Lemony!

S

Steven Spielmann

Steven Spielmann
Massone Gavi Masera 2007, 12% alcohol, Marc de Grazia/Vin Divino. This was OK. Some lemon and maybe lanolin (just wool?) on the nose, a kind of bitter medicinal orange on the palate with some complexity, I almost want to say garrigues even though the region and grape are wrong.

What it reminded me of though was a certain intense lemony flavor that is not in this wine but is in some other wines, made from Sauvignon Blanc (examples from my notes: Honig Napa SB, Eleven Winery Artz Vineyard/Red Mountain SB 2007) and Cortese (example from my notes: Araldica Gavi la Luciana 2006 - I consider all three of these wines good values for under $15 lemony quaffing for what that's worth).

I guess what I'm wondering about is that the lemon character is so similar in these wines and many others that I'm wondering if you can get it with any grape, or if there's a weird sauvignon blanc/cortese connection, or if it comes out of a certain way of making wine, or what. I've heard that some Pessac-Leognan whites may have a similar thing going on (sauvignon blanc?). Where does lemon in wine come from?
 
I guess I should say that there's something I call 'lemon' in my tasting notes, which tastes like lemon, in some Chablis and Chenin Blanc, which is not what I'm talking about. Same word, different thing. At least pending theoretical unification.
 
Robin Garr has his "lemon-squirt acidity," which I've never quite understood, but may be similar. I rarely get lemon of the type you seem to be describing; more often, for me, it's lemon zest (or rind), lemon curd, and so forth, while acidities tend to be described in terms of malic, citric, or lactic. Maybe it's a particular sensitivity to some aspect of tartaric acid, which for me is fairly neutral in comparison to other acids?
 
Of course these days it's so hard to get a lemon that tastes like a lemon as opposed to just sour water (unless you happen to live near lemon trees) that who knows what anyone means.

I agree that 'lemon-squirt acidity' never made much sense, except in the sense of generic sour liquid.

I sometimes get a hard yellow sourness from thinly ripe white wines, but for the most part that always just seemed like thinly ripe white wine. I can also get bitter yellow flavors from some Italian white wines (no examples spring to mind, sue me). And then there is lemon curd in richer white wines.

I guess it all depends what you mean by lemon :)
 
I made a Pinot Grigio from Witters Vineyard in 2005 that is lemony as all get-out. No one could mistake it! It's STILL lemony as all get-out. Good, though...
 
I was drinking the '07 Araldica Gavi tonight in hopes of contributing to this thread but no luck. It's not nearly as good as the '06 was last fall and only has a small amount of meyer lemon, not the vibratory lemon I was trying to get at. As with the Massone, not recommended, though not terrible either (it has a thing in the cheeks just after the midpalate I even kind of like). Which I would also not call lemon-squirt acidity. Ah well.

I guess the question is 'what causes lemon tastes in wine?' But 'lemon' may be too broad and there are several different answers even if it's not, some of which bring in things like individual drinkers' sensitivities. Ah well.
 
But 'lemon' may be too broad and there are several different answers...
Click to expand...
In a recent interview with Aaron Isaacson ("Mr. Recipe"), the interviewer noted that he sells over 800 volatile oils -- mostly to pastry chefs -- and that 34 of them are "lemon".
 
originally posted by Jeff Grossman:
But 'lemon' may be too broad and there are several different answers...
Click to expand...
In a recent interview with Aaron Isaacson ("Mr. Recipe"), the interviewer noted that he sells over 800 volatile oils -- mostly to pastry chefs -- and that 34 of them are "lemon".
Click to expand...

Well, limonene is commonly regarded as the major "lemon" fragrance, though it's also a major constituent of the odor of roses. And anyone who's come into contact with the husk fruit of the black walnut knows that it smells more like lemon Pledge than a lemon does.

Mark Lipton
 
originally posted by MLipton:
originally posted by Jeff Grossman:
But 'lemon' may be too broad and there are several different answers...
Click to expand...
In a recent interview with Aaron Isaacson ("Mr. Recipe"), the interviewer noted that he sells over 800 volatile oils -- mostly to pastry chefs -- and that 34 of them are "lemon".
Click to expand...

Well, limonene is commonly regarded as the major "lemon" fragrance, though it's also a major constituent of the odor of roses. And anyone who's come into contact with the husk fruit of the black walnut knows that it smells more like lemon Pledge than a lemon does.

Mark Lipton
Click to expand...
Some of the biofuels people were considering limonene and pinene as potential biofuels. Can you imagine if the whole country smelled all lemony-fresh? We'd have to shoot ourselves.
 
originally posted by SFJoe:

Some of the biofuels people were considering limonene and pinene as potential biofuels. Can you imagine if the whole country smelled all lemony-fresh? We'd have to shoot ourselves.
Click to expand...

Eek!! Pine-Sol and Lemon Pledge. I'd have to cloister myself in a hermetically sealed environment. Still, probably a better idea than using Mickey D's used fry oil.

Mark Lipton
 
Luneau-Papin Gros Plant 2007 also had the kind of lemony taste I'm talking about, as another data point.

Tonight I'm drinking a Charbonniere Vacqueyras. Raspberries!

Words can help you get more pleasure out of the wine but no set of words implies or is implied by pleasure. So why get hung up on words? But I do...
 
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