Drinking a 2007 Domaine de Michelle CdP this evening and I’m getting what I call a stewed tomato aroma. I’ve had other wines in the past with the same profile, the last I have notes of being a 2000 Clos du Val Reserve Cabernet and a 1996 Silverado Cabernet both tasted at the winery so I expect it’s not a reflection of the wine being corked. However I do wonder where this aroma is coming from. Anyone have any idea what I’m talking about?
Stewed tomato is often a symptom of being cooked, imo
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I get it in over-ripe wines
Thanks for the comments.
As to this, the cork shows no signs of this - no seepage up the cork - and the other wines I have had with this aroma were served at the winery. This may very well be a sign of being cooked but I don’t think it fits the exact aroma I’m getting.
We may be closer here; it is an '07 CdP which some consider over-ripe. I usually get the over-ripeness from the palate though - a pruny flavour. And this wine doesn’t come off as over-ripe to me. Maybe a sign of a wine close to the edge?
Immediately got it in great conditioned non cooked 1976 Petrus. I get stewed prunes in cooked wine. The dead veggies, not so sure
That’s the smell of fake 1945 DRC.
Very hot year for Bordeaux… Stewed tomato was a note we found in a few wines tasting some of the '03 Bordeaux in a big Horizontal blind tasting 3 or so years ago. Although other things may cause this(?), in my experience it is overripe fruit, particularly in a year with a big heat spike. And FWIW, I am no “expert”, just an amateur, but I have tasted many, many wines with the DC winos, including quite a few blind tastings and my palate isn’t terrible. At least the other winos don’t seem to think so. Curious to see what Kevin S thinks as I taste with him regularly and I try to use him as a gauge. We don’t always agree, but more often than not, we are in the same ballpark.
CdP grape blends will take quite a bit more heat than other grapes in the same environment, but even then it can still happen there. Very hot vintage again. It is interesting to talk to winemakers who talk about picking when “ripe” vs picking when “fresh”. Fine line on both sides I think.
Thanks for all the feedback. I don’t want to focus especially on CdP or even French wines. As stated in the original post I smelt this recently on a Napa trip in winery tastings of 2000 Clos du Val Reserve Cabernet and 1996 Silverado Cabernet.
I often get it in wines that are picked over 28 brix. The thing is that there is no way Clos du Val picked anything like that level, especially in 2000.
I get it on occassion and I think its different than cooked. The later is more about stewed prunes or other fruit but not tomatoes. I don’t know what the reason is, but I also find that when I get it, not everyone else does.
I second this assessment. I know the stewed tomatoe aroma well, and also the stewed fruit i get from a lot of overripe wines. It’s ironic that you mention two older california cabs as having the stewed tomatoe, because I’ve found it in more than a few aged cali cabernets. We’re not drinking the same wines, so it’s hard to tell if we’re talking about the same thing, but as I’ve found it, the stewed tomatoe reminds me of ripe fruit that has aged for a while and lost some of its fruit. I had a 1984 Groth cabernet this week that had some serious stewed tomatoes in it, but I loved it. Not so sure about the 07 CdP, however. Are you smelling the same thing in the CdP or is it slightly different than the cabs?
also, are you tasting stewed tomatoe?
I think it is more related to the vintage character and the variety. I get it mainly in wines from Bordeaux from ripe but not overripe years and the St Julien area. It is not a cooked aroma or oxidized aroma to my nose. It can be quite nice. I have had it in quite a few California cabernets . Predominately, bordeaux blend types of wines like Dominus but also in Phillip Togni’s wines in certain vintages. Again, I find it to add character as long as it is not overbearing.
+1
Except I had the same Groth Cab and did not like the tomatoes so much. Oddly, I think it got better over time and turned more vegetal in character. I got the tomato paste on several other wines that night. Not a fan. Have had it before in Napa cabs and harlots, as well as Aussie cabs.
me too, especially ones with 10+ years. were you at J’s aged aussie tasting? i picked up stewed tomatoes/tomotoe paste in several wines that night.
Me too.
I always thought of it as a flavor associated with over ripe fruit.
I love that this came up. I get tomato from cali cab, syrah, and grenache, and I usually love that character.
“Stewed tomato” doesn’t sound especially kind, but it’s not tomato as in vegetal. And it’s not stewed as in prunes. A cooked tomato is sweet and rich, compared to fresh.
And it might indeed be over ripe fruit, I dunno, but it’s not sweet and doesn’t correlate in my experience with high alcohol.
I’ve begun to think certain wines develop my tomato note from their stem inclusion.
Two come to mind as I think of it… Schweiger Cab 05 and Copain Les Copains 07.
This was the exact smell I had on a cooked bottle of Buccella merlot purchased at retail last year.
This is educated conjecture, but I usually find this character in a wine that was grown in a hot year, with a spike that surprised growers.
I imagine that it is a pyrazine compound (veggie) that did not have the time and gentle sun flecking needed to persuade it into a terpene (high toned fruit or floral) form. Maybe the leaves were pulled aggressively, and the fruit got too hot in direct sunlight. Juice temperature within a grape is 15 degrees F hotter than ambient temperature, so fruit can really be damaged by a heat spike in the middle of the process of 10% PAR (sunlight)>>>pyrazines>>>terpenes.
So it’s not quite veggie, it’s not quite floral–and when you put this phenomenon together with a ripe vintage, a wine that was improperly stored, or even a wine drunk at too warm a serving temperature, this aroma and flavor can be exacerbated.
And of course aging makes it worse. In balance, the character can be complexity in a young wine, but stripped of its primary berry character, the tomato character is rarely something I return to the glass to smell or taste again. New glass please!