Let's talk about VA

Are you a nail-doer?

I wish it didn't bother me as much as it does, because it closes off entire categories of wine to me, or very nearly so: Madeira, Tokaji, and the majority of sweet and/or dried-grape reds. I find this unacceptable, but I don't have a solution.

I'm fine with it as a "lifted" note in certain whites, though my definition of "note" in this case is probably lower than most.
 
originally posted by Kay Bixler:
It is the bane of a natural fermentation.
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Yes and no. The little bit of it that goes as far as it needs to adds a touch of raciness to some wines. Thinking LaPierre, as an example.
 
originally posted by Steve Edmunds:
originally posted by Kay Bixler:
It is the bane of a natural fermentation.
Click to expand...
Yes and no. The little bit of it that goes as far as it needs to adds a touch of raciness to some wines. Thinking LaPierre, as an example.
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What frustrates me is a wine with VA will taste beautiful and vibrant one day and medicinal and harsh another day. And sometimes it will taste both ways the same day.
 
Sharon, do you refer to the vinegar aspects or the nail polish aspects...or both? I can handle vinegar over nail polish, but it all really depends on what else is going on in the wine.

Was just reading about bottle variation and VA with the '07 Lapierre Morgons on the brooklyn guy's blog. He praises some bottles and returned others. So, it seems there is bottle variation, and now, variation within a bottle? (Kay, maybe just drink faster when it tastes good?)
 
originally posted by Sharon Bowman:
Let's talk about VAI open the floor.

All right, with a question: why does it not bother me so very badly?
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All those years of drinking those oxidative yellow wines of E France, natch. All that acetaldehyde has no doubt deactivated a subset of your olfactory receptors. Seriously, though, there's a wide range of thresholds of perecption for that, as for Brett, TCA and so many other goodies.

I think that I'm about mid-spectrum in sensitivity to VA. I can drink a lot of "high toned" wines with pleasure, but SFJoe's Savignins still leave me cross-eyed and woozy.

Mark Lipton
 
originally posted by Joel Stewart:
nail polish vs vinegar...
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The vinegar turns into nail polish over time as acetic acid reacts with ethanol to make ethyl acetate.

But I had vin jaune with my cheese course tonight, so I may be the wrong guy to ask.

Sharon, one answer to your question is that you weren't given enough electric shocks while smelling va during your formative years (not that you aren't still formative). I think trained winemakers are often taught to monitor each barrel with great care lest they slip into va hell, and they are taught to catch it early, when intervention will be mildest and most successful. The electric shock thing seems to be part of that, although I've served Madeira to several UC Davis grads who take it in stride.

I think it's a learned response, rather than an inherent thing like whether you can stand pyrazines or not.
 
The vinegar turns into nail polish over time as acetic acid reacts with ethanol to make ethyl acetate.
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The masses imagine you saying things like this in a low Barry White purr.
 
Joe, my guess is that VA (at the same concentration) in unfinished wine is probably more repulsive, with everything else that's going on. That was my impression with some Sauternes barrel samples, anyhow.

Is pyrazine tolerance not learned as well? I thought most of our sensory responses are (trying to remember where I read the kids eating faeces study).
 
originally posted by SFJoe:
originally posted by Joel Stewart:
nail polish vs vinegar...
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The vinegar turns into nail polish over time as acetic acid reacts with ethanol to make ethyl acetate.
Click to expand...

"over time" being the duration of an open bottle, (ie Kay's experience)?...or "over time" as in "last month's '07 morgon was vinegar-y and this month a second bottle is nail polish-y"?
 
originally posted by Yixin:
Joe, my guess is that VA (at the same concentration) in unfinished wine is probably more repulsive, with everything else that's going on. That was my impression with some Sauternes barrel samples, anyhow.

Is pyrazine tolerance not learned as well? I thought most of our sensory responses are (trying to remember where I read the kids eating faeces study).
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Leaving out the coprophagy, I think of Zul and fatboy as folks with an unlearned aversion to sauvignon blanc. and they'd certainly had plenty of opportunity to learn to like good examples. I think they have a different allele than I do, and react differently.
 
According to Jeffrey Steingarten, we are born with a preference for sweet things; all else is learned.

The precise rate of the acetic acid --> ethyl acetate reaction is an interesting question. It's obviously longer than the duration that a bottle would be open, otherwise there would never be any acetic acid to begin with. Another issue is that, in my experience, acetic acid has a much, much lower sensory threshold than does ethyl acetate.

Anyway, this is all rather academic to me as I've never thought to blame a negative wine experience on VA.
 
Have fb and Zul learned using Vatan yet?

Cf. Steingarten, I wonder why would some responses be learned and others not.

Arjun, I don't have my copy to hand. Is it sugar or perception of sweetness ; i.e. would sugar subs be just as appealing?
 
originally posted by Joel Stewart:

"over time" being the duration of an open bottle, (ie Kay's experience)?...or "over time" as in "last month's '07 morgon was vinegar-y and this month a second bottle is nail polish-y"?
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Nothing to do with the bottle being open. Pretty slow reaction, will adjust over months.
 
originally posted by Yixin:
Have fb and Zul learned using Vatan yet?
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This is the thing. Those are not n00bs. They do not require our kind education, they've got some of their own.

My personal theory is that they have a variant smell receptor that makes them much more sensitive to pyrazines, and that the greater amplitude makes the wines unpleasant to them. Neither of them is much on cabernet sauvignon, either.
 
Joe - actually that's a pretty interesting theory. I wonder if there's something that works in the opposite direction for VA which would explain Sharon's apparent tolerance.
 
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