This is something commonly quoted, but it’s not entirely true. In minuscule amounts (ie. what is when wine is “normally” mousy), this is very true: the wine smells fine, tastes fine and only in the aftertaste you get that horrible smack of mousiness.
However, I don’t know whether it’s when the levels of THP are higher than that, or if it’s some other compound (mousiness is actually not caused just by THP (which itself can be three different compunds: 2-acetyl-3,4,5,6-tetrahydropyridine, 2-acetyl-1,4,5,6-tetrahydropyridine (both abbreviated either ATHP or ACTPY) or 2-ethyltetrahydropyridine (abbreviated ETHP or ETPY)), but also by 2-acetylpyrroline (APY)), but I’ve tasted enough natural wines and sour ales where you can actually smell and taste mousiness on the midpalate, not just retronasally in the aftertaste. Those wines and beers are few and far between - I’d say 1 in every 25 to 50 mousy beverages - but they still are there. There are wines that smell like rancid nuts and sesame seeds already in the glass and there are wines that might smell just fine, yet having that unmistakable Cheerios taste appear on your palate already before you’ve swallowed even one little drop. I can actually go and dig multiple tasting notes on wines and beers like these, if you want to experience them yourself!
And FWIW, THP is also a molecule that can appear during Maillard reactions - and I’ve understood it is quite typical for an unfinished beer to show a tiny bit of mousiness early on. This character is believed to stem from Maillard reactions that can happen during mashing, but these qualities are also believed to disappear during bottle refermentation ie. carbonation. I don’t know how the chemistry is supposed to work here, but I’ve heard from several of my friends who brew their own beers that their beers can be subtly mousy for a short while, then it disappears.
Finally, I remember reading how brett can actually metabolize THP (and/or other molecules responsible of THP). This could explain how some wines (that don’t have meaningful amounts of brett) never see their mousiness go away, while others actually seem to resolve their mousiness. While I myself haven’t seen mousiness go anywhere (because I try to steer clear of mousy wines), I’ve heard from my natural wino geek friends that some wines that have been mousy upon release turn ok after some aging. However, I’ve been told this has taken anywhere from 5 to 10 years, not just a few months.
I’d consider any olfactory perception of wine in mouth as retronasal, not just the after taste or finish. Mouse definitely shows up in the midpalate retronasally after THP hits the mouth and tongue.
This is a genuine question for the winemakers here: Isn’t it true that any winemaker who bottles with mouse, which should be an obvious taint in the bulk wine before bottling of at perceptible levels, is knowingly delivering a flawed wine to the market?
I get that one has to make a living, so it would be a tough pill to swallow to hold such a wine back, but maybe there should be a disclosure requirement.
Your only path to counter this view I think is to try to normalize mouse as not a flaw. And this Punch article is a clear attempt to further that agenda.
Certainly the concentration of mousiness can vary as well, in the same way brett can. I might be naive, but I err on the side of believing winemakers who say that their mouse resolves with a bit of bottle aging. With that said, most bottles are bought to be consumed soon, and if a mousey bottle hits the market it’s an unrealistic expectation for that burden to be placed on the consumer to age further and get rid of a flaw.
If mousiness can sometimes go away, but only with sufficient brett, that doesn’t seem like the non-problem the author makes it out to be. I think all of the wines I’ve had after 2-10 years of aging that were mousy also had some level of brett. Almost all, anyway.
That is definitely true, as virtually all but the basic flavors are “tasted” retronasally. Tongue tastes only the five or so basic tastes.
However, no matter the terminology here, it’s quite uncommon to taste mousiness once the wine hits your tongue - usually it takes some time for wines to get their pH high enough for THP to become volatile and that doesn’t really happen as long as there is a good deal of wine in the mouth.
Yet in some wines even that is more than enough for a taster to recognize mousiness. I have no idea how these wines or beers differ from the beverages in which mousiness appears “normally”, ie. only in the aftertaste. Or why with some beverages you can smell the mousiness from the glass already, without even tasting the wine/beer.
Yes, the article seemed to take for granted that brett is a good thing – contributing classic elements to wines – without any consideration of the amount. And if you believe that brett helps combat mousiness, then the more brett you have the better.
Brett metabolizing THP? Fight flaws with flaws? If this is New Wave winemaking, I’ll stay out of the water.
That said, I’ve had some wonderful examples of natural wines, but I’m personally batting less than .500. My experiences with Metras and Chateau Le Puy come to mind. My last bottle of Le Puy was appropriately named. However, the bottle before that was outstanding. It’s a crap shoot I’d rather avoid. I personally don’t have a problem with a little sulfur at bottling.
