I have no dog in this hunt. But surely you realize that this exact post could be written in reverse about you. It’s time to refer this debate to what can’t be known with certainty outside of a lab report. For the record, I’m with you about Baudry. The brett is usually subtle and a feature rather than a bug for me. But I THINK it’s there. Still, I’d defer to lab reports.
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Sorry I think you might have read my comment as being a bit of an upturn nose, I apologize and didn’t mean it that way. I did mean that some people are way more tolerant to brett (or have no idea what brett is). I also said I have limited exposure. However, it would surprise me if based on my couple year sample size that all of the Baudry wines don’t have some amount of brett. Either that or I have terrible luck and happened to pull the 3 individual bottles that had wild amounts of brett in them.
It’s ok for someone to say…that flavor profile is Loire CF. I mean…true. But it isn’t unique to Loire CF for sure. It’s also ok for someone to say “maybe bacon is a bretty note”. Could be, but bacon as a note is more unique to syrah for sure than it is to brett since it is present in a ton of clean new world wines.
I’ll also say that because I’m so sensitive to it, I basically consider (for myself) that Brett is a winemaking fault, and not a feature like others suggest. But then again, for some people they love it. The only brett wine I “tolerate” is Pegau and I can’t explain why honestly.
Heck, even my yak palate isn’t really a fan of this wine!
Thinking you couldn’t possibly miss some brett fails to take into account the wide range of recognition thresholds. It really doesn’t matter how familiar you are with it when that is a factor. “I’m sensitive” doesn’t mean false negatives are impossible.
Like Otto, I’ve had quite a few bottles over the years and have always found some level of brett in Baudry.
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Sorry everyone, I think this phrase somehow got missed, but I meant that there is a perception issue, threshold or whatever.
This debate has gone on over the years, and some people just refuse to accept that.
Years ago, I was at an offline with a bunch of people who have been serious about wine for decades. All of those people are very familiar with TCA. A bottle was opened that, to me and one or two other people, was subtly but obviously corked. Several other people couldn’t pick it up at all. They were confident that the wine was fine. The person who brought it had a backup bottle of the same wine. Everyone agreed that the backup was much more expressive, with much more fruit. Even the people who couldn’t smell the TCA at all in the first bottle acknowledged that it must be there. This kind of thing is common.
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Yup, that’s all I’m saying really. It does surprise me that a large tasting group would all be so “tolerant” to wines that are well known to be bretty without much specific comment made in the tasting notes. I think that’s where this argument all stemmed from. More a surprise than an argument. Like…what are the odds that a bunch of tasters all going at Baudry wines didn’t note barnyard funk. That is miraculous.
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I was once a visitor in a tasting group in which only my spouse and I recognized a wine as corked, and it wasn’t subtle or a close call. We both knew it after one sniff. Random small groups are anecdotes, not data.
You called me 
Swear to god if we’ll do a ScandiBerserker throwdown I’ll bring some hopefully clean, white, Houillon Bruyere.
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To go in another (possibly) funky (pun intended) direction … if only there were a community of like-minded wackos who were passionate about a subject and had the means and mettle to seek answers in the void …
#1 @Julian_Marshall (aka the best-informed Loire Berserker I’m familiar with), do you have an opinion?
#2 Does anyone want to place a call to Cravant-les-Coteaux and inquire as to the existence and findings of any objective data germane to this topic (just for posterity’s sake, not as an irrefutable statement of fact)?
My point with Baudry (and Cab Franc in general, though particularly Loire Cab Franc, since it’s less prominent in riper new world wines) is that the peppery, vegetal notes often found, while they don’t really mimic brett aromas, can complicate or even mask what might otherwise be notes of brett, especially at lower levels. A little like low level TCA can sometimes hide behind the more musty aromas of an older wine.
