Funk....

[afn33282]

Hey eGullet,

I am new to the world of wine, and my two-month-old job in a wine shop is accellerating my learning. My question is this: some white wines I have tried recently seem to have a certain "funky/stanky" (I believe these are trade terms, no?) character quality to them that I really do not like. I have found this quality in, among others, a Bergerac (semillon/sauv. blanc, "Tour de Monestier"), an oaked chardonnay Pays D' Oc (Languedoc, by Taillan), and two German kabinetts, including the '95 Helmut Klein Niersteiner I just opened, and do not plan to finish. These were all under 10$. Is this my problem? Is this a common quality among common wines? Or is this a stylistic issue? Or is it maybe that I just don't like certain grapes? Re. this: I can see that maybe I will never like Kabinetts and sauv. blanc but I am surprised that semillon and chardonnay is not doing it for me. I really enjoyed an oaked Beaucanon Chard (hazelnuts and honey) I had recently, so I know I will like some whites, and I also enjoyed the Colonarra Lyricus verdiccio, which I believe is not oaked and was four dollars on special, so I doubt I will have a problem with all s/s fermented wines or all cheap wines. I also enjoyed the Regaleali Inzolia Bianco, another Leonardo Locascio selection from Winebow. Any thoughts as to what the real issue is here? And what styles/grapes/wines I might enjoy?

Many Thanks.

["T"]

Hmmmmmm...... well Bergerac is lots of clay and limestome so I find it can be minerallyat times but not what I would call funky, but then again, we all have our own interpetations of said descriptors. Oakey Chard is oakey chard regardless of where it is grown. Incredibly simplified I know but I am a bit drunk at the moment.

Kabinet Riesling can still have a slatey nature, so it all depends on what you mean by funk.

I would let your co workers taste the bottles you have openned and see if there are any faults in the wines.

I know I have openned up to 3, yes count them 3, corked bottles of different wines in a row.

A very bad evening indeed.

Luckily number 4 was fine but still very dissapointing.

[afn33282]

Hmmmmmm...... well Bergerac is lots of clay and limestome so I find it can be minerallyat times but not what I would call funky, but then again, we all have our own interpetations of said descriptors. Oakey Chard is oakey chard regardless of where it is grown. Incredibly simplified I know but I am a bit drunk at the moment.

Kabinet Riesling can still have a slatey nature, so it all depends on what you mean by funk.

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Really, kind of a combined sourness-sweatiness...... Could this be brett? Also, I hate green apples, and some whites are kind of apple-y, which excacerbates the issue.

I would let your co workers taste the bottles you have openned and see if there are any faults in the wines.

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Good idea.

I know I have openned up to 3, yes count them 3, corked bottles of different wines in a row.

A very bad evening indeed.

Luckily number 4 was fine but still very dissapointing.

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Yikes!

[Rebel Rose]

Here's a link to the Wine 101 article Disgusting Things in Wine. If you can narrow down the skanky, funky character to a more precise description we could make a more accurate diagnosis but I suspect it's brettanomyces. Feel free to post in "Disgusting Things" as well. Congratulations on your new job!! (Do we get a discount? )

[Brad Ballinger]

I'd also add that many German Rieslings have a pronounced mineral character that manifests itself in a number of different ways -- sulphur, diesel, petrol, hot tar, to name a few. None of these are necessarily flaws, and it could be that those wines are not your cup of tea. The fruit profile in many of them, by the way, can lead toward green apple.

Some sauvignon blanc wines can have an element of cat piss or litter box aroma -- definitely funky or stanky, but not a flaw.

And too much oak is offensive, but usually just smells like oak to me.

It could be that you prefer a more forward fruit profile in white wines. Nothing whatsoever wrong with that. There are quality wines that appeal to all tastes.

[eje]

One of our local wine stores has a promotion they call the "Dirty Dozen". They sell you 12 European (mostly french and german) wines for around $100. My wife and I thought it was a neat idea, would be fun, and help get us out of the Zinfandel rut we were in at the time. It's a great wine store and as far as I can tell, they pick fine wines to sell. However, the number of off and just not very good bottles we found in those cases was so high, we stopped after the second try. Though, part of the problem for us is my wife doesn't care particularly for white wines.

I know there are good European wines in the $10 range; but, so far haven't had much luck with France and Germany.

While the selection is somewhat more limited, I have, in the past, had more good luck finding reasonable European wines to my likeing from Portugal, Spain, and even Italy.

