Skin Contact White Descriptors...(long/pedantic/boring)

WINE TALK
1

First let’s clear up some nomenclature:

Skin-contact whites: These are white wines made like red wines. The skins are left in contact w/ the fermenting grapes/must. The contact can extend from just a few days to throughout the length of fermentation. And then beyond fermentation if the winemaker chooses to do such, before the wine is pressed off the skins. The wines often display a golden/burnished bronze/copper, sometimes brownish color. If the grapes are “gris” grapes (grapes that have a slight pigmentation…like GWT or Pinot Gris/Grigio), they can have a slight pinkish/redish cast…depending on how late the grapes were harvested and the amount of the grapes anthocyanin content. After the wine is pressed off the skins, they can be aged further in tanks/barrels in the absence of oxygen. That is, made in a reductive manner. Or they can be left w/ exposure to air. That is, made in an oxidative manner. These oxidative wines have more of a brownish color to them.
If the wines are given only a brief skin contact, they usually display the grapes customary varietal character, with some additional nuances from the skin contact. If the wines are given extended skin contact, I find it (usually) destroys any (recognizable) varietal character, and replaces it with a distinctive character that transcends everything, irrelevant to what grape vaariety was used. That is, extended skin contact SauvBlanc/PinotGrigio/RibollaGialla all have a distinct aroma that makes them smell pretty much the same to me.
Orange Wines: This is a genre of wines that I find is not well-defined. Many people use it to describe any of the above defined skin-contact white/gris wines. Many people use it to define any wine that has an “orange” color. Oftentimes, people use it to describe wines both made in an oxidative and a reductive style.
Originally, it entered the lexicon to describe the wines made by retro-winemaking techniques as done in Georgia and Slovenia and Friuli, by the likes of JoskoGravner and Radikon. Most of those wines were made as skin-contact whites in an oxidative manner…and had more of a brownish cast. They were made by dumping white/gris grapes in large amphorae (qvervi) buried in the ground, loosely covered with ample oxygen access, oftentimes for yrs. This is the context in which I prefer to use the term “orange” wines. So, when someone says “orange” wine, I have to delve a bit deeper to find out exactly what they mean.
Phenol/Phenolic: Technically, phenol (carbolic acid) is a benzene ring with a hydroxl group (OH) sticking off one corner of the benzene ring. It is a slightly volatile organic compound. I have never in my life smelled phenol…got no idea what it smells like. There are a whole class of compounds in wines known as phenolics or polyphenolics. I believe anthocyanins (the coloring material in wines) are included in that grouping, but I’m not sure. They are present primarily in the skins of the grapes as I understand it. They are most predominant in red wines, which always have some skin contact. As more and more white/gris/orange wines are being made w/ skin contact, these wines display much more of a phenolic load than conventional (crush & press) white wines.

Whew…bear in mind that I am not a chemist. I only play one on “Keeping Up With The Kardashians”. But that’s sorta my understanding of the chemistry.

So…last night in my tasting we had 5 skin-contact PinotGris wines. They all had this common aroma to them that you find in extended skin-contact whites. It smells a bit like slightly fermented apple cider. I used the term “phenolic” to describe this smell they all had, to varying degrees. The chemists in the group severely upbraided me for using the term “phenolic”, that I didn’t know what I was talking about. They are, of course, right. That’s what I like about my LosAlamos tasting group…you can’t “baffle 'em w/ bull$hit”.

So…my question: What is it that I’m smelling in these extended skin-contact white/gris wines that I’m calling “phenolic”?. Anybody who’s had much experience w/ skin-contact whites knows exactly what I’m referring to. What the heck is that smell???

Help me out here, FloridaJim. You’re my hero when it comes to skin-contact whites.

Tom

2

Well, from what I understand, phenolic aromas in fermented beverages would tend to be those we associate with Brett, such as 4EP and 4EG, in addition to 4VG (responsible for the clove-like smell in Hefeweizen). The aromas that I typically associate with orange wines are aldehydes and esters from the oxidative style of winemaking. Acetaldehyde (Sherry smell, but also the smell of brown apples) is the main aldehyde in wine and I tend to notice it in these oxidative whites (since they do not have the oxygen protection of the anthocyanins or tannins in the same levels as red grapes, white grapes tend to pick up oxidative aromas very quickly, at least in my experience). Esters include many different aroma profiles, but the ones that I immediately think of are isoamyl acetate (fake banana smell, like in smelling salts) and ethyl acetate (nail polish remover smell). The esters could be a result of higher fermentation temperatures since you tend to see higher ester production in warmer fermentations (and in orange wines there does not seem to be as much temperature control as “modern” or “reductive” white wine).

