Some wines have had the yeast responsible for brett removed or killed. So, they can smell bretty (from the byproducts already produced) but it doesn’t get worse with time and temperature. If it still has the yeast, brett can bloom with temperature, really loves temperatures in 70s and 80s (but can grow at lower temperatures, just more slowly).
-Al
I’ve understood brett blooms require not only brett and higher temperatures, but also something to eat for brett. Brett is known to be capable of metabolizing crazy stuff no other funghi would touch, but if there’s nothing in the wine to munch, then there’s nothing.
Meaning that if there has been brett, but it has slowly eaten away everything, it is just gonna lie dormant after that - there is going to be no brett blooms. However, if there’s something like just 0,5 g/l fermentable sugars left in the wine and the bottle has been kept in cold temps before, one can get a nice brett bloom when temperatures go up and the fungus goes to town with the sugar.
Back when I worked in a booze shop I could see some Orval bottles actually developing a good brett pellicle in the neck of the bottle after the bottles arrived and we put the beers to the shelves. I checked the bottles regularly and shook any noticeably blooming bottles, just to keep any unassuming customers from going “THERE’S SOMETHING WRONG WITH MY BEER”.
I would say this was sound by Pegau standards. It was also loaded with brett.
Is there a way of testing for brett levels?
Yes, I found a tool, the 
Seems to work great for me 
There is one easy way, get an Australian to sniff it. Forget training sniffer dogs, these folk are super-sniffers when it comes to rejecting Brett affected wines 
You can send a sample to ETS Labs. They can run a test for 4-EP and 4-EG, which basically tells you how much impact brett may have had in terms of aromatic compounds (I have read there can be false positives due to new oak, which shouldn’t be an issue with Pegau). This costs $80 for a single sample.
https://www.etslabs.com/analyses/analysis/161887
They can also do a more thorough set of tests that will give you 4-EP and 4-EG as well as actual brettanomyces cells. This is more expensive at $180 for a single sample, and is probably overkill if you aren’t making wine (but might be interesting if the cost is not prohibitive to you).
I usually find some level of brett in Cayuse. I think that’s part of the “funk” that some people like so much. I’m confident that it’s brett because it reminds me so much of wines I tasted years ago that were spiked with what I am pretty sure was 4-EG (it might have been 4-EP).
For sure. I’d go even further to say that there are very few wines that go to bottle without something for Brett to eat.
Brett blooms are tricky because they can happen immediately on going to bottle or 3-5 years later when the free SO2 has dropped. It doesn’t take that much to get a sensorially objectionable bloom. And I haven’t seen many wines with Brett that haven’t got worse with age. You can get Brett blooms at lower temperatures, they are just slower, which is probably one of the reasons you can have Brett pop up after 15-20 years in a cold cellar. Some people think cold cellars (barrel or bottle) prevent Brett altogether but they really just buy you time.
Yeah, Cayuse is pretty much always Bretty to me. Syrah’s just one of those grapes that I think handles or even likes a bit of Brett. For my palate, at least.
Yep. Your experience was the expected one. Others said it up-thread, and I’ll repeat it here: the manner in which brett displays itself in beer is very different than how it presents in wine.
As Ben talks about above, brett can present quite differently in different wines. The sort of sweaty sock/saddle kind of thing isn’t often as noxious as the band-aid/barnyard compounds. I used to think that was about strains but I don’t think that is actually the case. I’m guess its more about what the brett was eating.
I’ve had beer with brett both as a purposeful addition and as a mistake. The mistakes more resemble the wine expressions where its up front and in the way. The beers with brett used as a tool are most often the sours but sometimes with farmhouse style beers where it can add nice complexity. I would have to guess its more tricky to use in some ways than others. In any case, when used purposely in beer its most often to gain an outcome from the process rather than just adding the characteristics of the common compounds.
I’m quite brett tolerant but I found the 08 Pegau undrinkably bretty. Many were also flawed with secondary fermentation.
In general though, I’m a big fan of Pegau, but I’m pretty sure it was a bottle of Pegau that so smelled of a fresh, steaming cow pie it made me christen it a Chateauneuf-du-Poop.
It’s both.
And it’s also how stressed the yeast has been. Beers that have been fully fermented with brett usually don’t show elevated levels of 4-EP or 4-EG, ie. the beers really don’t have any of those smoky, barnyardy, leathery, sweaty or band-aid-y aromas. Instead they can be very tropical and slightly spicy with these kind of sweet pineapple aromas, somewhat reminiscent of Belgian ales.
Use the same yeast in conjunction with saccharomyces and you have a lot of competition and less nutrients. Suddenly brett starts to develop more funky notes.
And different strains of brettanomyces produce different compounds in different relations, resulting in different aroma profile. And what they eat affects what they produce. Brett is a pretty chaotic element.
The brettiest wine I ever had was an old vintage of Vallana Spanna. Rare wine company has a load of back vintages and they won’t break the bank. 81 Beaucastel when it was around was a close second. I brought a bottle to a dinner and Fred Ek, the former importer of Guigal wouldn’t even taste it. 
The Leon Barral cuvées, especially Valinière Faugères
So gamy, love them.
Definitely Pegau.
Also Vega Sicilia or Pesquera.
I had a 2020 Pegau Maclura Cotes du Rhone yesterday that was surprisingly very clean. I wonder if it is made at a different location? Maybe stick to the CdP if you are looking for brett.
I had a few young bottles of the '08 Pegau. I was very drinkeable then but it’s got to be pretty stinky now. If we’re talking the brettiest bottles ever: several examples of 1985 Montrose consumed 10-15 years ago.
Montrose can be very stinky, including the '90 unfortunately. Some bottles are clean and amazing and others are undrinkable.