[Mnehrling]

This could be regional 'funk' based on soil conditions. I've noticed in my personal collection of Texas wines that one can blindly identify many of the wineries locations based on the taste, specifically West Texas wines, such as Llano and Cap Rock have a limestone and mineral taste, or in the worst case, sulfur (this is very obvious with Llano where you can compare wines pre and post fire before they imported a lot of their grapes.)

East and Central Texas wines have a piney, sappy undertone that is much more acidic than West Texas wines.

I know many of these mineral smells trigger a natural aversion in humans because of their unhealthy or toxic effects (I'm not implying that a sulfur smell in wine means it is toxic, only that it has picked up the trace impression of that element during the grape's growth process.)

This funk you are describing may be a person aversion to elements that are a reflection of the region.

Are there foods or smells that remind you of the 'funk' you describe?

Edited June 6, 2005 by Mnehrling (log)

[afn33282]

I'd also add that many German Rieslings have a pronounced mineral character that manifests itself in a number of different ways -- sulphur, diesel, petrol, hot tar, to name a few.  None of these are necessarily flaws, and it could be that those wines are not your cup of tea.  The fruit profile in many of them, by the way, can lead toward green apple.

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Thanks for your thoughts, Brad, all. Hmmm, sulfur. Yes, what I am experiencing does have a bit of sulfur in it. It also has elements, to my unexperienced palate, of sourness and, well, fermenting or rotten fruit. Which is of course silly, because that is what wine is...well, fermented fruit anyway. Maybe I don't like white wines that show this through. Maybe I have just gotten a string of wines that were not made very well.... I am surprised, too, by your suggestion that minerally (sp?) may not be what I will eventually go for, as I like the idea of mineraliness in wines, and I have enjoyed the apparent flavor of chalk, etc. in some....

It could be that you prefer a more forward fruit profile in white wines.  Nothing whatsoever wrong with that.  There are quality wines that appeal to all tastes.

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I imagine I might. Though one of my favorite wines so far was an inzolia bianco from Sicily (Regaleali), and that was super-light, minerals all the way, if I remember right. Like stream water that had washed over pebbles (granite?), maybe. I have also noticed that when a wine I didn't like has sat in the fridge for a few days, I like it a bit more. Random comments, I know. Another one: my boss told me that spatleses on up taste more apricot-y than apple-y, and I tried one we had for 9$ (!) (Graff, Mosel-Saar-Ruwer, Wehlener Sonnenuhr) this weekend, and he's right--apricots--but I still don't love it. Maybe reisling is not for me. Or maybe it's cheap reisling that's not for me. Though there was the time in 2000 I found a '92 or '94 Hogue reisling in a convenience store, along with several dusty early and mid-90s chards, and it had transformed--it was like nectar and honey. An awesome experience. So maybe I don't like German reislings, or young reislings, I don't know. Your further thoughts, are, of course, appreciated.

[Brad Ballinger]

Well, you are certainly thinking this through -- which is great. And you are right in that there are many different "types" of minerality that appear in wine, red and white. You may, for example, like the flinty or chalky or wet gravel mineral profile more than a diesel or loamy one.

Regarding some German Rieslings that show sulphur (not all do, of course), these need some time or air to blow off. The wines of J.J. Prum are notorious for showing a sulphuric aroma when young.

You can find much better German wines than Graff for very little more money. Your boss's comments about spatlesen being more "apricot-y" is a rash generalization. You can find differing fruit profiles among various levels of ripeness. Riesling is one of the best grape varieties for demonstrating terroir -- the soil and microclimate conditions where it grows. So its not uncommon to find variation in the wines from producer to producer, vineyard to vineyard. The Sonnenuhr vineyard that produced the grapes for the Graff you had is a huge vineyard that encompasses the villages of Wehlen and Zelting. Growing conditions will be different in different areas of the vineyard.

The character I sometimes find in Rieslings from the Pfalz region is that in ripe vintages some can give off a bell pepper aroma, and that's a big turnoff for me -- although others don't mind it and some even like it. Like I said, there are wines to appeal to all tastes.

[JohnL]

The best guess based on afn's description is sulphur.

Funny but when I was "new" to wine I actually liiked the odor thinking it was adding complexity. I still favor that note of "merde" in French Burgundys--something quite different than sulphur however.

Usually sulphur will "blow off" after several minutes in the glass.