Paris=Burgundy

originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
OK, but Oswaldo said butter, butter, butter. This does not sound to me like batonnage. It sounds like extreme malolactic. Do they say anything about this? Do others taste what Oswaldo tasted. I don't know the wine, so I really don't have a position.
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What is extreme malolactic? Maybe the wine went through ML, ergo the flavors O noted. That plus a low-acid vintage could easily lead to that perception.
 
originally posted by mark e:
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
OK, but Oswaldo said butter, butter, butter. This does not sound to me like batonnage. It sounds like extreme malolactic. Do they say anything about this? Do others taste what Oswaldo tasted. I don't know the wine, so I really don't have a position.
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What is extreme malolactic? Maybe the wine went through ML, ergo the flavors O noted. That plus a low-acid vintage could easily lead to that perception.
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My understanding is that the butter comes from diacetyl, which results from a MLF that gets too hot. Certainly, there are plenty of wines that go through MLF without getting buttery.

Mark Lipton
 
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
OK, but Oswaldo said butter, butter, butter. This does not sound to me like batonnage. It sounds like extreme malolactic. Do they say anything about this? Do others taste what Oswaldo tasted. I don't know the wine, so I really don't have a position.
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Prong-wise, perhaps two butters would have been fairer than three.
 
I thought the lactic acid created by turning magic acid to lactic acid leads to buttery flavors. Maybe that is what Mark L is saying. My chemistry doesn't go very far, though, so maybe he is saying something else.
One butter, two butters or three butters, malolactic is a far likelier culprit than batonnage.
 
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
I thought the lactic acid created by turning magic acid to lactic acid leads to buttery flavors. Maybe that is what Mark L is saying. My chemistry doesn't go very far, though, so maybe he is saying something else.
One butter, two butters or three butters, malolactic is a far likelier culprit than batonnage.
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I like the sound of magic acid. Most wines undergo malolactic without tasting buttery. Chardonnay, however, has a buttery side that seems intrinsic, and can be found even when not subjected to new oak. Battonage (two t's, one n) tends to bring out the buttery side of Chardonnay. For Chardonnay specifically, more battonage = more butter. Less battonage = less butter. And so it goes.
 
It's one t and to n's. The word comes from baton because that is what one uses to stir up the lies. My experience is that that makes wine yeastier, as might be expected, not more buttery. But there's no accounting for taste in interpreting the difference. As to the affects of malolactic, you need to pull up the original discussion of this. As Mark L said there and here, when done at higher temperatures, it makes Chardonnay buttery. Years ago, when he was seeking that flavor, Jim Law in VA told me why he had changed to do this (while it occurs on its own in reds, with whites, it's variable; I doubt most of the whites you like, if you like whites with acid, do much of it). I associate new oak with vanilla, not butter, myself, but it is true that in CA heavy malolactic frequently coexists with oak--maybe in Burgundy to. I should say, it's been years since I drank any CA Chardonnay and when I do, it still tastes creamy to me even when I'm assured that it is vinified and finished only in beton or inox and sees minimal malolactic. So hang time and climate probably also play a role.
 
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
It's one t and to n's. The word comes from baton because that is what one uses to stir up the lies.
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Actually it is b(a circumflex)tonnage (the site will not allow accents) and lees, not lies. Plus "effects of malolactic," not "affects."
 
Yes, I didn't bother with the accent for that reason. The word is used in English without the circumflex, but arguing about that will get us back to writing graffiti to each other, with one graffito leading to the next graffiti. And, no, it's affect since it affects the taste of the wine. You don't use effect as a verb except for a direct effect of a cause: the effect of hitting a cue ball is to move it, so hitting a cue ball effects a specific movement in it. My pleasure in a wine is adversely affected by oaking it, though, so oak affects the taste. Oak may effect a chemical change that affects my taste, but that is another matter. You are right thing things you leave to lie or that you stir are lees.
 
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg: And, no, it's affect since it affects the taste of the wine. You don't use effect as a verb except for a direct effect of a cause
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Jonathan, I'm curious as usually you are careful to be precise and correct. How can "affect" be construed to be a verb in the phraseology you used? -- "As to the affects of malolactic"

. . . . . . Pete
 
I see the problem and apologize to Mark. Although I could justify the use along the lines of the phrase, a literary affect, which refers to the emotional effect of a work of literature to the extent, if any, that that effect can be taken to be objective and universally felt, that was not what I intended and what I intended should have been spelled effect.
 
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