All I can say is that this was a very experienced group of tasters, who I’m confident know the signatures of Brett - and Cab Franc. Two people did have less experience with Loire, which was interesting. One (who has until recently been more of a new world drinker) wondered what we like about the wines lol. There is clearly an acquired taste, and I can imagine someone who is not experienced in identifying a range of wine aromas - including brett - might be confounded by some of these.
Aromas can be tricky, especially in complex wines. We have periodic threads here on “what TCA smells like”. You’ll get pages of answers, all of which, I contend, are completely useless. You either know what it smells like or you don’t. My response is always “describe the aroma of cinnamon”. It can’t be done, the only way to know is to open a jar of cinnamon. The same is true of the various brett compounds. The only way to know them is to have been exposed to wines (or other products) which have outsized aromas of (preferably) each possible component.
Anyway, a fun discussion!
I think the primary point I’m making is that they may be wrong because of preconceived notions … or you could be wrong. Unless there is a technical analysis, it is going to be hard to be 100% certain something is contaminated based on taste alone, especially if a person is expecting to taste something because they have a preconceived notion about a wine.
Baudry has an outsize reputation for being Bretty. Even in our group, some folks were debating whether some bottles have Brett or not, partially because they were expecting the wines to have Brett.
If folks are expecting a certain flavor profile, and have absolute certainty that that flavor is going to be there, their brains are going to interpret whatever they taste as having that flavor.
Hell, it happened to me once when I was drinking a wine, someone at the table said it reminded them of mango lassi, and I immediately started to taste mango because of the suggestion.
It could be the case those wines we had had low levels of Brett that only imparted subtle flavors (like I said, I am not Brett sensitive unless I smell band aids or intense barnyard, so I won’t call a wine Bretty unless it gets to that level of contamination). But, it also could be the case that you’ve had some Bretty Baudry wines, and now you seek out the Brett signature. (And not to single you out, but this could also apply to the other posters on this thread).
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Thanks, I’m honoured! Although I can think of several people here who certainly know more than me!
I think I did sort of give my opinion upthread already, but to be clearer: in my experience, about half the Baudrys I’ve had over the last 15 years have had some brett issues, but not all. For me, it mostly takes the form of smells of manure (thanks to Otto I now know that poo really is brett!). Obviously I wouldn’t want to drink something that smells like a cow’s just done a pat on my shoes, but usually, decanting helps and it’s very rare indeed that the brett is still noticeable after a couple of hours. Whether or not that shows the fruit taking over or the brett receding is a moot point, but if Baudry’s share of my cellar is one of the biggest it’s not because I’m a masochistic lunatic! It’s because I love the stuff.
I think I certainly notice brett, but unless it really is OTT, it doesn’t bother me unduly. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have so many Loire reds in general in my cellar! However I think that very often a little brett gives the wines a savoury feel that I like, without my having identified the brett.
Some people notice it more than others - just like some notice oak more than others.
Half of my bottles sounds like a lot - but it’s peanuts compared to the overall production and @Chris_Kissack, who tastes Baudrys far more than I do at least, only finds brett notes “on occasion”. Rather aptly perhaps, shit happens!!
So I’m not unduly surprised that brett shouldn’t have featured more in the notes of this excellent tasting event.
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Great notes and it’s a shame that brett dominates the conversation. I just came here to say I love Baudry, Grezeaux especially, and don’t really care if brett is a contributing factor to the profile. I visited the domain in 2019. Great experience. I recently opened the 2005 Grezeaux with my wine group and the entire group loved it. Very burgundian in profile and not a mention of brett.
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I also wouldn’t rule out the possibility that people who love Baudry are self selecting for low Brett awareness threshold or , like myself, positive enjoyment of some Brett.
Anyway, nothing changes the fact that they are one ofmy favorite producers and have been for over a quarter century. Sounds like a great lineup at the lunch
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I hear you.
However, believe me - when I’m tasting the wines, my first and foremost aim is to be as objective as possible. If I smell or taste brett, I mention brett. If I don’t, I don’t mention.
