Wine 101: Disgusting Things in Wine

[Rebel Rose]

Wine 101: Disgusting Things in Wine

It may seem ridiculous at first to return a "corked" bottle of wine at a restaurant—after all, if it's not corked, how do they keep the wine in it? But when we wine geeks refer to a wine as "corked," we meant the wine has an awful attic or basement smell (we can't even call this an aroma) probably due to minute traces of mold on the cork.

Every once in a while, a devoted wine consumer will encounter a corked bottle. It might be an expensive bottle, a French bottle, or even a bottle from a favorite local producer. Mold and moisture occasionally set up housekeeping in a cork, despite every winemaker's best efforts at sanitizing. The chlorine used by cork producers to sanitize the corks is, in addition, thought to contribute to the factors which create 2,4,6-Trichloroanisole (pronounced "corked").

If you encounter a corked wine, you will have no doubt. It will smell like grandma's hot, musty attic with dead mice in the walls. In a restaurant, simply ask your waitperson to take the bottle back and bring another (at no charge to you, of course). If you purchased the bottle, the store or winery should be happy to exchange the bottle if they still have the wine in stock.

One of the reasons that winemaking is referred to as an art as well as a commerce is that so many things can go wrong during the life span of a wine in production. Aside from mechanical problems like leaking barrels or cellarmen running into tanks with forklifts, wine is chemically delicate and must be supervised and nurtured, like a child, in order to avoid the various infections and diseases to which it might be prone.

One of the most common spoilage reactions is simple oxidation—a bottle of wine which has been opened, partly drunk and then forgotten for a few days will oxidize, resulting a "stale" aroma. Oxidation is actually a normal part of winemaking. As wines age in their barrels, part of the wine evaporates (known as "the angel's share") and winemakers regularly top their barrels with extra wine in order to keep them full and prevent the wines from oxidizing too quickly. And when wines are moved from barrel to barrel during winemaking, they also encounter oxygen during their journey through pumps and hoses. A little oxygen gives wine a softer, rounder character and is part of its transition from childhood to drinkable adulthood. An inch of head space (air) in a fifty-five gallon barrel will have much less effect on a wine than the four inches of air in that half-empty bottle in your refrigerator. However, when tasting and buying wines, if a wine tastes very flat, or somewhat "brown," it is possible that the wine had just a little too much air during its production.

Sulfur dioxide is another potential disappointment. Most winemakers use as little as possible, and most wines have no more than 50 parts per million of free sulfur dioxide, which is a preservative found in natural form as a dust on the surface of grapes. However, occasionally a winemaker has to deal with grape, wine or barrel infections which may require a more liberal sprinkling of sulfur. It's like cooking with salt; a tiny bit improves the overall flavors of a dish, but overabundant use can ruin the whole thing. Sulfur dioxide smells like burning matchheads, and may elicit a sneeze.

I have, on occasion, encountered bottles of wine that smell like rotten eggs when first opened. This is due to hydrogen sulfide, a problem sometimes encountered during fermentation. It seldom survives the scrutiny of a careful winemaker; however I can attest that it does occasionally make it into the bottle. If you encounter a wine with this symptom, don't discard it right away. Let it breathe for half an hour or so. Hydrogen sulfide is highly volatile, so the “off” aromas may dissipate, and you might end up enjoying the wine after all.

On the other hand, sometimes hydrogen sulfide combines with other elements in the wine to form mercaptans. Mercaptans have a pungent, offensive, and sour odor, generally compared to garlic. Unattended by the winemaker and with careless exposure of the wine to air, the aeration drives the mercaptans to form di-mercaptans, which range from asparagus and rotting cabbage to rubber, or pulp mills. Di-mercaptans are a more complicated and more stable form of disulfides and once formed, are extremely difficult to remove. Mercaptan characteristics in a wine are a sign of careless winemaking and a deteriorating wine. If you have a scientific bent, here is a bulletin on 'Sulfides in Wine' published by ETS Labs.