Hope that helps! newhere

3

Wesley,
FWIW, Myself and a few others, are now making skin-fermented whites in a much more reductive style - treating them as though they were juice fermented whites and fermenting at lower temps. Certainly, atypical for the orange wines I have tried from Slovenia and Friuli and a bit easier to pair with food because of it.
But there is still a fairly universal aroma in them that I can’t quite account for - perhaps, a bit of a brown/bruised apple smell but not rising to the level of sherry. More cider like, maybe.
Or something like that.
Best, Jim

4

My extremely limited understanding tells me that fermenting “whites” on the skins makes them more prone to oxidation (can anyone tell me why, if this is true?), which is why you get those aldehydic aromas even in wines that have been handled fairly reductively, and why they are always rampant in wines that have been exposed to a fair amount of air during elevage. I hope someone will chime in with more detail and/or correction. There is that cidery note that I get from all of the wines of this style.

5

My chemistry knowledge is not deep on this, but I think the oxidative aspect to skin fermented whites VS skin fermented reds has to do with the low anthocyanin (pigment) content of the whites. I think that this affects the tannin polymerization process. As I understand it, that process binds aldehyde.

I am pretty sure I am not saying it exactly correct, but it is along those lines.

6

Thanks, Andrew, that’s a better explanation than I’ve ever gotten (or retained, anyway). I’ll have to look through some books and see if I can find out more about the process.

7

Cargasacchi makes an Orange wine.

8

Plus, many of the producers of orange wine are averse to the use of SO2.

9

The ancillary question to Tom’s question is specifically what do people mean when they use the term “phenolic”?

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I was wondering the same thing. I’d like to know what is meant and exactly what the real meaning is.

11

Wiki: Phenols - Wikipedia

Most of what we deal with are poly as I understand it.

12

The only time I use “phenolic” as a tasting term is for white wines that seem to have noticeable or unpleasant tannins, as if they’ve been left too long on the skins. I don’t know if that’s how other folks use that term or not. There are lots of polyphenols in wine, involved in a lot of various things, but I don’t know of any other specific tasting opportunites exist to point them out.

Mhttp://wine.wsu.edu/research-extension/2007/07/grape-and-wine-phenolics-a-primer/

13

Tom:

On what grounds did the chemists cry “Bullshit”?
Either by common usage (winespeak) or by a broad reading of a chemical definition I think your comment was correct.

Perhaps the chems were being sticklers, and assuming the term should be narrowly defined as “of, relating to, or characterized by phenol”?

14

Mostly their objections were they didn’t understand what the term “phenolic” meant as I was using it. They assumed I meant the smell
of phenol, which they knew the chemistry of, but had never smelled.
I thought this tasting of 5 PG’s was a great example of demonstrating what “phenolic” as a wine descriptor was. All 5 had this
dominant smell that I was characterizing as “phenolic”…with subtle nuances beyond that. LarryA particularly ridiculed my use of “phenolic”
because he couldn’t find much in common thru the 5 PG’s…much as he dismisses my usage of “mineral”. But, until I can come up
w/ a better common descriptor (Cloraseptic has been suggested as one), I guess I’ll have to continue w/ using “phenolic”…keeping in mind
it probably doesn’t describe the smell of phenol. But I think people w/ lots of experience w/ these wines know the smell
I’m trying to describe.
Tom

15

I’d be interested in more discussion on this. I’d always assumed that when folks talked about a wine being phenolic, that it was polyphenols that were involved. Phenol alone is a very chemical thing that I don’t think I’ve ever detected in wine.

What Tom is talking about sounds more like aldehydes to me. I could have no idea what I’m talking about, but what I think of as a phenolic wine doesn’t really have a smell, just a palate feel and taste. Because of the extensive skin contact, the wines being discussed should be “phenolic”, but to me it’s not at all an oxidized apple cider type thing.

