Sulfur Says What?

We'd opened a bottle earlier in the day, after some customers had apparently complained of the wine "getting weird." Sure enough, it had gone into a reductive state, even after well over a year under pseudo-cork, and showing just fine through most of that time. Now the fruit and pepperiness was still there, but masked by a top layer of smoked rubber. I tried an old test, dropping an old penny -- one that actually had some copper in it -- into the glass. Sure enough, the fruit came more to the fore, the smoky funk receded. The pseudo-scientist in me (with all due respect to JDH at Rational Denial, HK) just had to open another bottle, one that had been hangin' in my cellar for a little while, at home that night....

Côtes du Rhône "Bout d'Zan," Mas de Libian 2008
$15. 14.5% alcohol. Nomacorc. Importer: Petit Pois, Moorestown, NJ.
This bottle was reductive, too; less so, but still reductive. I found it pleasant enough on night one; slightly peppery, as suggested above, and firm in its brambly, berry fruit. Over the course of a glass, it opened and continued to show better. It was a light night, so I jammed the stopper back in the bottle with plenty left to go. Left it on the kitchen counter, ambient room temperature. Nothing more.

It was a rather hectic week, so I didn't get back to it until three days later. No more signs of reducto-funk, just bright red fruit. Snappy, spicy and juicy. Another long day had led to another short pour of a night, so back went the foamy plug and back went the wine to its same place on the counter top. The week continued in course. Last minute, spur of the moment trips; double-shift tasting events....

Three days later, I pulled that stopper again. My hopes weren't high. Few wines will stand up to a near week's worth of air in a decreasingly full bottle. I pulled the plug and sniffed the aperture. The more than half expected whiff of salad dressing met my nose. I poured anyway, knowing that -- in that pseudo-scientific way -- the more volatile nature of airspace aromas can sometimes belie what lurks beneath. Lo and behold, the wine was still bordering on delicious, certainly far more than drinkable, by any standard.

Who cares, you say? What's the point? Well, Hélène Thibon, along with the rest of her family at the Mas de Libian, produced "Bout d'Zan," a co-fermented Grenache/Syrah blend from the Ardèche, using no sulfur, neither in the vineyard nor during vinification. If you want more tech notes than that, you'll find them at Mas de Libian's website. Conventional wisdom would have it that this wine should have stood little chance of showing as it did, even three days after being opened, much less after a week.

The reduction? That's another issue, and I can't help but wonder if the closure choice (Nomacorc) might have something to do with it. As it emerged only after a fairly significant amount of time in the bottle, I'll be curious to see if it doesn't also recede given a little more time. Problem is, though, I'm not sure I have another bottle....

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Questions on Brettanomyces and Aging

Read about wine long enough, whether on blogs, in print publications, on bulletin boards (or on the throne), and you'll start to recognize some pervasive, recurring, seemingly endless threads. Discussions of certain aspects of wine — tannin, oak, acidity, sweetness, reduction, high alcohol level — that tend to spur differing opinions or even intense divisiveness. There's the crew that despises any whiff of oak influence, the other extreme that's drawn to the scents and flavors of new oak treatment like Morris to a can of 9-Lives, and then there's the middle ground that accepts oak influence as long as it's balanced by and makes sense within the structural context and organoleptic characteristics of the wine in question.

Image courtesy of the Vincent E. Petrucci Library at California State University, Fresno.
In the big picture, most if not all of the elements mentioned above are generally believed to be acceptable as long as they are balanced. All of them, too, are generally viewed as faults when they are too extreme or pronounced. It's when introducing the variable of aging that these lines begin to blur. Can a wine that's too mucous membrane-jarringly tannic or too enamel-strippingly acidic in its youth really find harmony with age? Do alcoholic heat and/or overzealous oak treatment ever stand a chance of being integrated in the bottle? Or is it once imbalanced, always imbalanced, once touched by a flaw, always faulty?

I'm asking big, broadly sweeping questions here, questions that to the scientifically minded or UC Davis-trained might seem easy to answer yet that to others will always instill an emotional response, no matter how strong their scientific understanding. What I'm looking to do is not so much to find answers as it is to explore the questions, to taste and learn and evolve in my understanding along the way.

Today, the wine-world bugger that's pricked my attention is brettanomyces; it's an old topic but one that was brought to mind by a wine I drank a few nights ago.



Côtes du Rhône Villages Cairanne "La Jean de Verde," Domaine Daniel et Denis Alary 1999
$24 on release. 14.5% alcohol. Cork. Importer: Weygandt-Metzler, Unionville, PA.
The Alarys' Cairanne "La Jean de Verde" is varietal Grenache, produced from low-yielding, 70+ year-old vines growing on a 1.5-hectare plot of land that the Alary family purchased in 1860 from a certain Jean de Verde. Denis and Daniel began producing this cuvée in 1998, making this only their second vintage of the wine.