Brettanomyces is a spoilage yeast that loves to set up housekeeping in wooden barrels and tanks. Brett gives wine a variety of off flavors, ranging from bandaid or stinky tennis shoes to metallic flavors. There are nine different strains, all of which produce varying aromas. Brett populations also tend to clump in barrels or tanks, and are not evenly distributed throughout a wine. Once a barrel is infected, it is almost impossible to remove the bacteria, so winemakers are very careful when racking wines from barrel to barrel to check for Brett barrels which might infect the rest. When a Brett barrel is discovered, the wine is usually discarded, although, truth to tell, many famous French producers produce Brett wine and sell it for $70 a bottle or more. A small amount of some strains can give wine a characteristic odor that is distinctive but not necessarily unpleasant. In addition, rather than giving off a single odor, populations of Brett give off a range of aromas as they develop, beginning with barnyard, leather and clove given off by small populations, to bad infections with smells of bandaid or wet animal hide.

Hopefully, your wine tasting experiences will include only our typically touted aromas and flavors--pleasant things like orange blossom, pear, and pineapple in white wines, and black cherry, plum, cassis, and cinnamon in the red wines. But if you taste a wine that you really don't like, be prepared to craft your own opinion. Perhaps something like, "I'm sorry, but this wine has off aromas of old paper and mouse fur, with flavors of balsamic vinegar and Meyer lemon, and a lengthy aluminum foil finish."

[jsolomon]

Hmm... would this count?

Found it in my gruner veltliner and the fiance asked me what it is. No good answer. Any ideas?

[Jmahl]

Don't forget, wine is a natural thing. (I hope). If you want consistancy drink soft drinks. Serously, a few years ago I was given a bottle of a 20 year old third grown. I had no idea of how it had been stored over the years, but it was retailing then at about $90.00. I very carefully attempted to uncork some three hours before dinner. The bottle showed signs of weeping, the cork was very fragil, came out in pieces no matter how careful I was -- It showed some mold half way down. The last 1/2 inch looked like it was still good. Upon decanting - the wine gave off odors of an old celler. I didn't have much hope - but three hours later the wine turned out to be magnicent. The off odors were gone. The wine was graceful and delicous and didn't cost me a thing. It was worth holding out hope for the old lady - she really showed her class when given a chance.

[carswell]

Good article, Mary. The only point I'd respectfully disagree with is this:

If you encounter a corked wine, you will have no doubt.  It will smell like grandma's hot, musty attic with dead mice in the walls.

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There are degrees of corkedness and people have widely differing levels of sensitivity to TCA. While some corked wines reek to high heaven, others are only mildly corked and may not smell or taste off-putting so much as simply off. Anyone who has attended tastings has probably enountered individuals (women more often than not, in my experience) who can detect a mildly corked wine at 100 feet and others who see nothing wrong with a wine all the other tasters have declared vilely, undrinkably corked. And I'm sure I'm not the only person who has found a bottle off without being able to pin down why, set the bottle aside for 24 hours and then, on revisiting the wine, found the TCA taint unmistakable.

[Rebel Rose]

Very, very good points, carswell. Thank you.

I also forgot to mention fruit flies, which isn't something most people encounter unless you're in wine country during harvest, but as I am still dealing with the little buggers being everywhere right now I'd like to mention that it isn't just the annoyance of having swimmers in your glass. Their little bodies release a nasty enzyme that smells to high heaven unless you fish them out right away. I can tell if there's a single fruit fly in my glass, in the dark, with my eyes closed. Good party trick.

[StevenC]

Hmm... would this count?

Found it in my gruner veltliner and the fiance asked me what it is.  No good answer.  Any ideas?

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They're probably only tartrates. Crunchy, but harmless. Wines from colder northern regions, such as Austria and Germany, tend to have higher levels of tartaric acid, and it can be more difficult to precipitate everything out before bottling.

[Rebel Rose]

Hmm, it's just come to my attention that for $99 you can buy an aroma kit of really disgusting wine odors. Comes complete with a booklet explaining how and why these aromas occur.

I like the part about "This kit is often used by wineries to test wines for faults . . ."

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