Well, I’m not saying it’s a miracle cure, but I’d rather drink a wine that’s bretty rather than mousy. Most (not all) bretty wines are drinkable and some have been even fantastic, but mousiness ruins the wine immediately.
Agree with you on many (not all) natural wines being a crap shoot and a tiny dose of SO2 at bottling being a good thing.
Is the article really that soft towards mousiness? The headline is about how it’s a flaw. It’s more or less saying we don’t know enough about it and to be more forgiving with it since it’s not going away and isn’t always a wine killer - not that we should enjoy how it tastes or find it acceptable in a bottle we’re looking forward to.
Well, I still have to taste a 10 years old mousy wine…
According to my 20+ years of no sulfur winemaking, a vast majority of untainted bulk wines that show a slight mousiness right after bottling, will totally recover within a few weeks/months.
The problem is more that a lot of people bottle obviously tainted wines and/or ship them before the mandatory quarantine they should go through, assuming they eventually recover.
I don’t believe that mousiness, or any bacterial spoilage, is a manichean matter.
There are billions of nuances. And it is a whole part of the winemakers know-how to handle them in a proper way, for the best of their customers.
I do think that wines like 1947 Cheval Blanc, and many legendary pre modern interventionist enology wines, could NOT be made by today, food processing trained, winemakers.
They all show obvious signs of bacterial spoilage (mostly piqûre lactique resulting in high levels of VA) that give them a unique depth and personality.
I hope we can and will reach the wisdom and level of understanding of these winemakers from the past who were able to turn a flaw into pure magic.
We are rebuilding a knowledge that vanished with the use of modern enological pharmacopoeia and practices.
This will take time and efforts. And is no excuse for shipping bad wines on the market.
Good post Eric. But if it is worth anything then i had a nine year old Gonon (2012) that turned badly mousey rather quickly. CT tells me i am not the only one who experienced it with 2012 Gonon at that age.
I have a couple of Vini Viti Vinci 2011 in my cellar. I’ll try to save at least one to gift you in the name mouse science, and something more pleasant to enjoy
This is good news… for my database!
May I ask if you have owned these bottles since release and if you had the opportunity to taste an other one at a younger stage? And if so, was it mousy or obviously bacterial tainted as well?
TIA
I did not and this is the only 2012 Gonon i have tasted. As posted earlier then i drink and cellar a lot of low-to-no added sulfites wines. But the longest between bottles from the same vintage is around three+ years. In that time frame i have never seen it disappear sadly.
I wish Eric, believe I acquired the bottles sometime in 2018-2019 from a retailer in Belgium; and if I recall correctly then I coincidentally bought some bottles of your 2013 St-Julien et St-Alban at the same time!
I have some other bottles from Bouillot-Salomon, their L’Arselle that I love for the incredible purity and energy, though some bottles have been mousy. However I know that the retailer here did a rather poor job in storing the wines (no temperature control -found out later visiting a warm spring day) and I suspect/ed that might have something to do with it. No issues when I bought the first those bottles, a year or two later when purchased more…
The bottles I bought first were lovely and I remember drinking one of them over 5-7 days (along with other bottles), just got better the longer it was open. Nowhere near being a fragile wine. Hence why it crossed my mind that poor storage at least could be an influence, however I don’t have other data points to add more substance to that claim.
The article lost me when it referred to Roundup as a “chemical” that we should be talking about. It’s a product that contains the chemical glyphosate and other chemicals. While not dismissing that there may be discussions about glyphosate, what are those discussions?
Why do wine people have such issues understanding herbicides? Glyphosate and other herbicides have no direct relationship to copper sulfide, a fungicide…but I guess if you don’t cut down your weeds mechanically they could promote some fungal disease pressure???
What about wines that show more than slight mousiness 3-4 years down the line? Do you believe they recover as well?
Are we even sure we are talking about the same chemical reaction to begin with? The ones that show right after bottling and go away and the ones that show mousiness for long periods of time after bottling.
I keep seeing people use the shipping out too soon excuse but most of us here aren’t drinking stuff off the truck. I’m talking about the experience where the wine is drinkable on release and just gets worse and worse over time. Or the wines that start off mousy and after a couple years still stay mousy
I love how the article claims that wines in the late 80s/early 90s were a barren sterile wasteland only eventually rescued by the “gang of four” in Beaujolais innovating natural wines. Have you tasted any 80s Bordeaux recently? I mean, come on.
