicago is a big purchaser of high end coffee, or they used to be (I’ve never had their coffee, so can’t say what sort of roasts they use, which is an important part of the picture). Blue bottle (in the bay area) used to do this some, but they’ve drifted to the middle (I don’t drink much Blue bottle either, so maybe this is inaccurate). Or you can buy coffee as green beans and roast it yourself (which is what I do, almost always from http://www.sweetmarias.com/prod.greencoffee.mvc.php)

Citris (or other fruit flavors) can be in coffee (some coffees) in the same sense that ‘coffee’ flavor can be in some wines. The wines don’t taste exactly like coffee, obviously…but they clearly have a coffee aspect to the wine. Likewise, a costa rican coffee doesn’t taste like lemonade…but there can be a clear lemon (or other citris) component to it.

if someone roasts a costa rican (or other similar) into the darker roast range then you’ll lose all the acidity and the flavors that go along with that…and the coffee will be transformed into a much more typical coffee flavor profile. Also, in the same way that some vineyards produce better wine than other vineyards…some coffee estates/farms produce better coffee than others. It’s due to the same reasons in both cases: the dirt, the aspect, sun, wind, tree/vine age, clone/cultivar, etc. The best coffee estates/farms are more nuanced/specific/precise…just like the best vineyards are.


Also, Coffee flavors in wine can be caused by reductive wine (many of the same flavor chemicals that Alan listed for coffee can be produced in a reductive barrel) or by oak (heavy toast). I’m not aware of any ways to produce coffee flavors in wine oxidatively.

[Alan_Rath]

Eric knows his stuff, both coffee and wine. The range of flavors possible in a well roasted and made espresso rivals that of many wines (or more!).

[dave_cuneo]

I agree that the diversity of flavors in coffee is very wide, like wine, and that those flavors are in general roasted out of them most of the time by roasting the beans too dark. But the people like it dark. All I said was that the coffee industry has discovered that their own variation of winespeak can be very effective in selling coffee, just as it sells wine, from the most knowledgable drinkers to the newbiest. When I stop in the WaWa here on my daily walk and their sign tells me about the nose, flavor and finish of this month’s special grind/blend (Brazilian) then that is good marketing, and if the description is true, even better. Frankly I don’t think 99/100 WaWa coffee drinkers could tell the difference between most of the grinds/blends/beans offered, including me. I give them credit though, their coffee is very tasty, and I usually blend 2 or 3 of the offerings.

I drink more coffee than wine, and am a little geekier than the average DE resident about it, but do not begin to approach the geekdom levels of say Portland or Seattle. I roast my own green beans (in a cast iron skillet that I like better than my roaster), have a real espresso machine, a Moka, Melitta filter, French Press, and a drip machine which I never use. That being said, I am happy to crack a can of Maxwell House or Chock Full o’ Nuts for my morning coffee, and save the good stuff for later. Being an old destroyer sailor, it is hard to make a cup of Joe I won’t drink.

[Rasoul_Salehi]

cheers Dave. you are right that there needs to be more education on coffee and the vast array of flavours in can have. too many people still don’t know what a proper espresso should and can taste like. they categorically avoid the stuff cause they say its too bitter. they don’t know the blame goes to the roaster,machine, temperature, barista. but instead they develop the wrong association with the drink itself…

same can be said about beer. but CAMRA and other craft brew movements on both coasts and world wide for that matter are doing a terrific job in educating and offering “real” beer to the masses.

[dave_cuneo]

Rasoul,

If you cut me, I bleed espresso (preferably Lavazza).

[Ryan_Moses]

@Eric Lundblad

Ryan didn’t say what coffee he was talking about, but my guess is the ‘pinot grigio’ coffee is from Costa Rica…since a ‘high end’ Costa Rican coffee (with a light-medium roast…stopped well before the ‘second crack’) will typically be pretty high in acidity and will have citrus aromas/flavors.

Very impressive, Eric. That’s spot on as it was from Verve Coffee Roasters and it is Costa Rican coffee. And you came to the conclusion from the one descriptor? It sounds like Pinot Grigio is an effective way to relate flavours in Coffee.

@Eric Lundblad

Also, in the same way that some vineyards produce better wine than other vineyards…some coffee estates/farms produce better coffee than others. It’s due to the same reasons in both cases: the dirt, the aspect, sun, wind, tree/vine age, clone/cultivar, etc. The best coffee estates/farms are more nuanced/specific/precise…just like the best vineyards are.

Also well said. George Howell from Terroir Coffee in Boston said to me that he does not like to blend his coffee because it is in recognizing the details in single coffee farms/farmers can the people who produce the best coffees get appropriately compensated for their distinction. However, in the coffee world, having the best piece of land is fractionally less rewarding than having top vineyard holdings in the wine world!

[Brian_G_r_a_f_s_t_r_o_m]

@Ryan Moses

@Eric Lundblad

Ryan didn’t say what coffee he was talking about, but my guess is the ‘pinot grigio’ coffee is from Costa Rica…since a ‘high end’ Costa Rican coffee (with a light-medium roast…stopped well before the ‘second crack’) will typically be pretty high in acidity and will have citrus aromas/flavors.

Very impressive, Eric. That’s spot on as it was from Verve Coffee Roasters and it is Costa Rican coffee. And you came to the conclusion from the one descriptor? It sounds like Pinot Grigio is an effective way to relate flavours in Coffee.

No no no … it’s all marketing!

[dave_cuneo]

Brian,

You appear to equate the term “marketing” with lying. Why?