16

Yup, John…I think “aldehydic” is probably closer to the thing I’m smelling. But then the chemists would rip me because aldhydic is too
unspecific…there are thousands of different aldehydes in wine. You can’t wine for losing.
Tom

17

Tom:

Winespeak is shorthand that doesn’t always follow the rigorous scientific (anal retentive) approach. We speak of wines with a noticeable volatile acidity when, in some cases, we’re reacting to ethyl acetate which is not an acid. We call wines “tannic” without knowing the actual levels of polyphenolic tannins swimming around in the glass.
As long as there is not a blatant dissociation between the wording and the chemistry it normally gets a pass. Sometimes even when the chemistry background is solid, common usage over-rides and makes the use of certain terms “uncomfortable” or unconventional to the point of being too idiosyncratic to work… the primary aroma compound of red raspberries is actually a phenol, but none of us would get too far by calling wines that smelled of raspberries “phenolic”.

In my experience the common use meaning of the word “phenolic” has regional/tribal variations that have changed over time.
The French have a term “phenolee”, and I guess “phenolic” is as decent a translation as we could hope for. The term has long been used in the SW of France to denote empyreumatic characters in wines, especially wines affected by Brettanomyces.
Up north in Champagne the term phenolee used to more commonly refer to vins clairs resulting from a bit too much pressing… spicy wines with a phenolic mouthfeel. In the US, I think that we tended to use the term as the Champenoise did, based upon the old technique of pre-fermentation maceration of some whites. Maceration froid is far less common nowadays for whites with a higher phenolic content (aka “Chardonnay”), and so the usage of the term has meandered off and taken on several meanings.
As of late it seems that the SW French term is gaining prominence not only within France but abroad as well.

You usage is one I’ve heard often enough. And it might be gaining in popularity as the production of skin fermented whites becomes more common.
I can’t tell you the exact chemical make-up of the character you’re noticing. It seems to happen in whites with a moderately high phenolic content, and is exacerbated (catalyzed?) by oxidation. I’ve heard it called “bruised apple”, “stale cider”, and even “stale beer” or “beery” in addition to your “phenolic”. Even from a technical standpoint I believe “phenolic” is in firm standing as I tend not to find the same characters in whites with a low phenolic content, even if they’ve been subjected to a decent amount of oxidation.
“Aldehydic” might also be a reasonable term from a scientific standpoint… since the character seems to fully develop with oxygen and aldehydes are a common product of oxidation in wines the linkage can easily be made.
I don’t know how common that would be, though. When I think of aldehydes I tend to think of other characters.

18

One chemist (on WLDG) suggested what I was smelling in these skin-contact whites was what I would find in Cloraseptic.
Jeez…what I won’t do for science…or as it’s done at LosAlamos…SCIENCE.
Finally was able to find a squirt btl/atomizer of Cloraseptic. Most all the ones I saw were berry-flavored. That rendition of Cloraseptic is suspect. Finally found one that was honey-flavored. Cracked that sucker open in the CVS parking lot. EEEEEE…yew. Stinkin’ stuff. Has a very volatile smell to it.
It’s 1.5% phenol. No menthol is this version.
Alas…asuming it’s the smell of phenol…it doesn’t smell like the “phenolic” smell I’m trying to pin down. It does smell vaguely of Band-Aids (the cloth kind…very rare anymore).
But not of orange wine…so I wasn’t tempted to chug the whole friggin’ btl.
Tom

19

Thanks for your thoughtful response, Bruce. “Aldehydic” doesn’t quite describe what I’m smelling as that’s something I associate w/ Madeira. Maybe a similar
smell but not quite.
So, I guess for the time being, I’ll have to stick w/ “phenolic” as my preferred descriptor. Sorta like a TN with the “wood-oven roasted Madagascar Bergamots” descriptor. Means nothing to me
but to anyone who has smelled them, they probably know exactly what the TN means. Anybody who’s tasted many skin-contact whites/orange wines probably knows what “phenolic” means.
Tom

20

Bruce,

I’ve always assumed the ‘windfall apple’ aroma was aldehyde. Which of course is often common in skin contact whites…