Laced with wood spice and game aromas, the usual kirsch inflected fruit richness of Alary's Cairanne has subdued and mellowed with age. Wearing all of its 14.5% alcohol with ease, an up-front dash of brett brings mineral and animal savor to offset the wine's briary richness, yet it also imparts a definite angular, metallic aspect on the finish. As the wine opens with air, the brett becomes more problematic, rendering increasingly sour aromas and flavors, in stark contrast to its rich texture and relatively low acid profile. That said, it never completely lost its initial appeal on the palate.

By way of very simple explanation, I'll look to wine writer/scientist Jamie Goode, from his by no means simplified article on Brettanomyces at wineanorak.com:

"Brettanomyces [aka, brett] is... a yeast – that is a unicellular type of fungus, not a bacterium – that is a common spoilage organism in winemaking."

As I described earlier using oak as an example, brett is viewed by some as a fault at any detectable level, while considered to be acceptable, even desirable at certain levels, by others.

Brett is present at least to some degree in virtually every winery, in both the Old World and the New. If there's a region with which brett has been most strongly associated — though that may now be changing — I'd say it's the Rhône, and the Southern Rhône in particular, where it's often considered as an element of terroir and/or typicity.

I can't speak strongly to the Alarys' recent releases, as I don't drink their wines with the frequency that I once did, but they had a regular place on my table from the mid-90s through the early-00s. In those years, I can comfortably say that brett played a regular role in Alary's wines, adding a streak of meaty savor that helped make their reds so tasty and interesting when in their youth. As this particular cuvée has aged, though, that same brett influence has done it no favors, its character now divided in stark relief, with mature, subtle fruit standing to one side and metallic, sour, brett-driven notes to the other.

So, my questions remain. Today they were about the pros and cons of brettanomyces; tomorrow it may be something else. I hope, as always, that you've found the exploration compelling (or at least tolerable) and that you'll feel free to chime in with your own thoughts on the matter, whether scientific, pseudo-scientific or downright irrational.

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Jenny, François, the PLCB and Me

It’s rare that wines brought into the US by many of our country’s most individualistic importers make their way onto the shelves in Pennsylvania’s state controlled liquor stores. The very nature of the PA system – which treats wine no differently than a widget, flexing its muscle to buy lots cheap rather than focusing on quality – works against the small importer. Once in a while though, a “SKU” or two from the likes of Neal Rosenthal, Kermit Lynch or Rudi Wiest, to name a few, will sneak onto the shelves. More often than not, they find their way there via a distributor’s closeout sale; they’re never marked as such, so it’s a buyer beware situation. Sometimes the deals are good; sometimes they’re too good to be true. Sometimes they’re not a deal at all. Nonetheless, I’ll occasionally throw at least some element of caution to the wind and snap up a bottle or two.

Here are notes on just such a couple of wines I picked up in the last few months. I was so surprised to see anything from New York based natural wine specialists Jenny & François on the shelves in PA that I couldn’t pass up the chance. Call it part of my never-ending search for diversity and deliciousness or, if you’re feeling less charitable, my continuing willful naiveté.


Côtes de Duras Blanc, Château Haut Lavigne (Nadia Lusseau) 2007
$17. 12.5% alcohol. Plastic. Importer: Jenny & François Selections, World Wide Wine, USA Wine Imports, New York, NY.
The Côtes de Duras is a relatively large (over 2,000 hectares) but nonetheless relatively obscure AOC sandwiched between Bergerac to the north and the Marmandais to the south, roughly ESE of Bordeaux. “Un vignoble, une femme, des vins…” reads Nadia Lusseau’s label. Like most of the producers in the Jenny & François portfolio, Mme. Lusseau farms naturally, vinifies her wines on their natural yeasts and adds only minimum amounts of sulfur. Her Côtes de Duras blanc is a blend of 80% Sauvignon Blanc and 20% Semillon. Whether it’s the work of those indigenous yeasts, the effects of slow, gentle pressing or an expression of Duras terroir I’m not sure, but this bears little in the way of the typical Sauvignon/Semillon aroma stamp. There are lots of lime juice and lime blossom flavors and aromas, maybe a little hay, but little if anything in the way of meadow flowers, grass or other citrus elements. In fact, this might easily be taken for any number of other Southwestern whites, brisk, silvery and slightly mineral but otherwise relatively indistinct.

Côtes du Rhône Villages Signargues “Domaine Grès St. Vincent,” Les Vignerons d’Estezargues 2006
$17. 14.5% alcohol. Cork. Importer: Jenny & François Selections, World Wide Wine, USA Wine Imports, New York, NY.
I’ve been struggling to find any Southern Rhône reds that excite me of late. I normally wouldn’t turn to a co-op wine in search of excitement, but there are, of course, always exceptions to the rule. Just think of Produttori del Barbaresco, for example. This wine comes from an atypical cooperative, Les Vignerons d’Estezargues, which since the mid-1990s has been bottling single-estate wines from several of its larger producer-members and, since the late ‘90s, has been following a natural winemaking regime.

