Occasionally, I find a very offputting compound mostly in whites, that will never blow off or age off, and does not change at all with the addition of a penny. I’m familiar with it from college level organic chemistry lab, but unfortunately, I don’t remeber what it is. It’s hard to describe, but it has a sickly sweet quality, penetrating, like butterscotch gone very bad, with a slight garlickynuance, and maybe burnt rubber. It’s not the burnt rubber of mild reduction, which can blow off or disappear when you add copper. It was present at a recent free for all tasting in a 1999 Kongsgaard Chard, and is in all bottles of chablisiene montmain, but not the Vaillons from 2002.
i’ve assumed it is a mercaptan, and maybe represents severe irreversible reduction, a disulfide or something. It kills forever any wine that harbors it, as it will never, ever go away. I assumed that this is a widely known compound, but I was surprised that no one else at the tasting could identify it–in fact some didn’t really seem to notice it, and this is not a lightweight group. Perhaps there is differential sensitivity.
From your description of garlic, burnt rubber, doesn’t go away with time, air or copper makes it sound like a disulfide (or could be a mercaptan, tho that would go away with copper, but that can be tricky to test for w/o the right solutions). Sickly sweet and butterscotch gone bad don’t come to mind with either disulfides or mercaptans…but the rest of it sure sounds that they’re it. Unfortunately that doesn’t make the wine any better
Not at all creosote–that is familiar and not necessarily bad to my palate. This is a very specific odd chemical odor. If they were working with it in a third floor chemistry lab, you would know it immediately upon walking in the front door of the chemistry building.
Take your pick from the table in this link. I haven’t looked at this article carefully in a while–it looks like it’s associating these compounds with reduction. But I have a feeling there’s a bit more nuance than that.
A sweetness does not sound like any kind of sulfur compound, and a lot of reduction is not something I experience very often in whites, particularly Chablis. Acetone has a distinct chemically sweet aroma, but that seems unlikely. In a 99 Kongsgaard, I’d expect to find a fair amount of oxidation, which could be a butterscotch aroma. Could be a combination of that and accompanying ethyl acetate that would likely be there as well. Try opening a bottle of nail polish remover and see if it is anything like what you smell (there are acetone and ethyl acetate based removers, the label will tell you which you have). Amyl acetate is another compound that can occur in aged white wines, it has a smell similar to bananas, and apparently some people are more sensitive to it than others.
Few things smell as bad or carry further than odors of mercapatans, sulfides and disulfides. Amines, some aldehyldes, and some carboxylic acids can be pretty pungent too, although I don’t remember ever noticing anything amine-like in wine. Butterscotch is commonly associated with butanedione or diacetyl formed during lactic fermentation. Too much diacetyl could generate a rancid butter odor.
Thanks, Alan. I think that’s the answer I put on my organic chemistry exam as well.
I think it must be a mercaptan–presumably the result of reduction gone past the point of no return. It’s interesting that they are always referred to as a group of compounds that can show up, but this is a very specific single compound. The wine can be fine otherwise, just marred by this one compound. If I could go into a chemistry lab and uncork bottles, I could easily identify it.
Brian–interesting thought, although it was present on release in the 2002 Montmain, and i found it in a recently released Hugel wine last year when tassting a line-up (unfortunately my notes are not with me at the moment). My experience has been that it it there on release, when present, and forevermore thereafter.
In the last year or so I’ve had bottles of the 2002 Kongsgaard Chard and 2001 Kongsgaard Syrah Hudson Vineyard that had nearly identical problems (IMO). They had a very distinct black indelible marker aroma. Made the wines undrinkable for me. Thought it was very strange that red and white across two vintages would have a similar flaw. Makes me wonder if it’s something do in their process that causes this to happen.
I don’t know what it is either…but I experienced exactly that in a bottle of 2004 Tandem Chardonnay we had the other night. Actually, we bought a case of various Chardonnay vintages in the Tandem liquidation and they’ve all been spoiled in some way. Wondering if storage conditions were suspect there.
Tim–I would put the black marker thing more into the VA category, although I know nothing about Kongsgaard wines and am not accusing them of that. This isn’t an aroma that deveops with bad storage–I’ve tended to find it on release. It’s tough to describe, but thinking aabout it more, it has a sort of over-ripe parsnip quality, mixed with a little rubber tire and bad truffle.
Two amines that can form in wine (albeit rarely) are putrescine and cadaverine. From the names it is evident what they would smell like.
As several have stated above, the garlic would be most likely a disulfide, burnt rubber is also either a higher sulfide or mercaptan. Butterscotch is more an oxidized aroma. I would think the marker smell would be ethyl acetate.
![[bleh.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/c/cbb27a94fa73081862abf910a8bfa05e2ae2f5c3.gif "[bleh.gif]"){kind=small}
![[stirthepothal.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/f/f40faec63ca1018898a40805efbf9f0066a3d205.gif "[stirthepothal.gif]"){kind=small}
![[berserker.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/8/8600bbd4810d342b8fbd4ffb62b4f0026275fd37.gif "berserker"){kind=small}