[Why does Syrah taste like pepper.
Comments, please
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It has chemical called rotundone.
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How to say you didn’t click the link without saying “I didn’t click the link.”
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That’s pretty spicy! (I love peppery expressions of Syrah.)
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I have sometimes wondered if winemakers ever add little bits of things to the blend outside of grapes to amplify a particular note or taste. Never read anything to suggest it, which has me wondering why not? I can’t imagine anyone would ever know if a few peppercorns were thrown into the barrel with the juice.
I obviously have never made wine, so maybe there’s a simple reason.
L
Interesting article. Big fan of peppery syrah.
Most black pepper I’ve ever tasted in a wine…2005 Outpost GRENACHE! 
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ChatGPT’s answer. That question gets at something surprisingly deep about wine culture—both its chemistry and its ethics.
Let’s take the practical part first. You’re absolutely right that if a winemaker wanted a wine to taste like pepper, it would be quite easy to toss in a few peppercorns or infuse the wine briefly with some black pepper oil. But that kind of additive approach doesn’t align with how the wine world, especially in fine wine, conceives of authenticity. In most cases, winemakers aren’t aiming to construct a flavor the way a perfumer would; they’re aiming to reveal it—bring out what’s latent in the grape, the soil, the fermentation. Adding pepper would be seen as cheating, not just because it introduces a foreign element, but because it violates a core value: that great wine expresses its place and process, not the whims of its maker.
Legally, too, in most appellation systems—France’s AOC, Italy’s DOC, Spain’s DO, etc.—adding any non-grape aromatic ingredients would disqualify a wine from classification. Even in places with fewer regulations, like California or Australia, there’s still an implicit code among serious producers: manipulation is tolerated when it’s discreet (acid adjustments, cultured yeast, a bit of oak dust in bulk wine), but crossing into flavoring tips the wine into a different category entirely. It becomes something else—like flavored wine beverage, or aromatized wine—no longer wine in the traditional sense.
Now here’s the twist: you’re not wrong to ask. In fact, your instinct lines up with the entire field of aromatized wines, from vermouth to Barolo Chinato. These are wines that are explicitly infused with herbs, spices, roots, and other flavorings. And they’ve been around for centuries. The difference is that they declare what they are. You expect botanicals in a vermouth. You don’t in a Côte-Rôtie.
So when you taste pepper in Syrah, what’s remarkable is that it’s not from pepper. It’s from a group of aroma compounds, especially one called rotundone, that emerges naturally under certain vineyard and fermentation conditions. It’s the same molecule found in black peppercorns, but in Syrah it comes from the grape’s own skin—given the right balance of sunlight, temperature, and phenolic development.
That’s the thrill for many winemakers: not adding something that tastes like pepper, but coaxing out that note naturally, through farming and patience and timing. It’s harder. It’s slower. But for those who care about terroir, it’s more meaningful. The wine doesn’t imitate nature; it becomes it.
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Mitchell, the article shared seems to be heavily influenced by AI (very broad, heavy usage rate of em dashes, ai generated images). An article explaining why Syrah taste like pepper could be more concise. For its length its lacking nuance and real life examples.
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Good feedback. I definitely made us of AI. Learned a lot in the process. It is in a style I developed. Probably can be tightened.
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I would have guessed rotundone to make the wine flabby.
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You’re not a real wine geek if you don’t use its official name
(3S ,5R ,8S )-3,8-Dimethyl-5-(prop-1-en-2-yl)-3,4,5,6,7,8-hexahydroazulen-1(2H )-one
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Rotundone. It’s more prevalent in cool climate Syrah’s.
Because this site makes links very hard to see sometimes.
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I figured he read it and gave us the TL/DR version.
Thanks for the comments. Revised.
20% of people can’t perceive pepper? Where is that reference from?
From the AI ether! Presumably the website used to generate this article contains the real reference
Interesting and educational, thanks.
The most peppery wine I’ve ever had is Domaine de Bellivière Coteaux du Loir Le Rouge-Gorge, which is Pineau d’Aunis. Is rotundone the reason there?
I find Pineau d’Aunis to be quite peppery. Pelaverga also shows a lot of white pepper. For Syrah, I only notice an abundance of pepper in less ripe iterations, maybe even underripe, and that tracks with my P d’A and Pelaverga experience in that ripeness mitigates pepper in each of those as well.
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