I would appreciate any insight into understanding what varieties or vineyard/winery practices create red wines that exhibit “cool, fresh dark fruit flavors”.
I read tasting notes that exalt a cool blackberry or cool, fresh fruited note on the palate. I can recall similar experiences, but I don’t know if it is unique to specific grapes, regions, or interventions.
I am not speaking of mint/menthol notes. The description is more about the fruit than anything else I can identify. Please advise.
I guess this would be obvious, but I always think it is properly balanced acidity that creates a sense of freshness and ‘coolness’ in fruit. Maybe you mean something else.
I agree with Marcus - what you are describing seems like wine with good acidity. Which, brings me straight to cooler climate Pinot Noir, which brings me straight to Burgundy,
Except that “dark fruit” and “blackberry” don’t really suggest pinot.
I don’t think the notes make a lot of sense. Not sure it’s worth anyone’s time trying to guess what the author meant or the wine actually tastes like.
And I have no idea what these fruit flavors would have to do with mint or menthol.
Are you trying to stump us? It sounds as if the author is referring to Austro-Hungarian varieties.
I’m not sure what “cool” means though? Is this the opposite of “hot”, which means alcoholic? If it is alpine, then say it, instead of through euphemism.
Some fruit character has a bit of a “burn”-like quality to it–I would say more prevalent with red fruits, and I think this is separate from acid but perhaps a little similar. Also separate from the high alcohol sort of heat. The opposite is “cool” character to the fruit, more common with darker fruit perhaps, and certainly more common in impeccably balanced wines. I use this descriptor not infrequently, but it is a little hard to define.
I have no idea what a “burn-like” quality in a red-fruited wine would be!
Maybe a cherries jubilee kind of flavor?
Maybe the wines were served cooler than normal?! (I have no idea.)
Sorry for the ambiguities, folks. My initial thought was to see whether others have tasted the same notes without too much input on varieties from me.
I recall tasting the described fruit flavors in a couple of vintages of Marin County Pinot Noir and the western RRV appellation Zinfandel wines from two different wineries. None of these wines were lower than 3.6pH, 13.8% (labeled) ABV. The vintages were not cooler years, either.
The mention of no apparent menthol notes was an attempt to clarify my tasting note, not an apparent effort to confuse others.
I have found more cool “blue/black” fruit than red fruit notes in red wines with the aforementioned qualities. I hope my additional comments help to make sense of my question…
My completely unscientific guess is that the “cooler” descriptor could be a sign of when the grapes are picked. So for example, fruit picked earlier and therefore at lower brix don’t have a “hotter” (i.e. more alcoholic because there’s less sugar) or sweeter taste.
And of course, certain grapes are known for imparting darker fruit flavors (Syrah) vs. Red fruit (Grenache comes to mind).
Maybe I’m misunderstanding the question, though.
I’m not sure I’ve seen (or at least noticed) “cool” as a tasting note descriptor. I really have no clue what it would mean in that context. What do you think of as “cool” as a tasting descriptor, Drew? And do you think of it as a taste sensation or more aromatic?
Ken, I am thinking of the taste of the fruit. The more I try to recall the exact sense, the more confused I become!
I will pop a bottle of the 2012 Dutton-Goldfield Devil’s Gulch Pinot Noir Marin County tonight and see if I can relive the experience…
Exactly. Think of canned cherries. Black cherries have somewhat of a cooler profile in the mouth. The character that canned cherries have has a hot quality to me. maybe it’s a phenol/tannin thing–I don’t know. to me fruit character does have a cool to warm/hot spectrum to it, and I mention it in my private tasting notes if it’s notable.
Searching WB posts for “cool fruit”, and omitting the surfer talk, I found mentions of cool dark fruit in TN’s of Burgundy, Bordeaux, Napa Cab, Cali Syrah, N Rhône Syrah, Pinot from RRV/Sonoma/Mendo/SBC…
I can get something close to what you’re describing, including the blackberry, with Teroldego.
Only vaguely related but these are the greatest jarred cherries I’ve ever had, and despite their cost, are worth the money.
Over warm crepes, cold ice cream, even crispy duck.
The kids save the empty jars hoping saving the talismans will get their parents to pony up again.
(sort of like I do with an empty Trotanoy imperial…)
If I’m interpreting the original question correctly, this is an answer I would have given as well. Drew doesn’t give an example of a wine that he describes this way, but I think of wines that have plenty of depth and intensity, but not anything overripe. I often describes those wines as having “reserved intensity”, but I kind of like the “cool intensity” descriptor, might steal that for myself.
I find this, or at least my interpretation of it, in a lot of northern Rhone, burgundies, and Beaujolais.
I use it to relate a feel to a wine. Maybe a sort of composite of weight, texture, asidity and so forth being at the right levels to give that impression. Sometimes there’s a coolness in the direction of mintiness, but not enough that it’s minty. It’s what happens when you write in a train of thought. I don’t expect it to have a consistent meaning when I write it, and would expect someone else’s conceptualization to match mine in using the word.