Although I might take a note if I expected a wine to show brett, yet it didn’t. Naturally I am just a human - and a fallible one - so of course even I can be influenced by external stimuli and all kinds of bias. However, would I encounter a Baudry that didn’t show any brett, I - knowing myself - wouldn’t still imagine that the wine was obviously bretty and showing classic Baudry brett elements; instead I would mark down that “no bretty notes” if I was inclined to make a note on this.
And I’m quite sure I’ve had at least some Baudries that haven’t shown perceptible bretty notes. However, the general style of Baudry is almost invariably at least slightly bretty, which made me prompt the original question - if I find the wines almost always showing some signs of brett (be the wines tasted either open or fully blind), it just sounds quite implausible that you had such a big amount of Baudries not showing any signs of brett. Especially when I’ve had some of the same vintages of the same wines - and they have showed at least some markers of brett!
+1
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Fascinating discussion, and as a nod to the original poster AndyK, thanks for posting the notes, sounds like a great lunch.
It is worth remembering when it comes to discussions of scent and taste the concept of sensory worlds, which can be traced back to the work of the German biologist Jakob Johann von Uexküll and which has been developed since by Diane Ackerman, Prof Barry Smith, Jamie Goode and no doubt others. We all have different levels of perception and when it comes to smell (something humans are pretty poor at compared to other animals - my labrador is certainly much better at smelling than I am!) we all have varying thresholds.
I see this a lot with cork taint, to which I am sensitive; I realised this as I started spotting obvious cork taint early on in my wine journey. In later years, when tasting in groups (especially the Decanter World Wine Awards, although I stopped doing DWWA some years ago), I had experiences when other tasters would agree there was something wrong with the wine; they would say “doesn’t seem right”, “is it clean?”, “I wonder if there’s something wrong with it?” and I am thinking “can’t you smell the very obvious cork taint?”. I am TCA sensitive.
With Brett I think I am probably less sensitive to it, but not insensitive. I learnt to spot Brett years later than cork taint, one clue that I am less sensitive. And tasting alongside other experienced tasters (this is many years ago at the old-style Salon des Vins de Loire) I can recall having my attention drawn to the presence of Brett in a wine. I was slow to ‘learn’ to spot it. So I think I am less sensitive to it.
My own experience with Baudry’s wines, the vast majority tasted at the domaine with Bernard/Matthieu, the minority at home in maturity, is that wines either have apparent Brett, or I perceive no Brett. I don’t find Brett in every wine, indeed I find it in the minority, but this is my experience based on my tastings, and doesn’t mean others should find the same. I don’t see Brett as part of the Loire Cabernet Franc profile - I like the purity of fruit expression and terroir expression and Brett, when I see it, smudges that. So I think sometimes I see it, other times I don’t, and it seems likely in some wines it is present but below my threshold (although there is no way of knowing without doing some sort of assessment with deliberately Brett-contaminated wines - something I would find fascinating).
It is also worth noting that a wine is not necessarily inherently Bretty - it varies from bottle to bottle. The Brett can be present but when it becomes more active in the bottle is when the Bretty aromatic phenolics are produced. This might be long before you even get your hands on the bottle. This is an international chat forum and the bottles have all taken different routes to reach consumers. Some have been cared for better than others. And some cellars are warmer than others. We’re all tasting different bottles of Baudry (and as noted, I do most of my tasting at the domaine).
As an aside, although I think the question might have been asked above, Matthieu seems reticent about the issue of Brett. I gingerly asked him one time a few years ago; his response was along the lines of people like his wines, and that is the case even if they have Brett, which “some people like”.
I should say I really like Matthieu’s wines, I taste with him at least once every year, and buy and drink the wines at home. Baudry is the fifth-most represented domaine in my cellar so I certainly find most wines here to be good and worth adding to my cellar. Cheers to that! 
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I fully agree - only have one left (the only white baudry for that matter) but the previous two bottles were very impressive. I should seek out some more, come to think of it.
What are people’s alternatives if they don’t like Brett? Who makes “clean” loire CF?
No.
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