Totally unremarkable when first opened, this eventually opened up to show quite a pleasant nose of kirsch, ripe raspberries, black pepper and garrigue. If it’s really 14.5% as labeled, it sure wasn’t showing it. Soft texture, gentle tannins and surprisingly fresh acidity (for Grenache). Though not quite exciting, there was enough vivacity to make it food friendly and to help it go down easy. You’ll find a profile on the Estezargues co-op, along with the usual great photos, at Bert Celce’s Wine Terroirs.

So what was all my introductory griping about?

Though neither of these wines was incredibly distinctive, they were both perfectly sound and perfectly enjoyable. If you're in New York, you should expect to pay about $12 for each of these wines – just about dead-on budget-wise given their overall qualities. At that price, I might even go back for more. But here in PA they'll set you back $17 (closer to $18 after sales tax), just one of the many vagaries of our state’s entrenched, outmoded monopoly.

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North and South of Lyon

From the political perspective, the wines of both Beaujolais and the Northern Rhône come from the same zone: the Rhône Department. Viticulturally, they’re all but connected by the Coteaux du Lyonnais. Yet they’re universally considered as separate, distinct entities – Beaujolais inextricably attached to Burgundy to its north and the Northern Rhône all too often considered in the same context if not the same breath as the much larger span of the Southern Rhône. And the wines, at least at first approach, seem worlds apart.

To the casual observer, Beaujolais is a wine of immediate charm. To the blind taster, its trademark aromas make it one of the easiest wines to pick out of an unknown line-up. That said, the best wines of Beaujolais offer much more than apparent at first taste.

While the wines of the Northern Rhône, based the on dark fruited vine Syrah, also have their signature traits, the wines tend to be far less approachable. Whether because of the high prices associated with the exalted wines of Côte Rôtie and Hermitage or due to the tannic structure and animal aromas of wines from Saint-Joseph and Cornas, Northern Rhône reds take a little more work to build a fundamental understanding.

The wines from both zones are very much worth the effort. And every once in a while, you’ll stumble upon a pair with enough in common that they seem to bridge the geographical gap between their respective points of growth.

Côte de Brouilly, Château Thivin (Claude Geoffray) 2005
$18. 12.5% alcohol. Cork. Importer: Kermit Lynch, Berkeley, CA.
One whiff and there’s no mistaking it. This isn’t just Gamay, it’s Gamay Beaujolais. The dark strawberry fruit with a lashing of chalkiness are unmistakable. But here’s an example of Beaujolais where there’s much more than simple fruit lurking beneath the wine’s frontal charms. As it spends time in the glass, aromas of blackberries, white pepper and red licorice emerge and revolve. While a quick judge might write it off as light and simple, there’s actually substantial tensile strength to this Côte de Brouilly, thanks to both snappy acidity and firm tannic grip. When first uncorked on day two, it seemed immediately darker and more lush yet simpler than on day one, with scents of brandied cherries followed by a shorter, less nuanced touch on the palate. There was more to come, though, as with further exposure to air all of the nuances of the previous day returned along with spicy/earthy scents of cinnamon and licorice root mulch. This is drinking really nicely now and should continue to develop for another five to ten years.

Côtes du Rhône “Brézème,” Eric Texier 2005
$22. 12.5% alcohol. Composite cork. Importer: Louis/Dressner, New York, NY.
Even though Brézème is situated at the southern extreme of the Northern Rhône, Eric Texier’s 2005, which is varietal Syrah, blurs the stylistic boundaries between its zone and greater Burgundy. If I’d tasted blind, I think I’d have been more inclined, at least on day one, to pick this as red Burgundy from the Hautes Côtes de Nuits. It’s an elegant, bright and leaner than typical example of Rhône Syrah, very pretty on the nose, surprisingly delicate on the palate. In this vintage at least, it’s less obvious in its sense of specific place than is Thivin’s Beaujolais but it’s just as interesting, even if a little less rewarding, to explore. High-toned cherry and plum fruit strikes first, along with some of the same spice notes. On day two, a suggestion of olives comes forth from the background, pinning this wine more obviously as Rhône Syrah but without the burliness of wines from Cornas, just to the north of Brézème. Its tannins, in fact, are surprisingly soft. Though its charms are less obvious, I think the wine is likely to develop along a trajectory similar to the Côte de Brouilly. I’d love to revisit them both five years down the road.

Beaujolais map courtesy of The Wine Doctor.
Northern Rhône map courtesy of Eric Texier.

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